Guide:Making money

Money is an essential part of Terraria, as it allows the player to buy valuable items from NPCs.

There are several ways to earn money:
 * Killing monsters and bosses.
 * Selling items to NPCs.
 * Finding coins in pots and chests.
 * Using Silt Blocks, Slush Blocks, and Desert Fossils at an Extractinator.
 * Opening Crates.
 * Taxing your village.
 * Finishing Fishing Quests for the Angler.
 * Picking up coins from the Leprechaun o'Fyffe.
 * Farming Turkor The Ungrateful's heads.

General tips

 * Regularly deposit your money into a Chest, Piggy Bank, or Safe. This minimizes the loss of coins from Death, as death drops at least half the coins carried in the inventory, depending on your difficulty.
 * In general, the standard RPG trope of "collect everything you find" will pay off over time. Accumulate surplus items in chests until there's enough to be worth selling. Remember that a stack of 99 nearly turns copper into silver, silver into gold, and even gold into platinum. Likewise, if something sells for just 10 copper, a stack of 999 yields nearly a gold piece.
 * On the flip side, be careful about selling too much of useful materials:
 * Blocks can be used for building, and walling off a large area can take a surprising amount of material.
 * Even once you're past their "tier", ores and bars may be useful for crafting. Iron/Lead in particular gets into a variety of utility recipes, and the other early ores are used in Watches. All the ores have bricks and/or walls that are useful for building.
 * Be aware of renewability issues. Some items or materials have a limited per-world supply, so don't sell those unless you're really sure you're not going to want them later, not even for display. Chlorophyte bars are a partial exception here, but it is possible to exhaust a world's dirt/mud by concerted farming.
 * Most "found" equipment can be sold for a good amount of money, but make sure that they're outclassed by your current items and that they can't be crafted into stronger items.
 * Avoid selling the materials used for boss summoning items, such as Lenses, Vertebrae and Rotten Chunks. In most cases, fighting bosses is extremely profitable compared to selling the individual materials. Lead and Iron Bars are used in many other useful recipes, including summon items for the Mechanical Bosses.
 * Keep an eye on game progression. In particular, once you hit Hardmode, it's hardly worth your time scrabbling for silver when you can get payoffs in gold or better.

Collecting

 * Breaking Pots found around the world can release coins and other sellable items. A variety of naturally-placed Chests can also contain coins and other loot.
 * In the cavern layer and in pyramids you may find what appears to be a small sack of coins spilling over stone. These are Coin Stashes. Breaking them drops either copper, silver, or gold coins.
 * On the, breaking Pots has a chance to open up a Coin Portal, giving.
 * Plants, critters, mob drops, fish and so on can be accumulated for sale, though some of them are worth more once crafted into another item (the same goes for ores, especially compare to the prices for the matching bars).
 * Once you have a Bug Net (or better, a Golden Bug Net), and a few NPCs at your base, collecting Critters is trivial (a simple pit trap will help) and as they accumulate you can sell them.
 * If you routinely collect critters, you will also get the occasional "golden" critter, which is worth.
 * Otherwise, Critter prices range from on up to  and more. Top sellers include:
 * Penguins (, Snow Biome)
 * Scorpions and Black Scorpions (, Desert Biome)
 * Frog ( Jungle) (A Jungle base with 3 NPCs will spawn many frogs. A Water Candle can help further.)
 * Mouse and Snail (, Underground)
 * Glowing Snail (, Mushroom Biome)
 * Butterflies are priced directly according to their fishing bait values, but sell for rather more than equivalent baits (Worm, Enchanted Nightcrawler, Master Bait).
 * In Hardmode, the Truffle Worm can be found rarely in underground mushroom biomes. These sell for an impressive 10, but catching one is difficult because of their ability to burrow away if the player stands next to them for too long. Keep in mind that this is the summon item for Duke Fishron, so do not sell them all if you wish to fight him.
 * Goldfish and Worms can easily be caught during a rain in a Forest biome. (Keep an eye out for golden worms!) In both cases, see "Crafting" below for maximum profit.
 * Collect all the Silt, Slush, and Desert Fossils you can find (and safely get at). Once you get an Extractinator, these can be converted to money, ores, and gems. Once you get a Reaver Shark or other powerful Pickaxe, the same applies for Desert Fossils.
 * Save any Amber for Crate Potions, see below.
 * Typically a full stack of 999 Blocks will yield around in coins, gems worth about as much again (as Stained Glass), and ores worth about.
 * This is one of the few ways to get your world's "alternate" metals (they can also appear in Crates and as rare drops from slimes).
 * On the downside: Silt (but not the other two blocks) can also be crafted into Stucco for building, and none of these blocks is renewable.
 * The various dye plants (and the enemy drops that provide the other basic colors) can be sold for apiece whether or not they've been crafted into dyes. Strange Plants can also be traded (not sold!) to the Dye Trader for fancy (and valuable) dyes, which can be sold.
 * Hardmode offers several new materials:
 * Crystal Shards are easy to collect and sell for lots of money. Farming them is an expensive build, but can pay off well over time. Sold straight, a stack of 999 shards will get you  . (If you also have Pixie Dust and an Alchemy Table, you can add a few extra gold by diverting some of those crystals into Greater Healing Potions, see "Crafting", below.)
 * Ichor and Cursed Flames could be crafted into arrows, but this will use up a lot of stone and wood, not to mention having to handle many stacks of arrows. It's probably best to just sell any surplus.

Fishing
Fishing, in general, can provide a lot of sellable stuff, especially once you get better equipment from the Angler; besides the "usual" fish, you will also catch various useful and sellable tools, weapons, and accessories, not to mention the occasional Golden Carp or Crates. Even before you start accumulating the Angler's equipment, you can upgrade your Fishing Pole from Wooden to Reinforced (iron). If you're getting impatient waiting for the Angler to give you the Golden pole, you can buy, find, or make various intermediate-powered poles. For best results, pay attention to the moon phase, time of day, and the size of your lake.
 * All the cookable fish (and shrimp) that you're not using for food can be best sold uncooked.
 * Quest fish can't be sold, but if you come up with extras, you can turn them in for a later quest.
 * The fish used for brewing potions all sell for more than the potions you could make from them.
 * The "bait" Jellyfish are weak bait but sell for a very good price.
 * This leaves the various tools, weapons, and accessories. Use what you like, sell off the rest. A few fished items can be combined with other items if you have the Tinkerer's Workshop, but this is not profitable.

Fishing for Crates with Crate Potions is an easy way to make great amounts of money early on. This can make up to per Crate Potion (depending on location, fishing power, and Hardmode status), not to mention the useful items you can save for yourself. Use the best bait you've got, any Angler's equipment you have (Golden Fishing Rod, Fishing Accessories and Angler armor if you have them), and whatever suitable Potions you have:
 * As with directly-caught items, use whichever items you like, sell off the rest.
 * You will probably get your first Crate, Fishing, and Sonar potions as Angler rewards or from previously-caught crates, but once you've accumulated the makings you can craft them for yourself.
 * This is one of the two main ways to get your world's "alternate" metals, and if you save crates for opening in Hardmode, they will also provide both alternatives for the basic Hardmode ores.
 * All crates except Wooden can contain Master Bait. Once you have enough of that, you can sell off your Apprentice Bait and Journeyman Bait.

Crafting
Almost any craft that requires a purchased ingredient is unlikely to be profitable, no matter how useful the item is in gameplay. Crafting together items that are "picked up for free" is another story, and there are many mob drops and common materials whose sale value can be sharply improved by the proper recipe: Hardmode offers some more crafts:
 * Surplus ores and/or bars can be sold for a good amount of money:
 * Most ores sell for the same or higher price as the bars made from them. The exceptions are the late pre-Hardmode ores (Meteorite, Demonite/Crimtane, Hellstone), and Chlorophyte, all of which are far more profitable as bars.
 * If you have an Autohammer, Converting Chlorophyte bars to Shroomite gets another per bar (11% more).
 * Of these, Demonite or Crimtane ores are dropped by bosses, so they can be easily farmed for sale. In Hardmode, these are joined by Hallowed Bars (and Souls), and the endgame adds Lunar Fragments and Luminite Bars.
 * Obsidian can't be sold directly and has no bar of its own; if there's no more Hellstone ore, extra obsidian can be crafted into Obsidian Skulls as below. Obsidian can easily be farmed by covering a lava pool with water. As each block of obsidian is mined, water will flow to quench the lava below it.
 * On the, Iron (but not Lead) is worth slightly more as Chains ( for 10) than bars (/bar). On the , Chains ( for 10), sell for much more than either bar.
 * Turn Goldfish into Fish Bowls . (Needs sand/glass for bottles)
 * On the, you can combine Worms with Fallen Stars , for Enchanted Nightcrawlers (, and they are also better bait than plain worms.)
 * Most gems are best crafted into Stained Glass as below (for each), but diamonds can only be sold directly ( each).
 * Amber can be sold like diamonds, but it's far more profitable to brew Crate Potions with it and go Fishing (see above).
 * Remember that gems are non-renewable.
 * Lesser Healing and Lesser Mana potions are worth upgrading before sale, but still small change.
 * On the, Restoration potions are the most profitable use for both Mushrooms and Pink Gel. Up front, this only gets extra over the mushrooms' sale price, but an Alchemy Table's extra yield averages to another   per mushroom.
 * Regeneration potions can make a slight profit over the Mushrooms, but only with the Alchemy Table.
 * In the Cell Phone crafting tree: The Fish Finder is worth crafting; note that all its components are Angler rewards anyway. The GPS sells for more than its components, including the 10 spare gold/platinum bars for a watch. And if you somehow have a spare PDA to sell, you should certainly upgrade it with a mirror first.
 * An Obsidian Skull sells alone, but can also make a few other items rather more valuable. However, all of these "partner" items are scarce, and the results may be more useful as equipment. In particular, the Obsidian Shield is one of the components of the Ankh Shield.
 * If you also have Water Walking Boots ( already), you can craft them together for Obsidian Water Walking Boots worth.
 * If you instead have a Cobalt Shield or Lucky Horseshoe (both also ), you can combine it with the Obsidian Skull for an item worth.
 * All these prices can be affected by modifiers.
 * If you have surpluses of multiple jungle materials (Stingers, Vines, Jungle Spores, Rich Mahogany) the Amazon yo-yo is a good moneymaker. ( apiece, varying with modifiers.)
 * Many otherwise-valueless blocks can be monetized by making them into Candelabra ( for 5 blocks + 3 torches).
 * This will yield per block up front, but only  per block after discounting for the torches' potential sale value.
 * Blocks that can be monetized this way include: Any Wood except Dynasty; Glass, Ice, Honey, Crimstone (ground into Flesh with a Meat Grinder), Marble or Granite (via their Smooth forms), Cactus, Pumpkin, and Slime Blocks (gel).
 * Glowing Mushrooms and Bones can also be sold this way for more than their base value, but may have more worthwhile recipes with other ingredients.
 * Using Slime blocks (that is, gel) yields /gel, while using wood for the "type block" likewise yields /wood. In both cases, this is because we are counting the material used in the torches.
 * Boreal Wood and Ice Candelabra require an additional Ice Block apiece, for the Ice Torches.
 * Many of these blocks will require their respective crafting stations; the least obvious is that plain Wood requires a Living Loom (there is no plain-wood candelabra).
 * Again, think carefully before selling too many stacks as "surplus", as all of these blocks are useful for building, and you're only getting 5 or 6 gold for a stack of 999. Ice, Marble, and Crimstone/Flesh are furthermore non-renewable.
 * Pixie Dust is barely worth selling on its own, but it can be combined with crystal shards to make Greater Healing Potions. At first, this looks like a lot of work for a mere 11% profit, especially as the potions only stack to 30. But using an Alchemy Table gives 50% extra yield, and that makes a difference: A stack (99) of pixie dust and 33 crystals, will produce an average of 150 potions that sell for about, more than doubling the ingredients' sale price.
 * As you fight Wyverns and collect Souls of Flight, craft them into Wings. Besides the various rare drops that can only be used for Wings, this can soak up extra Souls of Night, Souls of Light, or Pixie Dust (along with Harpy Feathers).
 * Another way to use up Souls of Light and Night is to summon Biome Mimics for a tough fight with great rewards.
 * After repeating the endgame a few times, surplus Lunar Fragments can be crafted into Monoliths for sale ( each for 15 Fragments). Combining them into a Celestial Sigil effectively trades them for Luminite, but this is not profitable; even without pro-rating them, one Monolith of each type is worth more than the Moon Lord's drops (see below for details).

Making 1 Gold Coin
The following tables show different ways of making. The items in the left column are sold to the NPC and the items in the middle column are the raw ingredients required for crafting.

Note: the Sand Blocks are not used directly; you need to craft them into Bottled Water or Mugs first. Please note that these tables show the amount of crafting ingredients required for one gold, not one whole result item.


 * When crafting with the alchemy table, there's a chance you won't consume ingredients. On average you will get 50% more potions (or powder) for a given amount of ingredients, and the extras are pure profit.
 * The Queen Spider Staff sells for, so the amounts of crafting materials are divided accordingly.
 * Likewise for the Greater Healing Potion, which is made in batches of 3.
 * For Vile mushrooms and powder, substitute Vicious in Crimson worlds.
 * The Restoration Potion only has this recipe on Desktop.

Fighting bosses
Once a player has defeated a given boss, they will quickly reach a point where they can kill them easily. Aside from developing skills, the player is accumulating equipment over time, and progressively outclassing their former nemeses. It can be quite profitable to repeatedly summon and slaughter prior bosses. In Hardmode, the use of a Flask of Gold, Golden Bullets, etc. will increase profits. In addition to the drops noted below, the occasional (10%) boss trophies can be sold for each. Recall that Demonite and Crimtane ores are best sold as bars.

Eye of Cthulhu
After the player reaches Hardmode, the Eye of Cthulhu can easily be defeated many times in a row, resulting in lots of money. It is possible to fight the Eye 20 or more times in one night. Each kill yields in coin and an average of 69 ore. Selling the ore as bars yields an average of  for Demonite, or   for Crimtane. (Other drops can add a bit of silver). A stack of 20 (quite possible with late-game gear) will yield about in coin and   /   in ore!

Eater of Worlds
The Eater of Worlds drops Demonite ore which sells (as bars) for an average of about per kill.

Brain of Cthulhu
The Brain of Cthulhu and its Creepers drop a total average of about 207 Crimtane ore; as bars, and this sells for over. It also drops an average of 6-7 gold in coins.

Queen Bee
The Queen Bee has no time restrictions and only needs to be summoned in a jungle. Like other early bosses, it becomes very easy to fight with hardmode or late-game weapons, even when "enraged". Each Queen Bee drops in coins, plus various item drops whose sale prices average to another 2 gold. On most platforms, Bee Wax can be best sold by crafting it into Bee Headgear, to bring in another 2-3 gold. The Abeemination is rather easy to craft, as (except on 3DS) all the ingredients can be found or made in the jungle, and it doesn't even need an altar to craft.

Wall of Flesh
Using Hardmode gear, you can farm the Wall of Flesh quickly and cheaply with a Flamethrower or a Golden Shower. It can be summoned day or night, but repeated summons do need to wait on the Guide respawning after his death. Drops in coins, a Pwnhammer which sells for about, and another random item which sells for 2 to.

Another trivial way to farm the Wall in early Hardmode, even before defeating any mechanical bosses, is by combining summons, such as the Spider Staff with the Spider armor, with a good Yoyo, such as the Amarok, and the Yoyo Bag. The Amarok is easy to obtain in the Underground Snow biome and does tremendous damage to the Wall and its Hungries with a Yoyo Bag and its Frostburn debuff. While obtaining enough Spider Fangs to craft a Spider Staff and Spider armor is not so trivial, it is well worth the investment as the damage of five Spider minions makes the Underworld surprisingly safe. Red Devils can be a problem after at least one mechanical boss has been defeated, however.

The Destroyer
In Hardmode, the player can fight The Destroyer and easily win if they have good enough gear (Mythril/Orichalcum armor is advised as a minimum, piercing weapons like the magic dagger are recommended). Given a supply of Souls of Light, each kill will on average yield the makings for 4-8 Light Discs, which sell for apiece.

Plantera
Plantera drops and at least one valuable item; while the fight is potentially complex, advanced weaponry and armor will make it much less intimidating.

Golem
You can make quite a bit of money just farming Lihzahrds and Flying Snakes in the Golem's room, indeed rather more than from the Golem itself. Place a Water Candle and banners nearby, grapple yourself to the ceiling, and just shoot downward for awhile, and/or let your minion hunt. Occasionally drop to the floor to collect the Power Cells and other loot.

This method also will yield quite a lot of Solar Tablet Fragments, a fair number of Mimics, (which drop some nice money and items), and some Yelets to boot. You will average about one power cell for each banner earned; the banner messages are a good cue to collect your loot, hopefully including power cells. Conveyor belts can gather the loot into stacks, to prevent items from despawning among the flood of coins.

When you've collected a bunch of power cells, just go down to the altar to spawn and kill him. Once you get the Picksaw from the Golem (or even earlier), you can move the Lihzahrd Altar to any convenient arena, such as a box of Spiky Ball Traps. The Golem drops per kill, plus items worth up to  or so. The Solar Tablets will also let you summon Solar Eclipses, which can be far more profitable (see below).

Lepus
Make a house with a thin layer of Lava on the top and sides so the drops don't burn. You may want lava protection to collect the drops. He drops his own summoning item, and if you have more than one you can summon multiples of the boss. Each kill nets coins and items worth about.

Turkor the Ungrateful
During Thanksgiving, Turkor can be farmed by only attacking his heads, which drop most of a gold piece each. This may not be worth the trouble: Consider that the individual heads have 2000 health (but no defense), and attack for 55 damage, then compare that to the Eye of Cthulhu's stats and drops.

Moon Lord
Completing the Celestial Events will result in wildly varying drops, but considering only the averages: 36 Lunar Fragments (2.4 Monoliths for ) of each type yields ; The Moon Lord drops an average of 80 Luminite ore, a Portal Gun , and a weapon worth. The total average yield will be around. (Note that none of the Celestial enemies drop coins.)

Mimics
Mimics warrant special note because they drop even without use of the Gold debuff, and you can sell the items they drop for up to. A continuously swinging sword with enough knockback to keep the Mimic at distance, or ranged weapons, can easily kill them with little risk. As noted above, farming the Golem's room will reliably produce quite a few Mimics.
 * A note on their drops: The Star Cloak and Cross Necklace can be combined for great profit -- from to  for a Star Veil.
 * Biome Mimics drop only upfront, but most of their "special" item drops sell for, with another gold piece for the potions. They are rarer "in the wild", but can be summoned with Keys of Light or Night.

Wyverns
Wyverns drop over, and also drop Souls of Flight. On average, each Wyvern will drop slightly over half the Souls needed for a pair of wings, each pair salable for. Wings will also require an additional "key" ingredient, but many of these can be had as bonus drops from a variety of enemies.

Events
Much as with bosses, once you have mastered an event, you can effectively farm it as desired. Suitable use of lava pools and other traps can allow killing off most of an invasion automatically, leaving you to deal with minibosses, flying enemies, and spot defense. Some highlights:
 * The Goblin Army can yield some money pre-Hardmode; in Hardmode it's mostly of interest for the Shadowflame drops, but those are only worth each.
 * In Hardmode, the Pirate Invasion can yield a bit of cash and some salable Golden Furniture. However, its greatest attraction is the rare drops: A Discount Card can save a lot on purchases and reforging, but the scarce Lucky Coin is literally a license to coin money. (A Slime Staff can help.) The Gold Ring is comparatively common and very useful.
 * The Solar Eclipse can be particularly profitable -- with a Golden Ring (to rapidly gather coins) and powerful weapons, they can approach even before use of Gold Dust items. The Moon Charm and Neptune's Shell can be profitably combined into a Moon Shell.
 * Martian Invasions are more difficult to arrange on demand, but putting a Water Candle on a Floating Island will eventually lure in a Probe, and with a suitable base they can be farmed in fair safety, especially for the Saucer drops.
 * The advanced invasion Pumpkin Moon can yield multiple platinum, the payoff depending especially on how fast you can slaughter the enemies and especially bosses.

Statue farming


Many statues spawn items or monsters, which can be farmed for money. The basic setup involves connecting a statue to a 1 Second Timer (or a Crab Engine). Place a shallow layer of lava (recommended) around the statue, or connect a few Dart Traps to kill the spawned monsters. Once you click the switch, all you have to do is wait for drops to accumulate. A tunnel beneath the trap can allow safe collection. Housing a vendor NPC near the farm is convenient for selling the items quickly.

Bomb Statues are a little different: no lava or traps are required, but only 3 bombs can spawn at once, so you need to stay close to collect the bombs.

Using Bunny Statues and Fish Statues during a Blood Moon will spawn their corrupt counterparts, which rarely drop Bunny Hoods. The normal spawn limit for Statues is 3 mobs at a time, but when Goldfish and Bunnies change to their corrupt counterparts, they don't count towards the Statue's spawn limit, so you can have seemingly endless amounts of them on screen. This also does not affect their actual spawn rate.

The Granite Golem drops the Night Vision Helmet which sells for two Gold Coins. Combined with its drop rate it can be used to quickly generate large amounts of Gold Coins in a short time if you have multiple Statues.

Note: As of 1.3, Statue farming is much less convenient for generating money than before:
 * Statue-spawned enemies do not drop coins, many have reduced rates for their other drops, and some will not drop items if killed by traps. See the Statue page for details.
 * Sharks and mimics spawned by statues no longer spawn Dungeon Spirits (and mimics drop no loot at all).
 * Statue-spawned critters cannot be caught. If a Bug Net is used on them, they will disappear in a puff of smoke.
 * However, statues remain useful for forcing important drops such as Cell Phone or Ankh Shield components, later a Medusa Head, and so on.

The Granite Golem, Slime, and Jellyfish statues are still good for producing large volumes of individually low-value items, with occasional bonuses. Given a wood supply, Granite and gel can be sold as candelabra (see above), for 5 gold or more per stack of 999.

Typical Yields
Expected profit (when using a Crab Engine and Lava and only one statue of the following): Ideally, you would want to have all of the statues available so that you can also use some of the items dropped, if needed, and so that you can get the most profit by effectively adding up all of the profit you would get from just one of each statue.
 * The Jellyfish Statue will yield about per hour, and will fill your inventory in about 13 minutes. This makes the Jellyfish statue probably the most effective one if you resell the items quickly.
 * The Bomb Statue will yield about per hour, and will fill your inventory in about 46 minutes.
 * The Skeleton Statue will yield about per hour, and will fill your inventory in about 18 minutes.
 * The Fish Statue will yield about  per hour and will fill your inventory in about 2 hours.
 * The Bat Statue will yield about  per hour and will fill your inventory in about 46 minutes.
 * The Piranha Statue will yield about  per hour and will fill your inventory in about 3 hours.
 * The Slime Statue will yield about  per hour and will fill your inventory in about 4.6 hours.
 * The Bunny Statue will yield about  per hour and will fill your inventory in about 12.5 hours.
 * The Bird Statue and Crab Statue will yield about per hour and will fill your inventory in about 6.4 days.
 * Sharks and mimics are slow to kill, limiting the effectiveness of such farms. These statues, however, can be used to farm ectoplasm (as both monsters have more than 100 health points), which sell for each. If one has already defeated Plantera and looted the Lihzahrd Temple of traps, this method can yield about, or even more if you're lucky.

Expected profit(using one statue and one 1 Second Timer):
 * The Bunny Statue and the Bird Statue will yield about per minute.
 * The Fish Statue will yield about  per minute.

Monster Farming
Once in Hardmode you can buy Gold Dust to craft ammunition or Flasks which will increase the amount of money monsters drop on death. Also, don't forget mobs spawn as much below you as above, so filling in any caves below your farm can increase spawn rates within the farm.

Slime Staff Farming
If you have a Lucky Coin and Slime Staff (Slime statues do drop Slime Staves) you can farm for money very easily at the rate of about 10 Gold/Minute. Making full use of the spawning mechanics, it is possible to make the speed exceed 1 platinum per minute. A simple way to apply the slime staff is to create a space in the Lihzarhd Temple where you can stand in a box in an open space with all of the Lihzarhds crowing below you. Then summon all of the slimes you can. The slimes hit very quickly and only do about 1 damage a hit, with each hit giving a chance to drop several gold coins due to the Lucky Coin. You can do a similar farm by creating a box in the Ocean and putting 80 Lihzard blocks around you (to spawn Arapaimas and increase spawn rate).

However, minions are treated as projectiles, and since the slime won't vanish after hitting a monster, it counts as a piercing projectile: This means that each monster hit by a slime will get 1/6 second's invulnerability against more piercing attacks. This limits the effect of adding more slime minions, unless there are plenty of targets to go around.

Hallow Farm


Once you enter Hardmode, it may be a good idea to farm The Hallow. The best way to do this is to make an AFK Hallow Farm:
 * The first thing to do is to clear out a flat area in The Hallow, which will help the spawn rate. Then create a pillar, at least 15 blocks high.
 * After that, clear out two wide pits on both sides of the pillar with a thin layer of lava, thin enough to not destroy drops. This will kill the Unicorns and other ground enemies. Conveyor Belts may be helpful to collect coins into stacks.
 * The next step is to make the part to kill the Pixies and Gastropods. It should have two box shaped parts, the first part thinner than the second, which will help catch the pixies in the trap. Some players may want to separate the parts with platforms. There should be Dart Traps, Super Dart Traps, or Spear Traps on both sides of the second section, to kill the Pixies and Gastropods. These traps should be connected to a 1 Second Timer with wires.
 * The next step is to set up the player room. This room should have doors to allow the player to exit, but not allow enemies in, and a switch to control the traps.
 * For maximum efficiency, the playerroom should have a Water Candle, a Heart Lantern, a Campfire, Banners for the enemies, and a chest to store items. Optionally, an NPC can be homed there to quickly sell loot.
 * The player should also have a minion to help with the slaughter and deal with passing enemies.

Loot
You will make the most money off a 99 stack of Unicorn Horns, which will sell for  each. The second most money will be from Blessed Apples, which sell for each. The third most money will be from Fast Clocks and Megaphones, which sell for each. All the enemies also drop money.

Hardmode Dungeon
A very fun and effective way to grind money is to gear up with endgame gear and farm the Hardmode Dungeon. After killing Plantera go in there and farm all the monsters you see. Armored Bones drop over ten silver each, and they are so common that you can easily rack up a lot of money fast. Also, sell the Ectoplasm and drops you don't need for even more money. In one hour, you might be able to get five platinum with water candles and battle potions and maybe even a lucky Blood Moon. Another way to use the dungeon for money-making is to use a farm. Lihzahrd Temple-type traps can prove to be very useful in this method, and will make fighting in the dungeon a lot safer.

Hardmode Spider Nest
An effective way to get money is in the Hardmode Spider Nest with a strong sword such as a Cutlass or Excalibur and a Water Candle and/or Battle Potion. A Nimbus Rod can also be quite effective, and on Desktop some of the Tavernkeep's sentries can allow farming from outside the nest.

Black Recluses drop directly, Spider Fangs (craft into Queen Spider Staff s, which sell for  each), and Poison Staffs ( each), which varies with modifiers that can change the sell value dramatically. Over time, the return (mostly from the Queen Spider Staffs) will average nearly half a gold piece per spider killed.

AFK with NPC "army"
Build yourself a little shelter. (It is recommended to NOT have a proper door, in case a Blood Moon occurs.) You will also need a considerable amount of NPCs because they strike enemies. All you have to do is just stay in your shelter, and let your NPCs do all the work. Be AFK all night if you wish to.

Then, when you return, the NPCs should have left coins everywhere from the enemies that they slay. Also, if it is a seasonal event, you can find items like Goodie Bags and Presents as well. Using Conveyor Belts helps make this process easier, because Conveyor Belts brings the items closer.

Expected Profit: per night

Player duplication
When a character (or world) is created, it is saved as a file on your computer. This means that it can be copied like any other file. The default directory for such files are, though this may change with OS. Characters are stored as .plr files; a character called "Manbearpig" will be saved as "Manbearpig.plr". If this file is copied (into "Manbearpig2.plr", for example) the in-game character selection menu will feature two characters named "Manbearpig". (Note that there is no need to copy "Manbearpig.plr.bak". Also note that the order of the .plr files in the Players-folder is representative for the in-game character list.) Any character that has items stored in portable storage, such as a Safe or Piggy Bank will also have an associated folder with the same name as the character (e.g., a folder named "Manbearpig"). If the character's folder is also copied, the player will be able to duplicate items in portable storage.

The copy will feature all items held and worn by the original (and the accompanying folder will contain all items kept in portable storage), allowing the player to duplicate money and items by repeatedly copying Manbearpig.plr (and Manbearpig folder) and deposit the copies' inventories in a storage item in-game. Creating money like this makes it increase exponentially: if you start with and copy it 31 times, you will have a little more than  (1*2=2 (one copy) → 230=1073741824 copper coins = 1073 platinum coins).

Copied character files can afterwards be deleted with no issues arising, though you may wish to also delete each copy's respective .plr.bak file and folder (keeping obsolete .bak files and folders will not impact the game, but it may cause yourself some confusion later). Though arguably being somewhat cumbersome, this method is convenient as it requires no third-party software.

Read-only world file
Set your world to "read-only" while you have all your coins in a chest, then load the world. Take the coins, and exit. Set "read-only" off and play again. The coins you took while the world was "read-only" will be in the chest, and you can take them out. If you had, say, about 50 gold, you could get a platinum, and, if you do it again, you can get 2 platinum. And you can do this method whenever needed to get coins back.

Item servers
Certain servers are dedicated to distributing free items and coins, placed in automatically-refilling chests. These items and coins can be taken freely. Some servers also grant you access to free command of every items in the game.

TShock server
Instead of using the dedicated server software that ships with Terraria, you can set up a more powerful and advanced server up with TShock. As an admin, you can give yourself free items through Item IDs.

World Edit Tools
World edit tools, like TEdit or some other tool, is easy to add or manipulate coins.

Terrasavr Inventory Editor
Using inventory editors such as Terrasavr can be a way to get money for experimental purposes.

Item Duplication with TerrariaServer

 * 1. Place the item(s) you want to dupe in a chest in a world (can be any world, it wont affect the items in it afterwards) and exit the world, but not the game.
 * 2. Run  (can be found in  ).
 * will open the TerrariaServer console window, but it won't close the console window every time you exit like  does.
 * 3. In the TerrariaServer console window, select the world where you stored the item(s) you wish to dupe.
 * 4. In the Terraria game, join multiplayer game and type  in the ip page.
 * 5. Take all the items you want to duplicate using your character (do not exit the world).
 * 6. In the TerrariaServer console window, type  (it disconnects your character but doesn't save the world, so your items will still be as it was before you loaded the world).
 * 7. In the Terraria game, go to a world and unload all your duplicated items, and exit the world.
 * Repeat steps to do it over and over again. This only works if you are the server host, it won't work on anyone else's world.

Magic Mirror Duplication
Note: Doesn't work if you're the host.

Note: Items have a chance of disappearing.

First, in your inventory highlight the coin(s) you want to duplicate. Then, exit out of your inventory. After that has been done, you use the magic mirror and while the screen turns black, you pull up your inventory and pick up the coin(s).

An easier method of duplication if timing is a problem is to turn auto-save off in settings and toss the coins out at spawn, go off the server, re-enter, pick up the coins, and save manually, and repeat until the satisfactory amount is reached.

Exit+Rejoin
Note: To make it easier, be the host.

Note: Does not work with a piggy bank/safe.
 * 1) Put the items you need in a chest, then save the game.
 * 2) Turn autosave off.
 * 3) Leave the game without saving.
 * 4) Go back into the world you were in, and take the items and loot from the chest.
 * 5) Exit without saving again.
 * 6) Repeat steps 4 and 5 as needed.

This is expected to duplicate the item, as it will be in the player's inventory and chest at the same time.

Note: No longer works as of the 1.2.4 update.

Exit+Rejoin 2.0
Note: Doesn't work if you're the host.

Note: Requires either online multiplayer or a second controller and account.

Note: Will work with multiple players.

Note: It can be extremely slow.

First, gather the items you want to duplicate, and give them to the other player. Make sure they have autosave off, and they save with the items in their inventory. (WARNING: Doing the previous part the other way around (saving without the items, exiting when you have them) will not duplicate and instead DELETE the items!) Then, have them give you back the items. Next, they have to exit the game without saving, then rejoin. You and them will have the items and their amounts, doubling the amount you both have. And You can use this trick for almost every item.

Depending on what items you duplicating, you can sell them for a lot of money.

Exit+Rejoin 2.1
Note: You will need 2 players.

Place a chest, and turn autosave off. Have a second player join with autosave on. Put the amount of money to be duplicated into any chest, then save the game. After the game finishes saving, have the second player leave the game, then have the host leave WITHOUT SAVING. Then, have both players rejoin. The money would still be in the chest, and in the second player's inventory. Have the second player take the money, leave the game, then have the host leave the game without saving again. Repeat until the wanted amount is reached.

Every after duplicating, put the duplicates in the chest you're using, then save the game, take all the money, & have the second player leave and the host leave without saving. Then have both of them rejoin, and then have the second player put the new duplicates in the chest and then save it. And then take the money. then have the host leave the game. Repeat until the wanted amount is reached.

The money can also be replaced by any item you like to be duplicated.

Chest/World Save Copying
Note: Requires 2 locations to save, works vise-versa (character save copying), and Super tedious.

Like the Desktop versions of Terraria, the world saves and the character inventory saves are separate. To do this, Place a chest, and put the amount of money you want to duplicate into the chest and save both hard drives (you may need to copy it into the 2nd hard drive). Place the items into your character's inventory, and save and exit the game entirely. Go into the system setting and access storage. Copy the world save from the 2nd hard drive into the 1st. Collect duplicated items. Repeat until the wanted amount is reached.

2-Player Duplication
Note: Items have a chance for disappearing.

Get the item you want to duplicate into a chest. Get one of your friends to join your world. You must get into the chest first, then your friend can open it. Place the item you want to duplicate into the chest. Select the item and press "Take" at the same time. Make sure both you and your friend have the item in their inventories. You can take the item and leave, or you can continue duplicating by placing the items back the the chest ONE AT A TIME! Otherwise, the item may un-duplicate.

Note: This method of duplication will only work if you are the host and someone else joins your world.

Character Backups
By far one of the easiest methods of duplication is backing up characters. Just make sure you have the items to be duplicated in your inventory or Safe/Piggy Bank, then backup the character. With the backed-up character, deposit the items in a Chest, delete the backup, and use the original character to take the items. You now have 2 copies of the original items. Just be warned: Do not enter and exit worlds too fast, or this could corrupt world files on some devices. Make sure to wait around 3 seconds before clicking a world when using this method.

Not Consuming
Equip a armor with a set bonus such as Shroomite Armor and place the coins you want to duplicate, then mine all the coins.You might have more then you had before.