OSRS Flipping Terms & GE Glossary

Margin

The margin is the difference between the instant sell price of an item and the instant buy price. Specifically: Margin = Sell Price − Buy Price. This is the raw spread before the GE tax is deducted. A positive margin means you can buy low and sell high. A negative margin (inverted spread) means the item is not currently flippable at a profit.

For example: if Death Runes instant-sell for 215 GP and instant-buy for 200 GP, the margin is 15 GP per rune. After 2% tax (4 GP on a 215 GP sell), the actual profit per rune is 11 GP. Multiply by the buy limit to get potential profit per cycle.

Spread

Spread is used interchangeably with margin. It describes the gap between the best buy offer and the best sell offer on the Grand Exchange at any given moment. A wide spread signals a profitable flip; a narrow or negative spread signals the item is not worth flipping at that time. In financial markets, "spread" is the more formal term; in the OSRS community, "margin" is more commonly used.

ROI (Return on Investment)

ROI expresses profit as a percentage of the amount invested: ROI = (Profit ÷ Buy Price) × 100. It lets you compare flip opportunities of very different price ranges on a level playing field. An item that costs 1,000 GP and yields 28 GP post-tax profit has a 2.8% ROI. An item that costs 10,000,000 GP and yields 280,000 GP profit also has a 2.8% ROI — the same proportional return.

When assessing flips, ROI alone is not enough — you also need to consider absolute profit per cycle and how quickly the volume allows you to cycle through the buy limit. 07Flip shows all three figures simultaneously.

GE Tax

The Grand Exchange tax is a 2% fee applied to every GE sale, paid by the seller. It was introduced in December 2021 as part of the item sink mechanic. Tax = min(Sell Price × 0.02, 5,000,000 GP). The 5M cap means items worth more than 250M GP are taxed at less than 2% in effective rate. Buyers pay the listed price in full; only sellers are taxed.

The tax gold is removed from the game entirely, acting as a gold sink. This matters for flippers because a margin that looks profitable before tax may not be after it — always use post-tax profit figures. See the full GE tax guide for a detailed breakdown.

Buy Limit

The buy limit is the maximum quantity of a specific item you can purchase on the Grand Exchange within any rolling 4-hour window. Each item has its own limit set by Jagex, typically based on how frequently it is traded and how easily it could be exploited. High volume items like Nature Runes have limits in the thousands (e.g. 13,000), while rare items like the Twisted Bow are limited to single digits (e.g. 8).

The buy limit directly caps how much profit you can make per flip cycle. To estimate the maximum GP per cycle: Max Profit per Cycle = Post-tax Profit per Item × Buy Limit. After the 4-hour window resets, you can buy again. See the buy limits guide for more detail.

Flip

A flip is a complete trade cycle: buy an item at a low price and sell it at a higher price on the Grand Exchange, capturing the margin as profit. The term refers to the full round-trip — from placing the buy offer, through receiving the item, to the sell offer completing. A "successful flip" means both legs of the trade filled at or better than expected and net GP was gained after tax.

Instant Buy

An instant buy is a purchase offer placed at a price high enough to fill immediately against existing sell offers on the GE. When you instant-buy, you pay the lowest price at which someone is currently selling. This is also called "buying at the current ask." In OSRS flipping, the instant buy price (the low price in Wiki API terms) is what you pay when entering a flip position.

Instant Sell

An instant sell is a sell offer placed at a price low enough to fill immediately against existing buy offers on the GE. When you instant-sell, you receive the highest price at which someone is currently buying. This is also called "selling at the current bid." The instant sell price (the high price in Wiki API terms) is what you receive when exiting a flip position.

Margin Check

A margin check is the manual process of discovering an item's current spread by placing two test trades in quick succession: first, an instant buy (at a high price) for 1 unit to discover the ask; then, an instant sell (at a low price) for that 1 unit to discover the bid. The difference between what you paid and what you received is the current margin.

This process is necessary in-game because the GE does not display live bid and ask prices directly. Tools like 07Flip retrieve this information from the OSRS Wiki Real-Time Prices API, replacing the need to perform margin checks manually for every item.

Confidence Score

07Flip's confidence score is a 0–100 rating that indicates how reliable a flip opportunity is likely to be. It is calculated from four factors:

• Volume (40%) — higher hourly trade volume increases confidence that offers will fill and that the margin reflects genuine market activity.
• Volatility (30%) — lower price volatility increases confidence that the margin you see now will still be there when your buy offer fills.
• Spread quality (20%) — margins in the 1–10% range are scored higher than very thin or extremely wide spreads, which may indicate a problem.
• Data freshness (10%) — price data from the past few minutes scores better than data from half an hour ago.

A score above 70 is generally considered high confidence. Below 40 suggests caution — the margin may not behave as shown.

Hourly Volume

Hourly volume is the number of units of an item that traded on the Grand Exchange in the past hour, as recorded by the OSRS Wiki Real-Time Prices API. Higher hourly volume means a more liquid market — your buy and sell offers will fill faster and the margin is less likely to shift significantly between when your buy fills and when your sell completes. Items with hourly volume below 50 may have slow fills and less reliable margins.

Daily Volume

Daily volume is the total number of units of an item that traded in a 24-hour period, sourced from official Grand Exchange data published by Jagex. It provides a longer-term view of market liquidity compared to hourly volume. 07Flip uses daily volume data to inform confidence scoring and to calculate potential GP per day relative to your buy limit.

Merching

Merching (short for "merchanting") refers to buying a large quantity of an item and holding it with the expectation that the price will rise, then selling the entire position for a profit. Unlike flipping, which involves quick buy-sell cycles exploiting a current spread, merching is a longer-term strategy that takes positions based on anticipated future price movement — often driven by game updates, supply events, or coordinated buying.

Merching carries more risk than flipping since the price might not rise as expected, leaving you holding a large position with unrealised losses. 07Flip's merch detection tool identifies items showing early signals of price recovery that may represent merching opportunities.

Price Dip

A price dip is a temporary drop in an item's price below its recent historical average, typically caused by oversupply, a large seller liquidating a position, or a content creator showcasing a different alternative. Dips often self-correct as demand absorbs the extra supply. Identifying a genuine dip (temporary) versus a sustained price decline (the new normal) is the key skill in dip-buying strategy.

07Flip's dips preset surfaces items currently trading more than a meaningful percentage below their recent average price, which can signal a buying opportunity.

Price Spike

A price spike is a sudden, sharp upward movement in an item's price, often triggered by a new game update that buffs the item, a popular content creator featuring it, or a sudden reduction in supply. Spikes can create short-term flipping opportunities — but they can also reverse quickly if the driving factor was temporary. Acting on a spike requires fast assessment of whether the price movement has a sustainable underlying cause.

Alch Value

The alch value (or alch price) is the amount of GP received from casting High Level Alchemy on an item. It is set by Jagex for each item and does not fluctuate with the GE market. Alch value establishes a reliable price floor — if an item's GE buy price falls below its alch value minus the cost of a Nature Rune, it becomes profitable to buy it and alch it rather than sell it on the GE. See the High Alch Calculator to find items where this is currently profitable.

GP/hr (Gold Pieces per Hour)

GP/hr is a standardised measure of how much gold a money-making method generates per hour. In flipping, it is calculated by estimating how many full buy-limit cycles you can complete in an hour and multiplying by the profit per cycle. For example, if an item's buy limit is 1,000 per 4 hours and profit per item is 50 GP post-tax, the maximum theoretical GP from that item alone is 12,500 GP per hour (50 × 1,000 ÷ 4). Running multiple GE slots simultaneously multiplies your effective GP/hr significantly.

Item Sink

An item sink is a game mechanic that permanently removes items from the game economy, reducing total supply over time and helping to counteract inflation. The Grand Exchange tax is OSRS's primary item sink mechanism — the GP collected is used by Jagex to purchase items from the GE at their current guide price and then destroy those items. Common targets have included Abyssal Whips, Dragon Arrows, and other high-demand tradeable items. The existence of item sinks provides a long-term upward price pressure on targeted items.