Starting from absolute zero in Old School RuneScape has a strange appeal. No stats, no gear, no gold—just a tiny level 3 adventurer fresh off Tutorial Island and the hope that 24 hours of in-game time can turn them into something more. So, that's the challenge: How much GP can you make on a brand-new level 3 account within 24 hours of in-game time?

Here are the rules:

24 hours means 24 hours of actual in-game playtime, not real-world time. Start with a fresh level 3 just off Tutorial Island. No restrictions otherwise—any money maker, any method, any strategy is fair game. And yes, we're rocking the default skin and looking like a straight-up bot. Let's dive in.

Phase 1: Starting Cash and Early Struggles

Like many players, I underestimated Tutorial Island. Turns out it wasn't as painful as I remembered. After sprinting off the island with my sad wooden sword and a dream, the first objective was simple: get some starting cheap RS gold. I bought a few spades and sold them on the Grand Exchange for about 120 GP each. Toss in a few eggs I found along the way (anything for cash at this point), and we walked away with 2.3k GP.
Not great. Not terrible. But enough to begin the grind.

Phase 2: Nails, Nails, Nails

One of the best day-one money makers for fresh accounts is flipping nails. Buy nails. Sell nails. Repeat until your fingers fall off. Unfortunately, it seems half the server had the same idea. The market was nearly bought out, so after a few painful cycles, we walked away with around 40k GP. Good enough for now.

Phase 3: Questing to Build the Foundation

Before jumping into bigger money makers, the account needed stats—and the fastest way to do that early game is through quests.

A rapid-fire list of completed quests:

• Cook's Assistant
• Sheep Shearer
• Imp Catcher
• Witch's Potion
• Ernest the Chicken
• The Restless Ghost

Then, we needed 13 Magic for Fire Strike, so we AFKed guards until we could finally launch some flaming projectiles. After that came Witch's House for a massive 25 Hitpoints boost, followed by Waterfall Quest, which catapulted us to 30 Attack and Strength.

The momentum continued with:

• Fight Arena
• Tree Gnome Village
• Doric's Quest
• The Knight's Sword

Tourist Trap (for that juicy 20 → 26 Agility XP lamp trick)

Two hours and 34 minutes in, we had respectable early stats and a total bank value of around 10k. Time to return to nails. Time to suffer a bit more.

Phase 4: Chaos Druids and the Great Early-Game Money Crisis

A small nail-grinding session got us to 90k, but my initial plan to head to Revenants died instantly—you need 100k cash just to enter the cave. So I pivoted to Chaos Druids. Not great with 1 Defence Old School Runescape Items. Painful, really. I managed to scrape together 30k, but the method was so miserable that even the local bots avoided it.

Phase 5: Ultra Compost – The Sleeper Money Maker

Ready for a shockingly good low-effort method? Ultra compost. Buy supercompost, combine it with volcanic ash, profit. The method was chill—perfect for mobile, Netflix, and questioning your life choices simultaneously. About 400–500 composts earned 138k, and I pushed past 2,000 before passing out IRL.

When I woke up to sell everything, I was officially a millionaire: 1.1M GP at 4 hours 26 minutes in. Things were finally looking up.

Phase 6: Prepping for Barrows

Barrows became the big goal, but the account needed to be stronger.

The prep checklist:

• 30 Crafting
• 25 Thieving
• 43 Prayer
• Demon Slayer, The Golem, and Shadow of the Storm for 27 Ranged
• 41 Magic for Wind Blast (Barrows brothers are weak to wind spells)
• 50 Ranged for Magic Shortbow

This was a lot of work—by the time 50 Ranged rolled around, we were nearly 11 hours in. But the account was finally ready.

Phase 7: Barrows – The Spoon-Fest

Using world 330's open houses for cheap restores and teleports, I headed to Barrows—and honestly expected suffering.

But then…

• Chest #1: Item
• Chest #3: Item
• Chest #5: Karil's Crossbow, one of the best Barrows drops
• Three items in five chests—actual spoon status

After 10 chests total, I tapped out. It was slow, painful, and inefficient on such a low-level account. Still, after selling everything, we landed at around 1.8–1.9 million GP. Time for more account progress.

Phase 8: More Grinding, More Methods, More Chaos

Next goals:

• Druidic Ritual
• 15 Herblore
• 5 Firemaking
• Shades of Mort'ton

Why? To make redwood pyre logs for future money makers. But the bottleneck was sacred oil—only 500/hour on the GE. I put in slow buy offers and went to train agility at Brimhaven.

I hated it. Immediately. So that idea died quickly. Snapdragon training? Also garbage. Ultra compost again? Tempting.

Phase 9: Revenants Attempt (with Doubts)

Revs with 50 Ranged is… optimistic. But we tried anyway.

After a couple of small trips and an Amulet of Avarice, things improved. Revenants weren't incredible, but they were viable. A small haul earned 173k, but it was enough GP to keep the account rolling.

Phase 10: The Last Stretch – LMS for Big Money

With 15 hours on the clock and needing 750 total levels for future methods, I got lost grinding stats and almost forgot this was a money challenge.

So the final plan?

Last Man Standing.

There was a catch: only Australian worlds were active.
203 ping.
Rusty mechanics.
No bots.
Just pain.

But over time, my accuracy with Vesta's Spear (Verac tech) started paying off, and I picked up two wins. Not many, but enough. LMS points converted to looting bag notes, and those were sold overnight for 5 million GP.

From maybe 3 hours of LMS.
On 200+ ping.
While barely winning.

Insane.

Final Attempt: Nepotism at Theatre of Blood (Gone Wrong)

For the grand finale, I tried to cheese the challenge by having friends carry me through ToB. They all brought their Ironmen. Under-geared. Unprepared. We wiped instantly. That's karma.

The Final 24-Hour Total: ~6.6 Million GP

After selling the entire bank, the final tally for the 24-hour venture was: → 6.6 million GP

Not the absolute maximum possible, but a fantastic result given the mix of account progression, fun, experimentation, and exploring new money makers.

Conclusion: The Real Lesson of the Challenge

Sure, I could've sat at Ultra Compost for 24 hours and made more.
But I would've hated every second of it—and you would've hated watching it.

The real takeaway is simple: Building your account unlocks better money makers. Better money makers equal better OSRS gold. Better GP means more fun.

LMS alone outperformed nearly every low-level method I tried, and I had a blast doing it.