#1 · 18 hours
Gil
Upkeep
The steady champion. Big stacks of current-tier mats and crystals/clusters, plus the most retainer EXP. Fire once, collect next day. Miner / Botanist.
Updated October 11, 2026
Quick answer: Retainer ventures are passive gil: send a retainer out for an hour and it returns items. Payouts swing a lot by item, so point each retainer at the venture whose haul is worth the most at current market prices, not just the highest quantity. Match a retainer's stats to the venture, and send them every time they're free.
Retainer ventures are the closest thing to passive income in Final Fantasy XIV. You send a retainer off, go do anything else, and they come back with items on a timer.
Done well, your retainers quietly earn gil around the clock. Done carelessly, they haul back vendor trash.
Each retainer has a class: a combat job, Miner, Botanist or Fisher. You send it on ventures that return a batch of items after a set time.
The quantity they bring back scales with the retainer's relevant stats: item level for combat, Gathering and Perception for gatherers. Leveling and gearing your retainers directly increases their haul.
Two ventures can take the same time and return the same quantity. If one brings back an item worth 50 gil each and the other an item worth 5,000 gil each, the difference is enormous.
The whole game of retainer income is pointing each retainer at the ventures whose output sells for the most on your world right now.
That's what the Retainers tool does. It ranks ventures by the current market value of what they return, so your retainers come home with the most valuable haul available to them, not whatever was first in the list.
Ventures come in a few types, and they are not equal earners. From best to worst for gil:
#1 · 18 hours
The steady champion. Big stacks of current-tier mats and crystals/clusters, plus the most retainer EXP. Fire once, collect next day. Miner / Botanist.
#2 · 18 hours
The combat equivalent. Monster parts and materials in bulk for near-zero maintenance. Combat (DoW/DoM).
#3 · 1 hour
One random higher-tier item. Streaky, but occasionally lands something valuable. Good when you're checking in often. Any class.
#4 · unless the item is hot
Hunting, Mining, Botany or Fishing for one item you choose. Only worth it when that exact item sells high on your world. Matching class.
For most players the winning layout is simple: one Miner or Botanist retainer on 18-hour Highland/Woodland Exploration, one combat retainer on Field Exploration, fired once a day.
Use Targeted ventures only when the retainers tool shows a specific item beating the exploration haul on your market.
Set your world first with the Server badge at the top (then Change). The tool ranks Targeted ventures by what their haul sells for there.
A floods Xd of demand badge means one venture brings back more than the market buys in that many days. Pick something else, or sell it slowly.
A badge like ×N at 400 means raising that stat to 400 unlocks the next quantity tier. That's your gear shopping list.
"Min profit" is called Min gil/venture on this tool. Good starting points:
Hauls that sell within a day or two and pay enough to beat an exploration.
Pricier items that sell slowly. Fine if you have spare sell slots and don't mind waiting.
Mats that clear the board in hours. Lower value each, but nothing sits around.
Same idea as the filter presets in the main gil guide. If one odd listing tops the list, set Ignore value above… to drop it.
Retainers are also your market-board footprint, so the count matters for selling as much as for ventures.
Retainer count is your ceiling on how many things you can sell at once. That's why serious sellers run extra retainers: the ventures pay for themselves, and each one adds 20 slots for the sweet-spot items you're flipping or crafting.
Short on venture tokens?The Expert Delivery calculator finds the cheapest gear to turn in for Grand Company seals.Open →Ventures won't out-earn active crafting or flipping. They're free gil for near-zero effort, though, which makes them the perfect background layer while you play.
Stack them on top of the active methods in the main gil guide and they add up over a week without you thinking about them. For the full low-effort routine, see passive & AFK gil.
Put this into practice with live market-board prices for your world:
Retainer venturesTargeted ventures ranked by what their haul sells for.Open → Gathering profitsWhat Miner and Botanist items are worth on your world.Open → Crafting profit calculatorTurn venture mats into something worth more.Open →See the best ventures on your world → All gil-making methods →
More guides: passive & AFK gil · GC seals to gil · gathering · market board sweet spot
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