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How to actually use XIV Profitability: speed versus margin
Quick answer: Start on the “Best” sort, which ranks by profit × sales-per-day. Lean toward speed (thin margin, high velocity) when you want gil now or have little capital, and toward margin (high value, slow sales) when you'd rather set-and-forget. Match the method to your time, not just the biggest number.
Every gil decision on the market board comes down to one trade-off: how fast do you want it to
sell versus how much you want to make on each one. XIV Profitability is built
around that trade-off. This guide explains the two numbers behind every row, how the default sort blends
them, and — the part most people get wrong — when to deliberately lean one way or the other.
The two numbers behind every row
Whatever screen you're on — crafting, gathering, flips, ventures — each row is really two numbers:
- Profit per item — what you clear after the 5% market tax, priced against the
expected sale (the recent average sale, not an inflated top listing). This is the "how much."
- Velocity — how many actually sell per day on your world, shown as the SOLD/DAY badge.
This is the "how fast."
A huge margin on something that sells once a month is not gil — it's inventory. A tiny margin on something
that sells eighty times a day can out-earn it by an order of magnitude. Either number alone lies to you;
the skill is reading them together.
What the "Best" sort is actually doing
The default Best sort doesn't rank by profit or by velocity — it ranks by the two
multiplied, which is the closest single number to gil per day:
Best score = profit per item × sales per day (velocity capped at 20)
The velocity cap matters: past ~20 sales/day the market is deep enough that you're not the bottleneck, so
the tool stops rewarding raw velocity and lets margin break the tie. That's why "Best" surfaces things that
are both reasonably profitable and reasonably liquid, instead of a billion-gil listing nobody
buys or a 3-gil item that sells constantly. Start every session on Best — then decide whether your
situation calls for tilting toward speed or toward margin.
The core decision: fast turnover or fat margins?
Lean toward SPEED when…
- You want gil now — for a mount, a house, an expansion purchase.
- Your capital is small. Gil that turns over daily compounds; gil frozen in a slow
listing does nothing.
- You play actively and can restock and relist through the day.
- You're working consumables and materials — food, potions, crafting mats. Thin
margins, constant demand, weekly-reset spikes.
- You have few retainer slots. A slot that turns over daily is worth far more than
one sitting on a slow big-ticket item.
Lean toward MARGIN when…
- You'd rather set and forget than babysit relists.
- You have capital to park and can wait days or weeks for a sale.
- You're selling glamour, furnishings, minions, orchestrion rolls, collectibles —
wide margins, patient buyers, undercutting mostly just donates your margin away.
- Your playtime is limited — a few high-value listings you check twice a week beat a
churn of cheap ones you can't keep stocked.
- The item is illiquid by nature. The buyer isn't comparing prices; they buy when
they need it, so price it properly and wait.
Rule of thumb: if you have more time than gil, chase speed. If you have
more gil than time, chase margin. Most players drift toward margin because big numbers
feel good — and then wonder why their gil isn't growing.
Turning the strategy into filters
Once you've picked a lean, the controls make the list match it. In Settings and on each profit screen:
- Minimum velocity / "Hide slow sellers" — the speed dial. Set it to, say, 3–5 sales/day
to cut anything that won't move, then sort by Profit to find the fattest margin among things that
actually sell. This is the single most useful setting for the speed-first player.
- Minimum profit — the margin floor. Set it so thin-margin churn drops off, then sort by
Sales/day to find the fastest movers worth your time.
- Max budget — caps ingredient/purchase cost to what you can actually front. Essential
for the small-capital, speed-first approach.
- Sort by Sales/day for pure speed, Profit for pure margin,
Profit % for best return on capital, or leave it on Best for the
balanced blend.
On the crafting pages there's also a "Uses ingredient…" filter — type something you already
have and it shows only recipes that consume it, so you can turn dead stock into the fastest- or
highest-margin thing it can become.
A worked example
Say Best shows two Weaver recipes. Recipe A clears 4,000 gil each and sells 25/day. Recipe B clears 60,000
gil each and sells 0.3/day (about twice a week).
A: 4,000 × 20 (capped) = 80,000/day potential
B: 60,000 × 0.3 = 18,000/day potential
Best ranks A higher, and for an active seller with spare retainer slots it's the right call — if you can keep
it stocked. But if you log in twice a week, B is the better fit for you: it sells on your schedule
and doesn't need babysitting. Same data, opposite decision — driven entirely by your time, not the numbers.
That's the whole game.
Two habits that make the difference
- Refresh prices before you commit. Prices cache for 30 minutes; tap the staleness badge
to force a refetch before a big buy so you're acting on the live board.
- Watch the data-quality flags. "Thin data," "outlier," and "inflated" warn you when a
tempting number is built on one weird listing. A margin that only exists because of a troll listing isn't
a margin.
Related tools
Put this into practice with live market-board prices for your world:
Open the profit rankings →
Then: pricing & undercutting →
XIV Profitability is a free, fan-made tool. Not affiliated with Square Enix. Prices via Universalis.
FINAL FANTASY XIV © SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.