How to actually use XIV Profitability: speed versus margin

Updated October 11, 2026

Quick answer: Start on the “Best” sort, which ranks by profit × units/day. Lean toward speed (thin margin, lots of units/day) 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 is the site's manual: how to read a row, what the Best sort does, which tool fits which goal, and when to lean one way or the other.

First-time setup
Reading a row
The Best sort
Which tool?
Speed or margin
Filter presets
Worked example
Habits

First-time setup (one minute)

There's no account. Your choices are saved in your browser, so you only do this once.

Pick your worldTap the 🌐 Server badge at the top, then change. Every price on the site follows it.

Enter your levelsUnder My levels in Settings, set each crafter plus Miner and Botanist. Lists then only show what you can make or gather.

Set your rankingAlso in Settings: Slow-seller threshold, Hide slow sellers, Max ingredient budget and Rank by HQ profit.

How to read a results row

Whatever screen you're on, each row has the same parts. Here's a crafting row with the pieces numbered.

Sort: Best (gil/day) · Filter • 7 Prices: 12 min ago ↻

1 Example Item ×3

Lv 92slowthin data2

30.8units/day

4+8,4505 34% · up to +11,200 HQ

6 ☆

1The item. “×3” means one craft makes three. Tap the row for the full breakdown.
2Warning tags. slow = below your slow-seller threshold. thin data = a margin or price that looks too good to trust.
3Units/day. How many sell per day on your world. A stack of 99 counts as 99. Shows no sales when nothing has moved.
4Profit. What you keep per craft after the 5% tax. Green is a gain, red a loss.
5Profit % on what you spent, plus the HQ upside when HQ would pay more.
6Favorite. Star it to keep an eye on it from the Favorites page.
7Price age. Prices are cached for 30 minutes. Amber means stale. Tap it to refresh.

Example row with made-up numbers, not a real item.

Where “profit” comes from

The site doesn't price an item at its top listing. It uses an expected sale: one gil under the cheapest listing, but never more than the average recent sale. So a single inflated listing can't fake a margin.

Expected sale−5% tax−Ingredients=Profit

Each ingredient is costed at whichever is cheaper: the NPC vendor or the market board.

Tap a row and you can follow the numbers all the way down:

Results listranked rows

Recipe pageIngredients, Source, Profit breakdown, Recent sales

Item pageMarket (NQ min), Sells / day, Prices on other worlds

Note: the row's units/day counts units sold, while the item page's Sells / day counts each sale once, whatever the stack size. A material sold in stacks can show 60 units/day but only 4 sells/day.

What the “Best” sort is actually doing

Best doesn't rank by profit or by speed alone. It multiplies them, which is the closest single number to gil per day.

Profit per item×Units/day (max 20)=“Best” score

The cap matters. Past about 20 units/day the market is deep enough that you aren't the bottleneck, so the tool stops rewarding raw speed and lets margin break the tie. A losing item scores zero.

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 to tilt toward speed or margin.

Which tool for which goal

Pick the line that sounds like you. Each opens the matching tool.

I have leveled crafters and want the best recipe.Crafting →

My bags are full of materials. What can I make?What Can I Craft? →

I have Miner or Botanist and no gil to invest.Gathering →

I'd rather hit things in the open world.Farming →

I want to solo old dungeons and raids.Drops by Location →

I have some gil but no levels.NPC ↔ market flips →

I don't mind a world visit for a bigger gap.Cross-server arbitrage →

I barely have time to play.Retainer ventures →

I need Grand Company seals cheaply.GC Seal Deliveries →

I'm sitting on tomestones.Tomestone Exchange →

I have Bicolor Gemstones to spend.Gemstone Exchange →

Also on the site: GC Seal Exchange, Desynthesis, Crafting Leves, Coffer Calculator, the vendor database and Search for any single item.

The core decision: fast turnover or fat margins?

Lean toward SPEED when…

You want gil now, for a mount, a house or an expansion.
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 work consumables and materials: food, potions, crafting mats.
You have few retainer slots. A slot that turns over daily beats one holding 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 sell glamour, furnishings, minions, orchestrion rolls. Wide margins, patient buyers, and undercutting mostly gives your margin away.
Your playtime is limited. A few high-value listings you check twice a week beat cheap ones you can't keep stocked.
The item is illiquid by nature. Buyers 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, 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. Crafting has the most of them:

Crafting → pick a job → FilterThe Filter dialog is where speed and margin floors live.Open →

Min units per dayspeed floor Min profit per craft (gil)margin floor Min profit %return on gil Max ingredient cost (gil)your budget Costable recipes only✓

On first load the list already hides anything under 0.5 units/day and margins over 2000%, the two commonest sources of troll data. Next to the search box, Uses ingredient… shows only recipes that consume something you already own.

Settings → RankingSite-wide switches that apply to every crafting list.Open →

Slow-seller threshold (units/day)1 Hide slow sellers✓ for speed Max ingredient budget (gil)what you can front Rank by HQ profitif you craft HQ

A speed-first setup: raise the threshold to 3–5, turn on Hide slow sellers, then sort by Profit per craft to find the fattest margin among things that actually sell.

Every tool has the same two dials, but the names differ:

Tool	Speed floor	Profit floor	Balanced sort
Crafting	Min units per day	Min profit per craft	Best (gil/day)
Gathering	Min units/day	Ignore value below…	Value
Farming	Min units/day	Ignore value below…	Value
NPC flips	Min units/day	Min profit (gil)	Best (profit × units/day)
Cross-server	Min units/day (home world)	Min profit (gil)	Best
Retainers	Min units/day	Min gil/venture	Best (gil × units/day)

Three presets to start from

Try one of these, then nudge the numbers. The main gil guide has a chart of where each one sits.

★ Sweet spot · start here

Sells every day and pays enough to be worth a retainer slot.

SortBest Min units/day2 Min profit5,000

Big-ticket · margin lean

Housing, glamour, minions. List one or two and wait.

SortProfit Min units/day0.3 Min profit100,000

Fast mover · speed lean

Raid food, potions, common materials. Small profit each, made in stacks.

SortUnits/day Min units/day20 Min profit1,000

Sort by Profit % instead when gil is your limit and you want the best return on every gil spent.

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.

Worked example with made-up numbers.

Best ranks A higher. 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 fits you better. It sells on your schedule and doesn't need babysitting. Same data, opposite decision, and it comes down to your time, not the numbers.

Habits that make the difference

Refresh before you commit. Prices cache for 30 minutes. Tap the Prices: … ago ↻ badge to refetch before a big buy.
Respect the warning tags. thin data, inflated listing and outlier listing mean a tempting number rests on one weird listing or very few sales.
Don't list more than a day's worth. If something sells 5 a day, posting 40 just means a week of undercuts.
Use dead stock first. Uses ingredient… or What Can I Craft? turn what you already own into the best thing it can become.

Related tools

Put this into practice with live market-board prices for your world:

Open the profit rankings → Then: pricing & undercutting →

More guides: every gil method, ranked · the market board sweet spot · undercutting & pricing · crafting for profit

XIV Profitability is a free, fan-made tool. Not affiliated with Square Enix. Prices via Universalis. FINAL FANTASY XIV © SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.

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