Gold, Currencies and the Auction House

Money in World of Warcraft is a mix of copper, silver and gold coins, and players usually just call all of it gold. Your total is shown at the bottom of the open backpack. 100 copper make 1 silver and 100 silver make 1 gold, so the copper and silver columns never pass 99, while gold has no such limit.

At the level cap, quests that would give experience pay gold instead. The game also uses gold sinks to pull money out of the economy: expensive crafted or vendor mounts such as the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth (at least 14,000 gold), item upgrades and Transmogrification fees all remove gold for good.

A single character can hold at most 9,999,999 gold, and a guild bank has the same limit. The cap has been raised twice:

Besides money, the game has many other currencies, such as the PvP currencies Honor and Conquest (see PvP Overview) and various faction and event tokens. Since patch 3.0.2 most of them live in the Currency tab of the character window instead of taking bag space, and you can choose a currency to show under your backpack.

• Only money can be passed between characters, through trade, mail or the Auction House; other tab currencies cannot be transferred.
• Currencies cannot be destroyed, only earned and spent.
• Seasonal upgrade crests began as items in Dragonflight Season 2 and became currencies from Season 3 on (see Item Level and Upgrades).

The Auction House (AH) is where players buy and sell weapons, armor, trade goods, recipes and reagents to each other. Most cities and some towns have auctioneers, and all Auction Houses on a realm share the same listings for both factions (they were merged per realm in patch 6.0.2). Since patch 9.2.7, commodities such as gems, herbs, flasks and consumables are shared by every realm in a region, while gear like armor and weapons stays per realm. Trial accounts can look but not buy or sell.

• Buying: you can bid, and the gold is held until the auction ends (you get it back by mail if outbid), or pay the buyout price to get the item by mail right away. A bid cannot be cancelled.
• Selling: choose 12, 24 or 48 hours, a starting bid and ideally a buyout price (it cannot be lower than the starting bid). A deposit is paid when you list the item.
• When it sells, the house keeps a 5% cut and mails you the rest plus your deposit back. If it does not sell, or you cancel, the item comes back but the deposit is lost; cancelling with a bid on it also costs the cut.
• Characters on the same account cannot bid on each other's auctions, even across factions.

• Check whether an NPC vendor sells the item before buying it at auction; vendor prices are usually far lower.
• Do not list items below their vendor price, and do not bother auctioning gray (Poor) items; see Item Quality.
• Set a buyout price: shoppers usually want the item now. Buyers cannot split stacks, so sell in useful stack sizes.
• Materials for Professions often sell very high in the first days of a new expansion and drop once prices settle.