I decided to give gem crafting a try.

If you are not looting the raw materials (tomes of secrets and flawless squares), the cost of materials of these are the only variable on top of the fix crafting fees required by the Jeweler. Hence I calculated the total crafting cost for each level of gems, and I compared the auction house listing price and checked if I could make a profit out of it after 15% transaction fees.

And bingo. If I did not make a mistake in my calculation, I can always make profits. In that couple of hours I was selling gems like hot cakes. I crafted and sold 6 Perfect Star Ruby and 8 Flawless Star Ruby. At one stage the profit expressed of a percentage of the crafting cost is actually higher for Flawless Star Ruby which make sense for me to sell those instead.

So, gem crafting profitable? Yes.
Worth to do it? No, not for me.

I net about 3 quarters of a million in selling those gems. However, I could have spent my valuable times farming and get double the gold amount, and have chances for epic loots instead of sitting in my chair and keep clicking "craft", "craft", "craft"...........If Blizz reduces the crafting time or even enable us to autocraft a set amount of gems then maybe it is more efficient to craft, but then it just means that everyone is more efficient in doing so and your profit will reduce.

What really bothers me is how the auction house behave. I can't see how many people are listing for gems for how much. I wonder if I just click a single gem for listing and accept the "suggested price", is that the price which is the average or the cheapest? What if I listed in a stack of a few gems? Does anyone know?

I think the suggested price is based off the average price over last 10 sales. I know that more often than not the suggested price is quite a buy lower than lowest gem listed since often people buy up all cheap gems then reset the price quite a bit higher.

i always wondered this myself... thanks for confirming
also, doesn't it cost 20m for the top gems? yet they're going for less than that... why would you sell those top gems for a loss?

Posted by douvinsky at 11/17/2012 12:52 AM

I net about 3 quarters of a million in selling those gems. However, I could have spent my valuable times farming and get double the gold amount, and have chances for epic loots instead of sitting in my chair and keep clicking "craft", "craft", "craft"...........If Blizz reduces the crafting time or even enable us to autocraft a set amount of gems then maybe it is more efficient to craft, but then it just means that everyone is more efficient in doing so and your profit will reduce.

Thanks for running this experiment. Too much pain, not enough profit.

Posted by shniggies at 11/17/2012 12:05 PM

i always wondered this myself... thanks for confirming
also, doesn't it cost 20m for the top gems? yet they're going for less than that... why would you sell those top gems for a loss?

It costs 15 million to craft a radiant star gem.

Come to think of it, we could probably easily make a "gem crafting for profit" calculator using the AH Tracker prices. It could say what level of gems would be the cheapest material and how much profit would be made by selling.

I wouldn't mind making the algorithm, but the only language I speak is MATLAB, so I'd need someone to help me translate it to whatever the site uses.

Posted by NightCrawler9 at 11/17/2012 12:56 PM

It costs 15 million to craft a radiant star gem.

ah ic... thanks

i should've cashed in on some gems when there were a ton of dupes... too bad i had 0 gold at that time -_-

http://d3gemcalc.org - Works great

Posted by Stukthrtl at 11/17/2012 02:25 PM

http://d3gemcalc.org - Works great

sweet thanks. I'll check it out

mmm the site says 19,640,342 for radiant emerald... am i missing something?

Posted by shniggies at 11/17/2012 12:05 PM

i always wondered this myself... thanks for confirming
also, doesn't it cost 20m for the top gems? yet they're going for less than that... why would you sell those top gems for a loss?

In my calculation, the top ruby gem (Radiant Star) will give me a loss based on the material cost at time of test. Hence, I did not craft any of it, but focused on the 2nd and 3rd (Perfect Star and Flawless Star) which gave the best profit / cost ratio.

Posted by Detski at 11/17/2012 01:09 PM

Come to think of it, we could probably easily make a "gem crafting for profit" calculator using the AH Tracker prices. It could say what level of gems would be the cheapest material and how much profit would be made by selling.

I wouldn't mind making the algorithm, but the only language I speak is MATLAB, so I'd need someone to help me translate it to whatever the site uses.

Great idea!
In my simple Excel, the only 2 variables are the ongoing cost of tomes and flawless square gems (and inputs from AH on the final gem prices). I always wonder about the profit level until I really made up my mind the other day and test it using a spreadsheet. I thought I could reap profit from it but apparently the time cost is too much to me. However, it could be useful to others who prefer not to farm inferno and have all the time to click craft craft craft.

You'll have to plug in the numbers for everything. It stores them though. Been crafting a few Star Topaz to sell as i picked up a bunch of Flawless Squares a while ago for cheap

Posted by Stukthrtl at 11/17/2012 02:25 PM

http://d3gemcalc.org - Works great

Looks great!
Could have saved me the trouble of creating a spreadsheet but it is good to spend time to check out something....now is time to use this site to check if my spreadsheet is correct in the first place lol.

Posted by Stukthrtl at 11/17/2012 05:51 PM

You'll have to plug in the numbers for everything. It stores them though. Been crafting a few Star Topaz to sell as i picked up a bunch of Flawless Squares a while ago for cheap

I figured out the main variable cost is actually the Flawless Squares. So picking up those at the cheapest and sell the end product at the highest prices is the key to maximising the profits.

yea, 1 of the 2 major factors. Good thing i got my TOS for about 70each, and Topazes for under 100 each. Bought at least 1000 of em. So i dont really know what my profits are lol

Hahaha, I thought I was the only one who was still crazy enough to do gem crafting for small profits. Sometimes I even go a stage lower & buy regular squares & then upgrade those upwards. It is boring to just hit "craft" repeatedly as opposed to regular gold farming, but at least it's a guaranteed profit. I've also discovered that usually it's best to sell three gems at the Radiant Square level as opposed to one gem at the Star level.

Your doin it wrong:
Here use this to craft.
http://download.cnet.com/Free-Mouse-Auto-Clicker/3000-2084_4-75221696.html

I use AutohotKey :)

While I don't necessarily know that Blizzard has banned accounts for using AutoHotKey, it is technically a banned 3rd party program under their TOS. If they determine you're using it, you can be banned without warning.