How an Enchanter Earns Without a Listing
Every other crafting trade finishes with an object somebody can post. Enchanting finishes on another player's weapon, in a trade window, for a number nobody can look up. That changes where the money comes from and how much work it takes to collect.
A profession with nothing to list
An enchant is applied to an item that already belongs to the customer. Nothing new is created that can be posted, bid on or mailed, so the finished work never appears in an auction listing. The only thing enchanting does put on the auction house is what it takes apart: the dust, essences and shards that come out of disenchanting. The trade therefore has 2 halves pointing in opposite directions, a materials supplier who behaves like any other seller, and a service seller who leaves no trace in the market data at all.
That split matters for price discovery. A tailor can open the auction house and see what the same bolt sold for yesterday; an enchanter has no equivalent reference and sets a number in conversation each time. Demand for the trade is not the problem here, and which professions pay best is a separate question from whether the earnings can be collected. Enchanting usually ranks well on demand and badly on convenience, and the channel is the reason.
The channel is a chat line and a trade window
Finding customers means advertising where they are reading. In practice that is trade chat in a capital, a guild channel, and whatever the realm has settled on as the trade services channel. None of it works while the character is out on a route, because the advertisement only pays off if the enchanter can be in the city within a few minutes of a reply. An enchanter who logs in to farm and an enchanter who logs in to sell are doing 2 different evenings.
The sale itself needs both players standing in the same place with the item in the trade window. There is no mailed version of it, no buyout, and no way to leave the shop open overnight. That is a real cost rather than a nuisance: the hours counted in travel between city and route apply here with the added problem that the enchanter is not moving either. Waiting in a capital is unpaid time until somebody whispers.
Tips, set prices and who buys the reagents
There are 2 shapes the payment takes. In the first the customer brings the materials and pays a tip for the application, which is the arrangement most enchanters start with. In the second the enchanter supplies everything and charges one number that covers both materials and work, which behaves much more like ordinary crafting and sits close to crafting with a customer's materials. The second shape pays better per sale and ties up coin in stock that may sit in the bank for days before anyone asks for that particular enchant.
A tip is customary, not mechanical. Nothing in the game sets it, holds it or returns it, and the only thing keeping it close to what people expect is that the same names run the same trade channel every evening. Enchanters who intend to sell regularly tend to quote the number before the trade opens rather than after, because an unquoted tip is where most disagreements come from.
When the enchanter supplies the reagents, the cost side becomes an ordinary purchasing problem. Dust and essence are bought from other players, which means the service price moves with what reaches the auction house that week, and a quiet supply week can make a fixed quoted price unprofitable without anyone noticing until the stock runs down.
Side income, and what is still unconfirmed
The second income line is disenchanting rather than enchanting. An enchanter in a dungeon group is the person who turns unwanted greens into materials, and how that is settled depends entirely on the group: the shards go to the enchanter, they go to the roll winner, or the enchanter pays for them on the spot. It is the one part of this trade governed in advance, which is why need, greed and disenchant rolls are worth agreeing before the first boss rather than over the first green.
The third line is buying to break down. Cheap greens posted by levelling characters are stock for an enchanter in a way they are not for anybody else, and the margin works the same way as buying low to resell later except that the resale is in a different item class. It is also the only part of the enchanter's income that can be done without talking to anybody, which is why many enchanters treat it as the floor under a slow evening.
What we do not know. We have not seen anything confirmed about Forever changing how an enchant is delivered, so we are describing the familiar arrangement rather than a tested one. Whether the client offers any listing or order form for services, whether disenchanting results differ from what Classic players expect, and how crowded the trade turns out to be are all open. how many enchanters there are on a realm will decide the tip range more than any guide can, and that count does not exist yet.
Questions
Can an enchanter sell anything on the auction house at all?
Yes, but not the enchant. Dust, essences and shards from disenchanting are ordinary tradeable materials and can be posted like any other stack. The enchant itself is applied in a trade window and never becomes an item, so an enchanter who only applies enchants has no auction presence whatsoever.
Who is supposed to supply the materials?
Either side, and the price shape follows from the answer. If the customer brings the materials, the enchanter is being paid a tip for the application alone. If the enchanter supplies them, the quoted number covers stock as well as work, and the enchanter carries the cost of holding that stock until somebody wants that specific enchant.
Is a tip required?
Nothing in the game enforces one. It is a convention held in place by the fact that the same enchanters advertise in the same channel every evening and the same customers read it. The practical advice is to agree the number in whispers before the trade window opens, because that is where the misunderstandings are avoided.
Does Forever change how enchants are sold?
We have not seen a confirmed change. Everything on this page describes the arrangement Classic players already know, applied to a fresh economy where none of the usual reference prices exist yet. If Forever adds any order or listing mechanic for services, the whole channel problem described here changes shape, and we will say so when there is something to point at.
Sources
- Blizzard's official site for Warcraft announcements and patch notes — Warcraft official site.
- Reference material on how Classic enchanting and disenchanting work in practice — Wowhead Classic enchanting guide.