Skip to content

Best hours to buy and sell

Pick a market and an item. Every hour of the day shows its typical price, lowest buyout and listings, and the page names the cheapest hours to buy, the dearest to sell, and what the gap is worth after the 5 percent cut.

Across Normal Alliance EU, prices run cheapest around 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET), 4.8% under the daily average, and dearest around 02:00 UTC (03:00 CET), 6.8% over.

Current market: Normal Alliance EU. This browser opens every tool here until you pick another. Address for this market: ahledger.com/timing?market=forever/normal/alliance/eu

Item

Best hours to buy

Not enough hours scanned yet.

Best hours to sell

Not enough hours scanned yet.

Spread after the 5% cut

Needs both windows.

Confidence

No pattern

No pattern yet: only 7 of the 24 hours of the day have been scanned on this market in the last 28 days. It fills in as players scan through the day.

Four of Portalsby hour · Normal Alliance EU

Hour (UTC)TypicalLowestIndex
03:0010g 88s10g 88s1.000
04:0010g 88s10g 88s1.000
06:0010g 88s10g 88s1.000
07:0010g 88s10g 88s1.000
08:0010g 88s10g 88s1.000
09:0010g 88s10g 88s1.000
10:0010g 88s10g 88s1.000

Under 1.000 is a cheap hour to buy; over 1.000 a good hour to sell. Days counts how many days that hour was scanned in the window. The same figures as JSON: /v1/timing/forever.normal.alliance.eu/19280 on the API.

The whole market by hour · Normal Alliance EU

Hour (UTC)Price indexListings indexDays
00:000.9861.1705
01:000.9951.1594
02:001.0681.0694
03:001.0300.9965
04:001.0190.9903
05:001.0620.7453
06:001.0270.9063
07:001.0130.8624
08:001.0070.8624
09:001.0130.8815
10:001.0100.9485
11:001.0110.8714
12:001.0050.9124
13:000.9910.9684
14:001.0031.0094
15:000.9821.0404
16:000.9981.0064
17:000.9591.0874
18:000.9521.1244
19:000.9791.0353
20:000.9561.1374
21:000.9641.1374
22:000.9791.0853
23:000.9931.0024

Each hour is indexed against the 24 hours around it, item by item across the market's largest positions, then centred so an average hour reads 1.000. For the day-of-week pattern, see market structure.

▸How this is worked out

Every hourly price is divided by the same item's average over the 24 hours around it, so a price drifting over the month does not make one end of the day look dear. The best buy window is the cheapest run of three hours and the best sell window the dearest; the spread buys at the cheap window's lowest buyout and sells at the dear window's typical price less the cut. Forever's history restarts at launch, so a live market's pattern never includes beta scans.

Common questions

When is the WoW Forever auction house cheapest during the day?
Across Normal Alliance EU, prices run cheapest around 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET), 4.8% under the daily average, and dearest around 02:00 UTC (03:00 CET), 6.8% over. The pattern is read from the hourly price of the market's largest positions over the last few weeks, each hour against the day around it.
How is the hour-of-day pattern worked out?
Every hourly price is divided by the same item’s average over the 24 hours around it, so a price drifting up or down over the month does not make one end of the day look dear, and the 24 hours are then centred so an average hour reads 1.000. The best buy window is the cheapest run of three hours and the best sell window the dearest. Hours are UTC, with the hour on the wall in the zone most of the market’s players keep beside them.
How much history does the pattern need?
Each hour of the day needs a few days of scans behind it before its figure means anything. The confidence line reads the thinnest hour: settled from ten days of scans, provisional from three, too early under that, and no pattern at all while fewer than half the hours have been scanned. Scanning Normal Alliance EU through the night fills the gaps.