There are a lot of ways to make money in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — like bowling and gambling — but the one you’ll encounter most often is just going to a shop and selling some of the stuff you’ve picked up. Selling anything and everything is a risky proposition, though, because it’s hard to know what you’re going to need later.
The short answer is that you should keep rarer items and sell common ones. This goes for everything from food to monster parts. You’ll end up using a lot of the rarer or hard-to-get items to upgrade your outfits (and some side quests) and the rarer foods give you more hearts or grant extra effects.
Below there’s a lot of advice on what to sell and what to keep based on our dozens and dozens of hours in Breath of the Wild. We start with a series of questions to ask yourself about selling something, then wrap up with some more general advice.
1. Can I eat it?
Selling food and meal ingredients isn’t going to make you rich. First, most of the edible materials are only worth a handful of rupees, and any that you have a lot of are worth even less. Second, their value increases when you cook them, which means you generally shouldn’t be selling your food raw.
Are rupees more important than hearts?
There are a few meals you can whip up that will sell for a pretty penny, er, rupee. We covered those here. As you learn more about cooking and pick out your favorite recipes (namely, anything involving hearty durians), you’ll be able to pick the foods you actually need versus the foods you can safely sell.
The question then becomes about priority. Is a dish that restores all of your hearts (and possibly more) more useful to you than money? Are you going to need that healing (or the potential healing once the item is cooked) anytime soon?
Do I need an effect, or can I just change clothes instead?
Food that gives you a status effect like cold resistance or heat resistance is invaluable early in the game. Later, though, when you have outfits that give you the same benefits, those ingredients become less important and easier to sell. If you’ve leveled up your snowquill set for example, feel free to sell any critter that increases your cold resistance.
Elixirs use critters and monster parts instead of food, but you have to ask the same question. A lot of elixirs provide the same benefits as armor sets. Things like the Thunder Helm or the rubber set make electro elixirs a moot point. Keep the outfits in your closet in mind while looking at what to sell.
2. What about monster parts?
You’re going to end up with so many monster parts. They’re not worth much on their own, but when you have a lot, that adds up and it’s tempting to unload (most of) them. And it’s usually safe to do it. But again, you’ve got another question to ask yourself.
Do I want anything from Kilton?
Kilton’s nighttime specialty shop, Fang and Bone, will take your monster parts off your hands in exchange for some unique items. He’s got a pretty limited inventory, though. Cash in the monster parts for the mon you need, then buy whatever you want. Once you’ve gotten what you want from him, you can sell a lot of your monster parts without concern (except those you need for elixirs).
3. Do you need anything for a side quest?
Among the countless side quests you’ll encounter as you wander across Hyrule, there are a few that will require you to hand over something out of your inventory. Check your Adventure Log and our super handy guides for their requirements before you go selling everything in your pockets.
4. Do you need it to upgrade outfits at the Great Fairies?
Before you have a fire sale, check in with the Great Fairies. Your various outfits and armors will require some unexpected items to upgrade. Make sure you’re not selling something you’re going to need. The radiant set is a great example here. It’s really tempting to sell any luminous stones you have since they’re not used for much, but you need 138 luminous stones to buy and completely upgrade the radiant set.
It’s generally a good idea to check in at one of the Great Fairy fountains every time you pick up new armor — each of them need a different set of items to upgrade.
So what should I keep?
You’re going to want to keep rare items. For the most part, hold onto things you need to upgrade your armor. Once all of your armor is upgraded to the max (or as high as you want it), you can disregard this advice.
- Star fragments — you need nine of them to upgrade the ancient set or three for the wild set (and you’ll need over a hundred more if you’re dealing with amibo armor). If you’ve already maxed out those sets, though, sell away — you’ll get 300 rupees a piece.
- Precious stones (within reason) — the fourth upgrade to most of your armor is going to cost you quite a few stones. For example, the Hylian set requires 120 amber (along with some monster parts) and the Zora set takes 45 opals.
We added the “within reason” to this one because you’re going to end up collecting a lot of these, especially if you start taking on Taluses. Once you hit a reasonable number — between 25 and 50 or so — you can start selling the extras.
- Guardian drops — they’re valuable, but they’re more useful to trade in at the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab for guardian weapons (especially ancient arrows) and the ancient set. And you’re going to need a lot more to upgrade the ancient set.
- Dragon drops — again, this is all about armor. Several of your outfits will need scales, horns and fangs from each of the dragons. These are (relatively) easy to farm, though, so if you feel like you have enough (three to five or so of each), you can start selling them for a nice profit.
- Sub-boss drops — you guessed it: Armor. Defeating hinoxes and lynels will give you a few very rare items — like tonails and hooves — that you’ll use for armor upgrades. Besides, they’re not worth very much.
So what’s safe to sell?
It’s going to take a while before you can be certain that you won’t need something down the line — basically, when the end of the game is in sight and all your armor is beefed up. But the short answer is that you’re safe to sell the things you have a lot of. These things won’t be worth the most, but they are the most common — and you’re likely to find more soon.
Beyond that, run through those questions above. If you’re OK with selling something after you think about those questions, then sell it.
And remember that there is nothing in Breath of the Wild that you can’t find again. You might have to wait until after a Blood Moon when everything respawns, but chances are you can get more.