In Animal Crossing: New Horizons you can make lots of bells by selling items to Timmy and Tommy. While we know that bugs and fish can be sold to Flick and C.J. for extra cash and the hot items are worth making as they sell for double value, what about regular crafting? What are the staples we should be selling that use the items we regularly collect? Thankfully, Reddit has come to the rescue with a huge and ever-increasing spreadsheet that helps players figure out the most valuable crafted items — and the results are surprising.
Bells For Beginners
The aim of the project, started by Redditor snakepity, is to take a look at how much crafting materials sell for in raw form then compare this to how much crafted items sell for, not counting hot item values. While the spreadsheet is far from complete, it does have enough data to offer us some interesting answers. There is also an editable spreadsheet where Redditors can freely add prices to help the main project grow over time.
The most surprising thing we noticed was that a great way for beginners to make bells is through crafting flimsy tools. These tools mostly require twigs to craft, which can be easily shaken from trees each day, and the DIY recipes are given freely by Tom Nook early in the game.
Both the flimsy net and fishing rod require just 5 twigs to craft. Selling those 5 twigs will net players just 25 bells, yet the flimsy tools sell for 100. While the numbers are small the profit margin is huge, and the easy availability of materials means it's a quick way to make a few hundred bells each day for very little effort. You can also craft a flimsy axe and sell for a profit but the profit margin is reduced, due to the fact that it requires a stone as well as the twigs. The materials are valued at 100 and the item at 220, making the profit smaller percentage-wise.
Native Fruit Items
Fruit-based items typically don't fair to well on the list, but this is actually variable depending on what your island's native fruit is. The material cost they have assumed is based on fruit selling for 500 bells apiece. However, native fruit only sells for 100 bells apiece, vastly reducing the cost of crafting.
Let's use apples as an example. An apple dress uses 8 apples and sells for 1600 bells. On an island with apples as a non-native fruit, this means the value of the materials is 4000 bells, making crafting a loss. However, on an island with apples growing natively, the material cost is only 800 bells, meaning you can double your money by crafting them into a dress.
Players will gain a couple of fruit-based recipes early on so crafting items that use just native fruit or native fruit and other lower-value crafting items such as clay or wood, can be a great way to make more money quickly in the early game.
What To Craft And What To Avoid
As you progress, your DIY recipe count will quickly increase. You can open balloon gifts, collect bottles by the sea, and ask villagers doing DIY to share their recipes. All these tasks will increase your catalog quickly, especially if done several times during the day. Many crafting recipes will double your money, but some can make a loss. If you're unsure, it's worth checking the value of raw materials by selling and then canceling the sale before you craft, assuming you know the value of the finished item.
While we currently don't have a complete list of the most profitable DIY recipes, early front runners include the shell partition, which costs 3400 and sells for 8000 and the shell floor fountain that costs 4650 and sells for 9,450. Sandy-Beach flooring also has a profit margin higher than average, costing 1910 to make and selling for 4120.
The main loss-making items are fruit-based furniture and clothing that uses any fruit not native to your island. Flimsy shovels and watering also yield little to no profit, as do slingshots, due to their use of higher-value wood instead of twigs. Medicine is another early craft that makes a loss, although if you give it to sick villagers they will give you a gift as a thank you.
We'll no doubt find more high-value items as information comes in, so don't forget to keep checking the list and add your data to help it expand.
Source: Reddit