cheapest start-up craft

[Anheuser]

i'm looking for a craft i can skill up to a level where i can make significant amounts of gil. someone told me alchemy is the cheapest to invest in, and goldsmithing was the most expensive. is alchemy profit worth my inveestment?

[Gentoo]

I dunno, but I think Fishing might qualify as the cheapest craft-skill to get started in -- and I hear there's good gil to be made there.

For me, cooking was close to a break even investment until right around level 40 -- where I started actually seeing a small but regular profit come in (so long as I was regular at making food to sell). This really counted on me being able to HQ more popular lower level food, and start being able to make some of the popular mid-level food. Cooking, however, had a nice low start-up cost, and I could easily farm up lot of my ingredients (even as a low level)

Although I'm very early on in my Alchemy, it's shaping up to be similiar to cooking. If I'm lucky it'll be a break-even endevour until I can start HQ'ing some of the more popular consumables like poison, and silent oils, and get into making other popular consumables like bolt heads. Had I started up Alchemy as low a level as I did cooking, I'd have been in trouble farming up ingredients for a level 20'ish character would have proven more challenging than cooking.

[Myaku]

A tie between Alchemy and Cooking. I have taken both to 60, and each was equally panless, though I made more profit on Alchemy to 60.

[Omnitank]

If you look into farming materials for your craft, or craft consumables (i.e. high demand craft materials), you can make money or break even.

I would craft materials that are in high demand when possible and sell for small profit. Farm what can easily be obtained such as animal skins for Leathercraft or bones for Bonecraft.

[Lleo]

None of the crafts will give you significant amount of gil without a equally significant investment of time. Most crafts are riddled with veteran crafters. As a veteran crafter you will have to work to find your profit niche and take some risk, especially in crafts with mostly durable items.

Cooking and Alchemy is considered the cheapest crafts to level. These crafts are good starting crafts to see if crafting is something for you. If you manage to level one of these crafts to 60 with a profit and not getting bored to death, crafting may be something for you.

[ultimaknight]

I make a decent profit from Alchemy using a few items that seem to sell quite well (and other alchemist don't seem to touch for some reason). But I am still working on leveling it, so I can't tell you about the upper levels of the craft. But at 38 I still do good for myself and have been pleased with what I have been making.