“You can make tons of gold buy buying recipes from vendors and selling them on the AH.” — FALSE

What is true is that you can make SOME gold, if you know what you’re doing, but you’re NOT going to make a lot of gold this way. I’ve seen guides dedicated almost entirely to lists of vendors, and what they sell. Depending on how developed your server realm is, most people know where to get the recipes they need. Yes, some people will rather pay 5g at the AH than take the time to travel to Tanaris to buy a recipe for 2g, so you CAN profit by doing it. But I look at selling recipes like finding a penny in a parking lot…I’ll still pick it up, but I don’t go running around in parking lots just looking for pennies. If I’m near a vendor, or buying from a vendor, that sells certain recipes or limited numbers of recipes, I might buy one to resell. I’m not going to make that my primary gold-making strategy, though.

Of course you’ll make some gold if you get a rarely dropped recipe. But the tactic, that many guides push, about going to vendors to buy recipes to resell is old and tired, and more importantly, ineffective.

FACT #3 – You can make SOME gold, but not very much. The GPH rate is too low to make it a primary strategy.