How to Farm Merchant's Favor in WoW Forever

Before any method, the thing that stops people wasting a week:

Merchant's Favor and Azeroth Commerce Authority reputation come from two completely different activities, and they don't overlap.

• Waylaid Crates give Favor and no reputation at all.

• Craftsman's Writs give reputation and are the main rep source.

So if you've been turning in crates expecting to climb toward Exalted, you've been earning currency and no standing. And if you've been running writs waiting for your Favor to pile up, it isn't going to.

Work out which one you actually need first. Favor buys recipes, the Pack Kodo and the profession certifications. Reputation unlocks the Advertising License at Honored and the tabard at Exalted. This guide covers Favor properly and then covers reputation, because the question usually turns out to be both.

The Short Answer

The cheapest Favor in the game is Waylaid Crate: Journeyman Parts, filled with a Bronze Framework you crafted yourself — roughly 2.8 silver per Favor. Buying the materials instead roughly doubles that to about 6 silver per Favor.

Three rules do most of the work:

1. Green crates pay double white crates at the same tier. Always prefer green.

2. Higher tier is not better value. Expert crates paid less Favor per gold than green Journeyman crates. Journeyman green is the sweet spot.

3. Buy crates on the Auction House. Farming mobs for them is not a method — see below.

Crate Tiers and Favor Values

There are four tiers and seven crate types per tier — 30 shipments in total.

White crates take raw materials: Textiles, Ore, Herbs, Curiosities. No profession needed.

Green crates take processed goods: Fabrics, Ingots, Parts. Fabrics need Tailoring or Leatherworking, Ingots need Mining smelting, Parts need Engineering.

Turn-ins pay Favor plus a little silver, and no reputation.

Where Crates Actually Come From

Any mob can drop one, at a low rate, and no zone drops them more often than another. There is no farming spot. The category each crate rolls is random.

Which makes the Auction House the main source, and this is the important mechanical detail:

Crates are not soulbound until you fill them.

So they can be bought, traded and mailed. Search "crate" on the AH, buy the ones you want, mail them where they need to go. Once you seal a crate with materials it becomes soulbound, so the sealing step is the point of no return.

If you do want to pick them up while questing, Textiles crates have been reported dropping in Tirisfal Glades, Teldrassil, Elwynn Forest, Westfall, Durotar, Mulgore and the Barrens. Cloth drops from humanoids, so Textiles is the one crate type any class can fill without a profession.

But treat world drops as a bonus. The efficient route is buying.

How to Fill and Turn In a Crate

1. Right-click the crate to read its label. The label tells you the shipment type, based on the category it rolled.

2. Choose one of the listed bundles. A crate only needs one bundle, not all of them — pick the cheapest option it offers. Right-click the crate again and select the item stack in your bags to seal it.

3. Turn the sealed crate in at your depot through the turn-in quest. Horde players get A Sealed Crate.

Full vendor rosters and what each profession's recipes cost are in our Azeroth Commerce Authority guide.

Cheapest Fill for Every Apprentice Crate

Useful for when a cheap crate lands in your bags and you want to know the minimum spend:

Higher-tier bundles run through Bolt of Woolen Cloth, Silver Bar and Bronze Tube at Journeyman, then Steel Bar, Iron Strut and Cured Heavy Hide at Expert.

The Efficiency Answer, in Detail

Journeyman Parts Is the Winner

Waylaid Crate: Journeyman Parts, filled with a Bronze Framework you crafted yourself, comes to roughly 2.8 silver per Favor. Buying the materials rather than gathering and smelting them puts it closer to 6 silver per Favor.

That gap is the whole optimisation. If you have Mining and Engineering, you're paying less than half what everyone else pays for the same Favor.

Why Expert Crates Are a Trap

This is the counter-intuitive part. Expert crates pay more Favor per crate and less Favor per gold. A green Expert crate gives 30 Favor against a green Journeyman's 20 — but Steel Bars and Iron Struts cost considerably more than Bronze Tubes, and the ratio comes out worse.

So don't upgrade your crate tier as you level. Journeyman green stays the efficient choice even at 60.

Two Profession-Specific Shortcuts

Enchanters can use Apprentice Curiosities, which wants 4 Greater Magic Essence — cheap if you're disenchanting while levelling anyway.

Hold your Apprentice Fabrics crates. The linen they need is expected to get more expensive as the server economy matures and low-level cloth supply thins out. Fill them now while linen is cheap.

The Legacy Perk That Gives Free Favor

Performance Bonus is a three-rank Legacy perk granting up to a 15% chance that a crate turn-in awards 100% more Favor. It works through either faction's depot.

At max rank that's roughly a 15% average increase on every crate you ever turn in, for three Legacy Points you were likely earning anyway. If you intend to grind Favor seriously, take it early — our Legacy Points guide covers how to earn the points to spend.

Two Live Bugs and Their Workarounds

Both are worth knowing before you waste materials.

Apprentice Textiles asks for 40 Linen Cloth, which is impossible — Linen Cloth only stacks to 20. You physically cannot present the bundle. Use the 20 Light Leather option instead. Blizzard has said a future build fixes this.

Apprentice Curiosities has an inverted check — it has been accepting Lesser Magic Essence while rejecting Greater Magic Essence, with the error message asking for 9999 of the item. Blizzard lists this as fixed in the next build. The intended requirement is Greater Magic Essence, so if the crate rejects what should be correct, that's the bug rather than your mistake.

What Favor Is Actually Worth in Gold

Worth running the numbers, because they reframe the grind entirely.

Reins of the Pack Kodo costs 6,000 Favor. At green Journeyman's 20 Favor per crate, that's 300 crates. With Performance Bonus at max rank, around 261.

In gold terms:

The whole Favor economy is essentially a gold conversion with extra steps. 168 gold and 300 crate turn-ins for the mount if you're efficient; 360 gold if you're not. The same 6,000 Favor buys all six profession certifications instead, at 1,000 each — so the full title set and the mount cost exactly the same.

Current Favor sinks:

If You Actually Want Reputation

Crates give you none of it. Here's the separate track.

Craftsman's Writs Are the Main Source

Each distinct order can be turned in once per day, but you can do multiple different orders daily. So your daily rep ceiling is set by how many different writs you can get hold of, not by a single cap.

Your First Shipping Label Is Free Standing

The first Shipping Label — earned from your first filled crate or your first writ — pays 2,000 reputation, 50 Favor and 660 experience on delivery.

That's two thirds of the way to Friendly from one delivery. Do it immediately on any new character.

The Reputation Table

Total to Exalted: 42,000 reputation. Around 200 Artisan writs, or roughly 530 Journeyman ones.

The Uncapped Route, and Why Most People Shouldn't Take It

Forged Delivery Receipt costs 15 Favor from Dianne Softstep, unlocks at Friendly, and turns an empty crate into a container worth 50 reputation. Crucially, it has no daily limit.

That makes it the only way to rush reputation past the one-per-order-per-day writ ceiling. Here's what rushing costs:

42,000 reputation ÷ 50 per receipt = 840 receipts 840 × 15 Favor = 12,600 Favor

That's more than two Pack Kodos in Favor, plus 840 empty crates.

So the honest recommendation: run your available writs daily, take the Diplomat perk in the Resourcefulness Legacy tree to increase reputation gains, and accept the timeline. Use Forged Delivery Receipts to close a specific gap — pushing the last stretch to Honored for the Advertising License, say — rather than as your main method.

Practical Reputation Tips

• Buy sealed writs rather than named ones. They're usually cheaper on the AH.

• Price the requested item before you buy a writ. Some cheap writs ask for materials worth more than the writ itself — the discount is a trap.

• Group your deliveries by zone. Travel is the real cost of a writ run.

What to Spend Favor On — and One Big Caveat

The depots sell recipes across every profession, mostly crafted equipment, plus the mount and cosmetics.

Highlights:

• Level 20 Rare helmets at 30 Favor each. Tailoring, Leatherworking and Blacksmithing have more than fifteen helmets between them — the best Favor-per-item-level on the list.

• Blue crafted gear runs to around level 50 for Tailoring and level 58 for Blacksmithing.

• Enchanting offers level 20 totems, librams and idols.

• Alchemy offers Spellblasting Potion, Frenzy Potion, Lesser Mageblood Elixir, Elixir of the Owl and Elixir of the Whale.

And the caveat that catches people out:

The crafted gear is Bind on Pickup. Only a character with the matching profession can equip it.

You cannot make these helmets for a friend, an alt without the profession, or the Auction House. The recipes are for gearing yourself, which means the profession you take determines which of these you can ever use. Factor that in before spending 30 Favor a piece on helmets your character can't wear.

FAQ

What's the fastest way to farm Merchant's Favor? Buy Waylaid Crate: Journeyman Parts on the Auction House and fill each with a Bronze Framework you crafted yourself — roughly 2.8 silver per Favor, and 20 Favor per crate. Green crates pay double white crates at the same tier.

Do crates give reputation? No. Crate turn-ins give Merchant's Favor and a little silver, and zero reputation. Reputation comes from Craftsman's Writs, Shipping Labels and Forged Delivery Receipts.

Where do Waylaid Crates drop? Any mob can drop one at a low rate, and no zone has a better rate. There's no farming spot. Buy them on the Auction House — crates aren't soulbound until you fill them, so they trade freely.

Should I use higher-tier crates as I level? No. Expert crates pay less Favor per gold than green Journeyman crates, because Steel Bars and Iron Struts cost far more than Bronze Tubes. Journeyman green stays the efficient choice at every level.

Why won't my Apprentice Textiles crate accept 40 Linen Cloth? Because Linen Cloth stacks to 20, so the bundle is impossible to present. It's a known bug with a fix promised. Use the 20 Light Leather option instead.

How much does the Pack Kodo really cost? 6,000 Favor, which is about 300 green Journeyman crates — roughly 168 gold in materials if you craft your own Bronze Frameworks, or about 360 gold if you buy the materials. With the Performance Bonus Legacy perk at max rank, around 261 crates.

What's the fastest way to get Exalted? Run every distinct Craftsman's Writ available to you each day — Artisan writs give 200 reputation each, and you need 42,000 total. Forged Delivery Receipts are the only uncapped route but would cost around 12,600 Favor for a full Exalted push, so use them to close a gap rather than as your main method. Take the Diplomat perk in the Resourcefulness Legacy tree.

Is there a daily or weekly cap on Favor? No Favor cap has been described. The only limit is on reputation: one turn-in per distinct writ order per day, though you can do several different orders.

Can I craft the Favor gear for other players? No. The crafted gear is Bind on Pickup — only a character with the matching profession can equip it. These recipes gear you, not your friends or your alts.

Does the Performance Bonus perk work for both factions? Yes. It applies to crate turn-ins through either the Azeroth Commerce Authority or Durotar Supply and Logistics depot.

The Short Version

Crates give Favor. Writs give reputation. They don't overlap — pick the one that matches what you want.

For Favor: buy Journeyman Parts crates on the AH, fill them with Bronze Frameworks you crafted yourself. Around 2.8 silver per Favor, 20 Favor per crate. Green always beats white; don't move up to Expert crates, they're worse value. Take Performance Bonus in Legacy for a 15% chance of double Favor.

For reputation: deliver your first Shipping Label immediately (2,000 rep), then run every distinct Craftsman's Writ daily. 42,000 reputation to Exalted.

And use 20 Light Leather for Apprentice Textiles crates, because the 40 Linen Cloth option is literally impossible right now.