Warframe is a free-to-play game, and that means it comes bundled with it’s own premium currency you can buy with cold cash – Platinum. You will see it in the market, you will see it in trade; it’s hard to turn a corner without seeing Platinum attached to something in game. That doesn’t mean Warframe is pay-to-win, however. You can’t buy power directly, and anything you do buy with Platinum is either cosmetic, or a hollow-shell without mods (you are essentially paying Platinum to skip the acquisition grind). There is a twist to Platinum, one that many new players don’t seem to realize: you can earn Platinum in game, for free. Yep, you can grab all your favorite cosmetics, desired weapons and frames, and more slots all by playing. The catch, however, is it involves trading.
Use trading to earn Platinum.
Unlike most free-to-play games, Waframe’s premium currency is tradeable, and has thus become the bedrock of the economy. The majority of items in the game are free from trade restrictions, which means if you are willing to put in the work to grab something, someone likely wants to buy it. You’ll need to know how to trade before you can start trading for Platinum, so be sure to check out our trade guide if you are not up to speed on that aspect of the game. If you are, then Platinum is relatively simple to farm.
First, relics will be your best friend. Definitely check Warframe.market to see what Prime parts are currently in vogue and are not vaulted (vaulted parts cannot be acquired outside trade, or until they are unvaulted), and look into how to best farm them via Tenno Zone. Players will pay good plat for a complete set of blueprints, and upwards of 20 plat for 5 random pieces of “junk” parts (a random mix of Prime parts, pretty much). Even if you don’t finish a set, or don’t want to farm the rarer items in relics, you can bundle up five Prime parts and flip them for some quick plat.
Of course, that means you’ll need to farm up relics in order to crack them. Endless missions are typically a good way to farm up random relics, though you can use Tenno Zone to hunt down any explicit ones you may want. Jump into a 20-minute Survival, or 20-wave Defense to net a few. As a bonus, any relics you do grab and don’t use will eventually become vaulted, which can see the price of their goods increased. This isn’t a guarantee, but it means whatever you are not focusing on can still earn you some plat down the road.
Furthermore, mods are a solid way to earn additional plat. As a general rule of thumb, the rarer a mod is the more it will sell for. This is equally true if you dump some endo into the mod and level it to max: players will pay more plat for maxed out mods than for unleveled ones. You can use Warframe.market to see what mods are available to you and are selling well, and then use Tenno Zone to hunt them down.
If you wanna make the big bucks then you need to complete The War Within and start farming Rivens. Rivens are powerful, randomized mods, but they require time and effort to not only farm, but to reroll. This method will require more homework, grinding, and patience, but can result in massive amounts of plat. At the height of the Meme-ing Strike meta, there were Rivens going for 4000 Platinum: that’s a few hundred dollars worth of plat right there! While this has mellowed out, you can still sell well rolled Rivens for a thousand plat or more. Riven Market is a good place to see what people are looking for, and to check prices if you choose to get into the Riven trade.
That’s how you can earn Platinum for free. It will require some work on your part, and you will have to trade with other players. Thankfully, there are both simple and complex ways to fill your coffers, and it will all come down to the amount of work you wanna do. Sure, I like to support DE with a purchase here and there (a 70% off coupon usually does the trick), but being able to set a goal, and farm my plat on my terms is a fine way to avoid spending cash.
