Where to grow: the four tiers of trading

From station trading in Jita to importing goods into a null-sec hub — four distinct methods with different ceilings, margins, risk and required bankroll. A map of the tiers: what caps each one, how much it really earns and when to move up. Each tier links to its deep-dive.

Four trades under one word

Four different trades hide under the single word “trading” in EVE. The Jita station trader, the inter-hub hauler, the PLEX wholesaler and the null-sec hub supplier all solve one problem — buy cheaper, sell dearer — yet they hit different ceilings, live on different margins and carry different risk. Capital that chokes one method is barely a warm-up for another.

This is a map: the four methods set side by side — what caps each one, how much it really earns and the bankroll where it makes sense. The step-by-step mechanics and numbers live in the deep-dive guides each tier links to. Roughly, the tiers grow with your capital: the first one teaches, the fourth feeds you seriously.

Tier 1 — station trading in Jita

Buy and sell in one place without moving: profit from the gap between the best buy and the best sell, minus fees. This is the trader’s school — instant feedback, and in deep Jita there’s almost nowhere to get stuck. In return it wants attention: holding the front of the queue, undercutting, watching the spread.

The ceiling here is 5–10 billion, set by order-book depth and the number of order slots, with “running out of ISK” beside the point. The spread narrows fast: a profitable item is seen by you and everyone else, tool or no tool. You enter at a 50–60% margin across five to ten lines — and by the time you’ve sold them out (a couple of days per line) your realised average settles toward ~15%. The service speeds up the shortlist and the entry; the race for the spread itself stays.

In depth: margin trading from zero →

Tier 2 — high-sec arbitrage

Buy in Jita, haul to Amarr, Dodixie, Rens or Hek and sell dearer. You’re paid for cargo risk — a narrow niche by today’s standards. Liquidity in the other hubs is alive mostly on consumables: ammo, drones, batteries, fuel. Expensive one-off items sell slowly there.

The second brake is suicide gankers at chokepoints like Uedama: you can’t move much valuable cargo without eventually being caught, and that loss has to be priced in. Add competition from producers building right next to Amarr. Turnover is a touch above station trading, but the risk-adjusted return is modest — a consumables side-hustle rather than a main road.

In depth: inter-hub arbitrage →

Tier 3 — PLEX and injectors

Near-bottomless volume: hundreds of billions can turn over in a day without moving the price. The price for that is a tiny margin — 1–1.5% even at perfect skills, and negative most of the time. It starts to make sense from a bankroll of ~50 billion (trading around 40), and you earn on turnover, with the percentage beside the point.

So here you trade through walls: place an order in front of a big wall and wait for the fill — two or three re-prices eat the whole thin percentage. PLEX and injectors trade on the Perimeter Keepstar, where the broker fee is low. Injectors carry a separate chore: they have to be hauled from Jita to Perimeter, and that run gives you away to gankers — details at the tier itself.

In depth: PLEX and skill injectors →

Tier 4 — Jita → a null-sec hub

The most profitable floor: buy in Jita, jump-freight into your coalition’s hub and sell there. A 30–100%+ margin holds for weeks, because a logistics barrier keeps competitors at bay — the hub usually has three to five of them, and none can fill the whole market. The ceiling is almost unbounded: you stock what your alliance needs, scaling with your budget.

In return, you live there (docking access is required) and carry logistics risk: losing the jump-freight load, getting stuck in a position, losing goods to asset safety if the coalition loses the staging. But there’s no isk-war frenzy on either side: in Jita you wait for the producer flow into your buy order, in the hub you wait for buyers. The service doesn’t analyse null hubs yet (in development), so this tier is done by hand.

In depth: importing to a null-sec hub →

Choosing by bankroll

A rough ladder by capital. Under ~10 billion — station-trade in Jita: learn and hit the depth wall. From ~20 billion, importing into a null hub opens up, with the biggest ceiling. From ~50 billion you add PLEX and injectors as a place to park large capital at a thin but steady margin. Keep high-sec arbitrage as a niche consumables side-hustle.

Compare methods on the triad “ceiling × margin × risk”; peak margin alone is misleading. Station trading is safe but capped. The null hub is almost uncapped but threatens a lost jump-freight load and getting stuck. PLEX swallows any capital, but its margin hangs by the thread of fees. Most people run two at once: station trading or PLEX for steady churn, plus null-sec imports for the fat margin.

In brief — four lines

At a glance. Station trading in Jita: low entry, a 5–10 billion ceiling, margin melting from 50–60% to ~15% as you sell out, market risk. High-sec arbitrage: low ceiling, ~8–9% margin on consumables, risk from ganks in transit. PLEX and injectors: ~50 billion entry, a ceiling of hundreds of billions a day, 1–1.5% margin (often negative), risk from fees and hauling injectors. Importing into a null hub: ~20 billion entry, an almost unbounded ceiling, 30–100%+ margin, risk from the jump freight, access and getting stuck.