The loss you face when they die... I think you are not taking the correct mathematical approach to this. Okay, for the simplicity of this, lets assume that you don't have juju pots nor scroll of life. And lets assume you get 7 herbs per seed. (More like 6.77 if I am not mistaken, but lets take 7.) You buy 100 snapdragon seeds: 60,100x100 = 6,010,000 10% of the seeds die. So, when buying 100 seeds, you get herbs from 90 seeds. 90 X 7 = 630 herbs 630 X 13,000 = 8,190,000 gp 8190000-6010000 = 2,180,000 profit if you buy 100 snapdragon seeds. You buy 100 avantoe seeds: 2000x100 = 200,000 10% of the seeds die. So, when buying 100 seeds, you get herbs from 90 seeds. 90 X 7 = 630 herbs 630 X 3500 = 2,205,000 2205000 - 200000 = 2005000 profit if you buy 100 avantoe seeds. Conclusion: Growing snapdragons yields a marginally higher profit than avantoes. Snapdragons indeed require a lot more money to be invested, but that should really not be a problem, since you only plant 5 seeds per trip, not 100, meaning you can just sell harvested herbs after every trip and buy new seeds. Now, when you add in juju potion, then growing snapdragons becomes a lot more profitable, since you get 33% more herbs per seed. And since snapdragon herbs are worth A LOT more than avantoes, you really shouldn't be growing avantoes. Not to mention you gain more exp from snapdragon picking. That doesn't mean you're guaranteed that profit. More snap seeds could die and your yield could easily be below average. Assuming both have equal margin of error, the profit from snaps fluctuates a lot more than the profit from avantoe due to the cost of the seeds meaning it could very easily be way below that average. Avantoes being incredibly cheap however, have minimal losses if they die or if a herb run yields less than average so profit is much more consistent than avantoes. The amount of variation in profit margins also matter when picking a herb.