Enchanting loop is way slower than people think—what am I missing?

[WhiterunModder]

So I'm on my third playthrough and I keep hearing that enchanting is this broken money-maker early game, but every time I try to actually do it I'm sitting there for like an hour disenchanting garbage and re-enchanting iron daggers. Meanwhile someone's already done a full Thieves Guild run and made way more gold just fencing stuff.

Am I supposed to be doing something different? Like are there specific enchantments that sell for way more than others, or is the whole thing just a mid-game money sink that doesn't actually pay off until you're already rich? Because on my current run I'm level 12 and I've got maybe 3k gold from enchanting vs like 8k from just looting and selling, and that feels backwards to what everyone says.

Also if you're on Switch or console in general—does it even matter? I know mods can speed up crafting loops but I'm playing vanilla Anniversary Edition so maybe that's why it feels so slow.

 

[TamrielTactician]

You're not missing anything—the enchanting loop is genuinely slower than the hype suggests, especially early game on vanilla. The real money isn't in the grind itself, it's in what you do with the skill once it's leveled up.

Here's the thing: disenchanting random loot to learn enchantments, then spamming iron daggers for 40 gold each is objectively a waste of time compared to just looting and selling. You're right about that. The people who swear by it are usually either (a) already past level 30-40 enchanting and making glowy jewelry that sells for actual money, or (b) playing with mods that remove the tedium entirely.

What actually works better: loot enchanted gear, disenchant it to learn the good enchantments, then enchant stuff that's already valuable or that you'd sell anyway. A steel sword with a decent enchantment sells for way more than an iron dagger with the same enchant. Once you hit around level 40-50 enchanting and have perks in the tree (the ones that boost enchantment magnitude and let you apply multiple enchants), then you start seeing the gold. Before that you're honestly better off just selling what you find.

On Switch / vanilla Anniversary it doesn't matter much—you're not missing out on speed mods or anything, the loop is just legitimately slower than people remember from their level 50+ playthroughs. At level 12 with 3k from enchanting vs 8k from looting, that's exactly what I'd expect. Keep leveling naturally, and by the time you're in the 40s-50s range the enchanted items will start feeling worth the effort. Until then, yeah, just sell your loot.