Riot Points have been getting notoriously more expensive, especially on the European servers. Riot Games keep increasing the prices whenever the euro gets weaker (without any reversals), and there are hardly any local discounts within the EU. Luckily, I’ve found and personally tested a way to get RP for half the price without getting on Riot’s bad side.
July 2020 Note: The Math section of the article has been updated to reflect the mid-2020 RP price increase.
The Basics
Riot Points are sold in various batches, which get more lucrative as you move up to a more expensive bundle. For both EUNE and EUW, the smallest bundle is €2.50 for 310 RP (124 RP per EUR) while the juiciest one is €50 for 7,200 RP (144 RP per EUR). The rates are valid for Visa/Mastercard/American Express cards as well as PayPal.
Users can transfer their League accounts between servers for 2,600 RP. As of now, transferred users have no restrictions on buying Riot Points after the move. You can top your account up as soon as you transfer. There are no restrictions on changing servers multiple times a day. Some regions won’t have direct transfers between them: see the table below but always verify for yourself. Also, there are no transfers from most Asian servers, as they are managed by third-party providers instead of Riot Games.
In principle, Riot doesn’t impose any geographical restrictions on Riot Points purchases. You may buy RP for a Japanese account while sitting in the US, as long as you can one of the supported payment methods. This is what we’ll be using to get more RP. Personally, I went the EUNE->TR->EUW route to both get some cheap RP and end up on the other European server. Buying 4 batches of 12,850 RP on Turkey and getting back to EU left me with 48,600 RP for 223 EUR (20 EUR for EU->TR transfer+4*50 EUR for packs of Riot Points on Turkey). On EUNE/EUW, I would have got 50,400 RP for 350 EUR.
The Math
Although Riot Games is not really generous with internal EU discounts, they still recognize the need for regional pricing. As a result, some servers provide up to two times more Riot Points than you’d get for the same money elsewhere. Below you will see a spreadsheet that illustrates just that. Actually, there will be two spreadsheets, as I recognize two paths toward saving money on RP. You can see the latest numbers in a joint spreadsheet here.
The cheapest path implies creating a new account on the server that you’ll be buying Riot Points on. This saves you 2,600 Riot Points (a 2,800 RP bundle costs €20) that you would have otherwise spent to transfer your main account to the cheaper region. The idea here is to buy RP on a new account, move it to the region of your main account, and then start opening content with gifts.
Keep in mind that the cheapest path comes with some limitations:
- Your RP-only account should reach Level 10 to unlock gifting
- One RP-only account can only send 10 gifts/unlocks per day
- Your main account can only receive 10 gifts/unlocks per day
- You can only unlock champions, skins, icons, and rune pages
- You still can gift Hextech Content, including bundles with Prestige Points
The cheap way is more convenient, as it uses your own account. You simply transfer to a cheaper region, buy RP, and then transfer back. The downside is that you’ll have to top up your account on the main server with RP for the first transfer.
Cheapest RP Guide
- Create a new League of Legends account on Brazil or Turkey
- Sign out of your main account and log into the new one
- Quit the tutorial mission to get access to the store
- Buy Riot Points as you please, accounting for 2,600 RP transfer fee
- Transfer the RP-only account to the server where you normally play
- Level up the RP-only account to Level 10*
- Start unlocking the content and sending gifts to your main account via Gifting Center**
*You may level up the RP-only account on the foreign server as well, but there are no benefits to playing with (presumably) higher ping
**Feel free to team up with a friend or two to share the transfer fee burden
Cheap RP Guide
- Top up your main account to have at least 2,600 RP*
- Transfer the account to a cheaper region
- Buy Riot Points as you please, accounting for 2,600 RP transfer fee back
- Transfer the account to the server where you normally play**
- Enjoy the discounted RP
*Feel free to team up with a friend or two to share the transfer fee burden
**If you plan to buy a lot of Hextech/event chest bundles, make your first purchases on the foreign server. There’s a 24-hour limit on purchases of paid Hextech loot, but it resets after a transfer
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Is it legal to buy RP on other servers?
Yes! You are not breaking any Riot rules as long as your purchases are valid from the legal point of view.
What is the best way to buy Riot Points?
If you want to splash big (about €100 and more), the cheapest option would be to purchase RP on Turkey or Brazil servers. It’s worth the hassle (and the fees) even if you transfer the main account back and forth. You could also make a smurf on a foreign server, buy RP, transfer and start gifting to yourself. It would, however, require leveling up the smurf to level 10.
Are free RP websites legit?
No, they are not. You can’t hack the number stored in Riot’s database, and people promising freebies generally want to scam you.