At this point in the expansion, alchemy for flasks /potions isn´t particularly profitable unless you have max level crafting gear and have the 3 left trees (alschem Mastery, flasks + potions) maxed out. It also depends on what time of day and to a lesser extent what days you´re selling them. You also don´t want to post large batches if you´re looking for quick sales, because they will inevitably be undercut, leaving you with hundreds of flasks and potions that come back 12h later in the mail.
Thaumaturgy can be more easily profitable, but you have to keep an eye on the AH prices and not go overboard locking yourself into a transmute loop for 2 hrs, because by then the markets will have changed. and you have to either know the ratios off-hand, or create a spreadsheet that tracks the ratios and then auto-calculates what´s profitable and what isn´t based on the current market values you enter.
My alchemist produces the lion´s share of my day to day income, but it took me roughly 2 weeks abd probably about 500k gold optimizing my excel spreadsheet for thauma until I had enough data to know the ratios I had deduced were pretty much spot on, and I only sell flasks and potions close to primetime on wednesdays and on the weekend.
The patron orders that are actually profitable can all be done with R1 mats and sometimes an extra 2-300 concentration points if it’s an R3 craft with an augment rune.
Also, remember that your artisans acuity can be traded in for materials which can then also be sold… so just because the craft itself is an average of 3-10g /loss doesn´t necessarily mean it´s a bust, depending on how much acuity it rewards.
Blindly crafting everything is however almost always a guaranteed loss, no matter what profession. But Smiths and engineers have it especially bad IME ( I honestly want to put Vokgret and Millhouse Manastorm on ignore on my blacksmiths, effing cheapskates…)
And yes, 1 month away from the end of the first season, when everyone else is either maxed out or filling in their last skillpoints, and half of the customers are taking a break, is not an ideal time to earn money with any profession… there is still some money to be made, esp recrafting the last pieces of gear for people, but new crafts are mostly dried up because people had their BiS items crafted 4 months ago.
