Minecraft Enchantment Calculator

How an anvil prices a merge

Every anvil combine in Minecraft has two separate charges, and the second one is what ruins most enchanting runs.

The first charge is the enchantment cost. Each enchantment has a multiplier, and the book you sacrifice costs its level multiplied by that number. Sharpness has a multiplier of 1, so Sharpness V costs 5 levels. Silk Touch has a multiplier of 4, so Silk Touch I costs 4 levels on its own.

The second charge is the prior work penalty. Every item remembers how many times it has been through an anvil. If an item has been worked w times, it adds 2^w − 1 levels to the next merge — and both the item and the sacrifice pay it. Two items that have each been worked twice add 3 + 3 = 6 levels before the enchantment itself is even counted.

That penalty doubles with every merge, which is why the same set of books can be cheap or impossible depending on nothing but the order you combine them in.

The exact formulas behind both charges are documented in the Minecraft Wiki's anvil mechanics article.

Why the order changes the price

Merging books into your item one at a time is the most expensive thing you can do. The item goes back on the anvil for every single book, so its prior work penalty doubles again and again: 0, 1, 3, 7, 15, 31 levels of pure overhead before any enchantment is paid for.

The cheap approach is a balanced tree. You merge books with each other first, pair off the results, and touch the actual item as few times as possible. Both sides stay at a low work count, so the doubling never gets a chance to run away.

Getting that tree right by hand is guesswork, because the best shape depends on which enchantments you picked and how expensive each one is. The enchantment calculator searches the merge orders exhaustively and returns the cheapest one it can prove.

Least XP or least prior work?

The enchantment calculator offers two targets, and they answer different questions.

Least experience minimises the levels you spend right now. Use it when you are finishing an item and will never touch it again.

Least prior work penalty minimises how “used” the finished item is. It may cost a little more today, but it leaves room to add another enchantment or repair the item later without immediately hitting Too Expensive. Use it for gear you intend to keep repairing — a Mending pickaxe you plan to keep for hundreds of hours is worth a few extra levels now.

Using the enchantment calculator

1. Choose the item you are enchanting. The enchantment list filters itself to what that item can actually take.
2. Click a level for each enchantment you want. Conflicting enchantments grey out automatically — tick allow incompatible if you are on a modded or custom server where those rules differ.
3. Pick whether you want the least experience or the least prior work penalty.
4. Press calculate. You get the total cost and a numbered list of merges to perform in order.

Follow the steps exactly as printed. Swapping the left and right slots of a merge changes the price, so the order within each step matters as much as the order of the steps.

Large selections take longer because the number of possible orders grows very quickly. Seven or more enchantments can take a few seconds, and noticeably longer on a phone.

Common questions