Minecraft Enchantment Calculator FAQ

What is an anvil actually charging me for?

A single merge adds up three things, and the total is what gets compared against the level cap.

1. The enchantment cost — each enchantment moving onto your item, priced by its level and its multiplier.
2. The prior work penalty — a surcharge for how many times the two items have already been through an anvil.
3. A rename, if you type a new name, which adds one level.

Only the first depends on which enchantments you picked. The second depends entirely on the order you work in, which is why two players enchanting identical gear can pay very different totals. The calculator solves for that second charge, because it is the only one you control.

How do I work out what one enchanted book costs?

Multiply the enchantment's level by its multiplier. 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 despite being a single level.

Every enchantment in the data sits on a book multiplier of 1, 2 or 4. The eight on 4 are Channeling, Infinity, Silk Touch, Soul Speed, Swift Sneak, Thorns, Curse of Binding and Curse of Vanishing — which makes 12 levels the priciest single book you can merge, from Soul Speed III, Swift Sneak III or Thorns III. Every multiplier is listed in the enchantment reference table.

Why is a book cheaper than combining two enchanted items?

Because most enchantments carry two multipliers: one for arriving from an item, and a lower one for arriving from a book. Thorns costs 8 per level off an item but 4 off a book, and Silk Touch is the same.

Combining books onto your gear is therefore almost always cheaper, and it is the route the enchantment calculator plans. The multipliers shown throughout this site are the book figures.

What happens if both items have the same enchantment at the same level?

The level goes up by one, provided it is not already at maximum. Two Sharpness III books make Sharpness IV. Two Sharpness V books make nothing better, and you have paid for the merge anyway.

If the levels differ, the higher one wins and the lower is absorbed. This is why four Sharpness I books do not build Sharpness V — you reach III and the arithmetic runs out.

Does renaming an item make it more expensive later?

No, and this one is widely misremembered. Renaming costs one level at the time, but renaming on its own does not add to the prior work penalty. You can name an item without making its future merges dearer.

What does raise the penalty is any merge or material repair. Renaming during the same operation as a merge raises it because of the merge, not the name.

What is the prior work penalty?

Every item quietly records how many times it has been through an anvil. If that count is c, the item adds 2^c − 1 levels to its next operation: 0, 1, 3, 7, 15, 31 — doubling every time. The first few merges barely feel it. The sixth is fatal.

Why does the penalty get counted twice?

Because both sides of the anvil bring their own. Two items that have each been worked three times add 7 + 7 = 14 levels before a single enchantment is paid for. That doubling on both sides is the entire reason merge order matters, and the reason a plan that keeps both sides fresh pays almost nothing here.

How many times can one item go through an anvil?

Five, realistically. At a work count of 6 the penalty alone is 2^6 − 1 = 63 levels, past the 39-level ceiling before anything else is added. In practice you hit the wall earlier, because the other item brings a penalty too and the enchantments still have to be paid for. The calculator never returns a plan with a step past that ceiling.

Can I reset the prior work penalty?

Yes — a grindstone clears it. Running an item through one strips its enchantments and returns the result with no prior work penalty at all, plus some experience back.

The catch is obvious: you lose the enchantments you were keeping. A grindstone is a way to start over on a piece of gear, not a way to make a finished item cheaper to extend. It cannot remove curses, and it does not remove a custom name.

Why does my anvil say Too Expensive?

Because that single operation would cost 40 levels or more. The anvil allows a maximum of 39 levels for one merge in Survival and Adventure mode, and refuses anything above it.

The cause is nearly always the prior work penalty rather than the enchantment you are adding. A Mending book costs 2 levels; an item that has been through five merges brings 31 levels of penalty on its own. Reordering the merges is usually enough to clear it, which is what the enchantment calculator is for.

Does creative mode ignore the cap?

Yes. The 39-level limit applies in Survival and Adventure mode only. In Creative the anvil performs operations survival players cannot. The calculator plans for survival, so nothing it returns depends on that.

Does the order really change the total?

Yes, often by a wide margin. The enchantments cost the same whatever you do, but the penalty component depends entirely on how many times each side has been worked.

Merging books into your item one at a time is the worst case: the item goes back on the anvil for every book, paying 0, then 1, then 3, then 7, then 15, then 31 levels of pure overhead. That is 57 wasted levels across six books, before any enchantment is counted. Removing that gap is the whole job of the calculator.

What is the cheapest enchantment order strategy?

A balanced tree. Merge books with each other first, pair off the results, and put the finished bundle onto the item in as few touches as possible. Both sides stay at a low work count, so the doubling never gets going.

The exact best shape depends on which enchantments you picked, because an expensive book is better merged late and a cheap one early. That is the part worth handing to the enchantment calculator — it searches the orderings and returns one it can prove is cheapest.

Should I optimise for least experience or least prior work?

Both are offered as targets. Least experience minimises what you spend today — use it for an item you are finishing and will not touch again.

Least prior work minimises how used the finished item is. It can cost a little more now, but it leaves headroom to add an enchantment or repair the item later without hitting the wall. For a Mending tool you intend to keep for hundreds of hours, that headroom is usually worth a few levels.

Why does the result show a range of experience points?

Because levels are not a fixed amount of experience. Each level costs more raw XP than the one before it: 2L + 7 up to level 15, 5L − 38 from 16 to 30, and 9L − 158 from 31 up.

So 30 levels is 1,395 XP from zero, but spending 30 levels at level 50 costs far more. The range the enchantment calculator prints covers the cheapest and dearest starting points.

Should I use an enchanting table or an anvil?

Both, in that order. A table is the cheap way to get enchantments into the world at all, and for a single enchantment on a single item it is usually all you need.

An anvil is what you use when you want several specific enchantments on one item, because a table gives you what it rolls rather than what you asked for. Roll books at a table or trade for them, then combine those books onto your gear at an anvil — the job the enchantment calculator plans for you.

How do I get level 30 enchantments?

Place 15 bookshelves around the enchanting table. That is the number required to reach maximum enchanting power, and level 30 is the highest a table offers.

The shelves need one block of air between them and the table. Almost anything placed in that gap — including a torch — breaks the connection and drops your available levels.

What do the three enchanting slots cost?

The big number beside each slot is the level you must have, not the amount you pay. What you actually spend is 1, 2 or 3 levels going down the slots, plus the matching 1, 2 or 3 lapis lazuli.

This is why the bottom slot at a full 15-bookshelf setup is such good value: you need level 30 to use it, but it only takes 3 levels and 3 lapis off you.

Does this follow Java or Bedrock Edition?

The cost model follows Java Edition, and for merge planning the two agree: the same prior work penalty curve and the same 39-level cap, so the recommended order is normally identical on both.

What differs is which enchantments exist. Sweeping Edge is Java-only. Mending and Infinity are mutually exclusive on both editions now, though Bedrock adopted that rule later. Check that the enchantments you picked exist on the edition and version you play.

Which enchantments does the enchantment calculator support?

43 enchantments across 25 item types, including the newer ones: Density, Breach and Wind Burst for the mace, and Lunge for the spear. Nine have a single level only, and 20 conflict with at least one other. The spear takes 10 enchantments and the mace 9.

The full list, with maximum levels, multipliers and conflicts, is in the enchantment reference table.

Where does the data come from and how current is it?

The enchantment list, level caps, multipliers and conflict rules are not maintained here. They are copied from the open-source iamcal/enchant-order project, and so is the solver behind the enchantment calculator.

The exact upstream commit and its date are printed in the footer of every page, so the freshness claim is checkable rather than asserted. New enchantments arrive here on the next sync, and the calculator picks them up automatically.