What next?
Levels buy enchantments. These are what you spend them on.
What your result means
Minecraft shows you a level, but it stores experience as points. The headline figure is the point total that matters for what you are doing: the cost of reaching a level from nothing, the level a pile of points buys, or the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Average mobs to kill assumes 5 points per common hostile mob, the usual drop for zombies, skeletons and creepers, which turns an abstract number into something you can plan a grinding session around. If that session means a blaze or wither-skeleton farm, the Nether portal calculator lines up both ends of the tunnel first.
Why this one is different
Levels are converted into the two things you actually have to do: how many mobs to kill on average, and how many bottles o' enchanting the same total would take. Two intermediate levels are shown with their point values, so a partly filled bar can be read off without starting the sum again.
Enchanting stops paying above level 30
An enchanting table caps its power at level 30, so the best enchantments are available the moment you hit it. Reaching level 30 costs 1,395 points; reaching level 50 costs 5,345 — nearly four times as much for no better enchantments.
That is why experienced players sit at 30, enchant, and let the bar refill rather than banking levels. The exception is anvil work, where repair costs rise with each use and a deeper reserve of levels is genuinely useful.
How it works
Experience is stored as a running point total, and the level you see is worked out from it using three formulas: one for levels up to 15, one from 16 to 30, and one from 31 up. Each band charges more per level than the last, which is why the bar fills quickly at the start of a world and crawls later on. This calculator uses the same equations the game does, so the numbers match your XP bar rather than approximating it.
How to use this calculator
- Pick what you know: a level, a point total, or two levels you want the gap between.
- Type the number. The result updates as you go.
- Use points between two levels to plan a session — enter where you are and where you want to be.
- Read the mob count for a rough idea of how long that will take at a spawner or farm.
- Copy or share the result if you are planning with someone else on the server.
Formula
L ≤ 15: L² + 6L
16 ≤ L ≤ 30: 2.5L² − 40.5L + 360
L ≥ 31: 4.5L² − 162.5L + 2220
L is the experience level. The cost of the single next level is 2L + 7 below level 16, 5L − 38 from 16 to 30 and 9L − 158 from 31 upwards — summing those step costs reproduces the totals above exactly. Going the other way, from points to a level, means finding the highest L whose total is still within your points; the leftover is the progress showing on your XP bar.
Example calculation
You are at level 27 and want to enchant at level 30:
Points at level 30 = 2.5(900) − 40.5(30) + 360 = 1,395
Gap = 1,395 − 1,089 = 306 points
Mobs at 5 points each ≈ 62
Bottles o’ enchanting at 7 points each ≈ 44
Set the mode to points between two levels with 27 and 30 and you will see 306. For comparison, the three levels from 47 to 50 cost 822 points — nearly three times as much for the same three levels.
Frequently asked questions
How much XP is level 30?＋
Reaching level 30 — the maximum useful level for enchanting — takes 1,395 experience points from scratch. Level 30 itself is only 112 points wide, but the levels below it add up.
Why do levels get so much more expensive after 30?＋
Minecraft uses three different formulas. Below level 16 each level costs 2 × level + 7 points, from 16 to 30 it is 5 × level − 38, and from 31 upwards it jumps to 9 × level − 158. That third band is why the climb from 30 to 50 costs nearly three times as much as getting to 30 in the first place.
Does dying lose all my experience?＋
You drop experience worth up to 7 points per level, capped at 100 points, and the rest is lost. In practice a high-level player keeps very little after death, which is why many players spend levels on enchanting or anvil repairs before doing anything risky.
What is the best way to farm XP?＋
Mob farms and mining ores such as diamond, redstone and lapis are the reliable sources. Smelting and breeding also give small amounts, and bottles o' enchanting are the fastest option if you have emeralds to trade.
Why does the anvil say too expensive?＋
Every anvil use adds a prior work penalty to the item, and once the combined cost exceeds 39 levels the anvil refuses in survival. Combining books together before applying them to the tool keeps the cost down.
How many levels do I need for a good enchantment?＋
Level 30 is the threshold for the best enchanting table offers, which is why most players build to 30 and then re-roll with a bookshelf setup rather than spending levels below that.
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Assumptions & limitations
Every figure here comes from a simplified model. Keep these limits in mind when reading your result:
- The formulas are the Java Edition values. Bedrock matches them closely but is not guaranteed to be identical in every version.
- Mob counts assume 5 points per common hostile mob. Blazes give about 10, ender dragons thousands, and passive animals far less.
- Bottle counts use 7 points per bottle o’ enchanting, the middle of its 3–11 range, so treat it as an estimate.
- Anvil and enchanting-table costs are not modelled — those charge levels, not points, and rise with prior work on the item.
- Experience lost on death is capped, so the totals here describe earning experience, not recovering it.