XP levels and total experience: the three formulas and what a death costs
Levels are not linear — level 30 is 1,395 XP but level 60 is 6,720. Here are the piecewise formulas, what you keep on death, and the cheapest level for enchanting.
The XP bar hides that each level costs more than the last, in three different rates.
The three formulas
Total experience needed to reach level L:
| Range | Total XP |
|---|---|
| 0–16 | L² + 6L |
| 17–31 | 2.5L² − 40.5L + 360 |
| 32+ | 4.5L² − 162.5L + 2220 |
Which gives the numbers people actually care about:
| Level | Total XP | XP for that level alone |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | 315 | 37 |
| 30 | 1,395 | 112 |
| 39 | 2,727 | 149 |
| 50 | 5,345 | 202 |
| 60 | 6,720 | 247 |
Level 30 to 60 costs almost four times what 0 to 30 did. That is why "I'll just get to 100" is a much bigger commitment than the bar suggests.
What a death costs
You drop min(7 × level, 100) experience points as orbs, and lose everything else.
The cap matters: above level 15 you always drop exactly 100 XP, no matter how high you were. A level 80 player loses 6,720-ish XP and drops 100 — the rest just evaporates.
Collecting your own orbs back is worth doing but recovers a fraction of a high level.
Level 30 is not the best enchant
The enchanting table offers its strongest enchantments at level 30, and that is where the folklore stops. Two corrections:
- The table consumes 1–3 levels, not 30. It requires you to be level 30; the cost
taken is the slot number. Enchanting at 30 repeatedly is cheap.
- Lapis is the other cost — 1 to 3, matching the slot.
So the routine is: reach 30, use the third slot, re-earn a few levels, repeat. Grinding to 50 for a "better" enchant does nothing — 30 is the ceiling for table output.
Anvil costs are levels, not XP
The anvil charges in levels, which is why the same repair costs vastly different amounts of raw XP at level 5 versus level 40. The 40-level Too Expensive! wall is a level check, not an XP check.
Combining at a low level is therefore genuinely cheaper in absolute experience. If you are about to do several expensive anvil operations, doing them at level 30 rather than 60 costs less total XP for the same result.
Sources worth knowing
| Source | XP |
|---|---|
| Smelting one item | 0.1 – 1.0 depending on the recipe |
| Ore block mined | 0 – 8, coal and diamond highest |
| Most hostile mobs | 5 |
| Breeding | 1 – 7 |
| Fishing | 1 – 6 |
| Bottle o' Enchanting | 3 – 11 |
Convert levels to total XP either direction, and work out what a given level costs, in Reference & Calculators — Set 1.