Crafting Guide: Every Workbench and Best Crafting Pals

Crafting in Palworld runs on three things — the bench you built, the recipe you unlocked, and the Handiwork Pal you parked in front of it. This guide covers all 17 crafting benches with their unlock levels and build costs, the three ways recipes actually enter your menu, the workload every craft costs, and which Pals clear a queue fastest.

How Crafting Works

Every craft is a pile of workload, not a timer. A recipe carries a fixed workload number, and either you hold the interact button to grind it down yourself or a Pal with the Handiwork suitability chips away at it while you are off doing something else. That is why the queue keeps moving after you walk away from base, and why a bad crafting roster is felt as hours of waiting rather than a failed craft. There are 1,394 items in the game with a recipe attached, which drops to 768 once you strip out the rarity re-rolls of the same gear.

What	Detail
Bench requirement	Handiwork Lv. 1 — all 23 structures that use the job. Rank never locks you out, it only sets the speed
Pals with Handiwork	109 of 288
Handiwork ceiling	8 — held by one Pal, Solenne
Base Work Speed	100 on every one of the 288 Pals, so rank and passives are the entire story
Craftable items	1,394 recipes, 768 of them distinct gear and goods
Schematic items	591 — the rarity versions of weapons, armor and hats
Cheapest craft	Pal Sphere — 300 workload for 1 Paldium Fragment, and nothing in the game is cheaper
Heaviest craft	Beam Launcher at 3,500,000 workload — and 32 times that at Schematic 4
Player-only bench	None — but the Ancient Workbench is Pal-only and you cannot craft at it yourself

Every Crafting Bench and What It Makes

Seventeen benches take Handiwork Pals, and they split into four ladders that upgrade in parallel: general production, weapons, spheres, and the two one-offs. Nothing is retroactive — building the Advanced Workshop does not make your old recipes cheaper, it just unlocks the next set. Watch the power column too: everything up to Lv. 20 runs on nothing, then the Assembly Lines want 200, their II versions 400, the advanced tier 1,000 and the Ancient Workbench a full 2,000, so your first generator has to land before your first Assembly Line or the whole row sits dark.

Bench	Tech Lv.	Build materials	Power	What it makes
Primitive Workbench	Start	2 Wood	—	Tools, Arrow batches, Cloth Outfit, your first Pal Sphere
Repair Bench	2	10 Wood, 10 Stone	—	Repairs broken tools and weapons for materials
Pal Gear Workbench	6	10 Paldium Fragment, 30 Wood, 2 Cloth	—	Saddles, harnesses and all 140 Pal Gear items
High-Quality Workbench	11	8 Ingot, 20 Wood, 10 Nail	—	Pelt Armor, Metal Armor, Crossbow, pendants and whistles
Sphere Workbench	14	10 Paldium Fragment, 30 Wood, 10 Nail, 20 Ingot	—	Capture spheres above the basic tier, unlocked alongside Mega Sphere
Weapon Workbench	20	15 Ingot, 10 Wooden Board, 10 Nail	—	Makeshift Handgun, Handgun, Handgun Ammo
Sphere Assembly Line	27	30 Paldium Fragment, 5 Wooden Board, 100 Ingot, 20 Nail	200	The same spheres, faster and in bulk
Production Assembly Line	29	100 Ingot, 5 Wooden Board, 20 Nail, 10 Cement	200	Refined Metal Armor, accessories, Pal talismans
Weapon Assembly Line	32	100 Ingot, 20 Wooden Board, 20 Nail, 10 High Quality Pal Oil	200	Single-Shot Rifle, Assault Rifle, Pump-Action Shotgun
Sphere Assembly Line II	35	100 Refined Ingot, 10 Circuit Board, 30 Nail, 50 Paldium Fragment	400	The high-tier spheres — Ultra Sphere shares its Lv. 35 row
Production Assembly Line II	42	100 Refined Ingot, 10 Circuit Board, 30 Cement, 5 Corrosive Solvent	400	Pal Metal Armor, Plasteel Armor, Hexolite Armor, Computer
Drafting Table	45	20 Refined Ingot, 10 High Quality Wooden Board, 30 Charcoal	—	Combines schematics into higher-rarity ones
Weapon Assembly Line II	47	100 Refined Ingot, 10 Circuit Board, 5 Corrosive Solvent, 5 Bio Battery	400	Gatling Gun, Rocket Launcher, Katana
Advanced Sphere Assembly Line	58	50 Hexolite, 50 Plasteel, 10 Computer, 10 Bio Battery	1,000	Top-tier sphere output, up to the Ultimate Sphere
Advanced Workshop	62	50 Coralum Ingot, 50 Hexolite, 30 Computer, 20 Bio Battery	1,000	AI Core — nothing else in the game makes it
Advanced Weapon Assembly Line	63	50 Coralum Ingot, 10 Thermal Core, 30 Corrosive Solvent	1,000	Charge Rifle, Energy Shotgun and their ammo
Ancient Workbench	67	50 Soralite Ingot, 5 AI Core, 20 Bio Battery	2,000	Beam Launcher, Ancient Armor, every ancient weapon

The General Bench Ladder

Primitive Workbench to High-Quality Workbench to Production Assembly Line to Assembly Line II to Advanced Workshop is the spine of your base, and the two upgrades worth rushing are the ones at Lv. 11 and Lv. 29. The High-Quality Workbench costs 8 Ingot and unlocks the armor tier that carries you out of the starting area; the Production Assembly Line is where Refined Metal Armor and the accessory list live. The Advanced Workshop at the top is not a general upgrade at all — it exists to make AI Core, which every endgame craft is built around, and its 1,000 power draw means it needs a real generator behind it.

Weapon and Sphere Lines Are Separate Buildings

Guns will not appear in the general workbench menu no matter how far you push the technology tree — the weapon ladder is its own four buildings, and spheres are another three. The Handgun Ammo recipe alone justifies the Lv. 20 Weapon Workbench: 40,000 workload for 20 rounds off 1 Ingot and 1 Gunpowder, and you will be running that queue permanently. On the sphere side, Lv. 35 is the real breakpoint: the Sphere Assembly Line II and the Ultra Sphere unlock on the same row, and at 20,000 workload a throw you want the faster line running them.

The Ancient Workbench Catch

The Lv. 67 Ancient Workbench can craft any item in the game from one place, which sounds like it retires everything below it. Two things stop that: you cannot use it yourself, only Pals can work it, and it runs at the same speed as an ordinary bench, so it is a convenience building rather than a throughput upgrade. Pair it with a rank 6 or better Handiwork Pal and keep your Assembly Line II standing for anything you want to hand-craft on the spot.

How to Unlock New Recipes

Nothing is craftable until the recipe is in your menu, and recipes arrive by exactly three routes: technology points, schematics you loot or buy, and schematic fusion at the Drafting Table. The technology tree is the bulk of it, schematics are how the good versions of gear arrive, and the Drafting Table is how you turn a pile of junk schematics into one that matters.

The Technology Tree

The Palworld technology tree holds 588 entries and 1,598 points' worth of unlocks, spread from Lv. 1 to the final Lv. 80 row — you will never buy all of it in one save, so order matters more than total. 51 of those entries are ancient technology costing 185 ancient points, which come from bosses rather than levelling, so they never compete with your ordinary unlocks. The expensive mistake is skipping the bench that gates a whole tier, like the Lv. 29 Production Assembly Line — you can level past it and then find half your armor list greyed out.

Unlock	Tech Lv.	Points	Why it matters
Stone Pickaxe	1	1	No ore comes out of the ground without it
Pal Sphere	2	1	The whole game loop, at 300 workload a throw
Arrow	3	1	1,000 workload for a batch of 10 — the early-game ammo economy
Nail	10	1	5 per craft off 1 Ingot; gates every mid-tier bench build
Giga Sphere	20	3	2,500 workload, the last sphere before the Assembly Line tier
Cement	19	1	30,000 workload per batch of 10 and the Assembly Line needs 10
Refined Metal Armor	37	3	50,000 workload; the armor that survives the Lv. 40 bosses
Assault Rifle	45	4	100,000 workload, the standard endgame gun chassis
Ancient Armor	68	5	500,000 workload off 30 Soralite Ingot and 3 AI Core

Schematics from Chests, Bosses and Supply Drops

Every weapon and armor piece has five versions, and the technology tree only ever gives you the common one. The other four arrive as schematics — 591 of them exist — and each step up costs materials plus a savage workload increase. Schematic 1 is four times the base workload, and it doubles from there, so a Schematic 4 weapon is 32 times the craft of the common version: Katana goes from 100,000 to 3,200,000, and Pal Metal Armor from 150,000 to 4,800,000. Every Schematic 4 recipe also demands Ancient Civilization Parts on top. Drop rates are brutal, so treat the oil rigs as the reliable farm and everything else as a bonus.

Schematic	Best source	Odds	Other sources
Assault Rifle Schematic 4	Crates on the oil rigs	1.81%	0.10% Mount Obsidian supply drop, 0.08% Mount Obsidian chests
Pump-Action Shotgun Schematic 4	Crates on the oil rigs	1.81%	0.10% Desert supply drop, 0.09% Desert chests
Single-Shot Rifle Schematic 4	Crates on the oil rigs	1.78%	0.04% Forest supply drop, 0.06% Mount Obsidian camp boss stashes
Charge Rifle Schematic 4	Arena Shop — 1,500 Battle Tickets	Guaranteed	0.72% Sakurajima sea camp boss stashes, 0.60% tier 5 treasure map digs

Merchants Sell Recipes, Just Not the Ones You Want

The wandering merchant stock is mostly cosmetic: the Village, Desert and Volcano shops carry 22 hat schematics between them at a flat 500 Gold each, and not one combat piece. Real weapon schematics sit behind the two token currencies instead — the Arena Shop trades 10 of them for Battle Tickets, and the Medal Shop has the two Lily's Spear recipes for Dog Coins. Capture a merchant and park them at your base if you want permanent access, since the roaming ones do not stay put.

Fusing Schematics at the Drafting Table

The Drafting Table unlocks at Lv. 45 for 4 points and costs 20 Refined Ingot, 10 High Quality Wooden Board and 30 Charcoal — cheap for what it does, which is combine duplicate schematics into a higher-rarity one. It turns the pile of Schematic 1 and 2 junk the oil rigs bury you in into the version you actually want to craft, and it is the only route to a Schematic 4 that does not depend on a sub-2% roll. Build it the moment you hit Lv. 45.

Best Crafting Pals

Because every bench in the game only asks for Handiwork Lv. 1, rank is pure speed — a rank 6 Pal is not unlocking anything a rank 2 cannot build, it just finishes first. Solenne is the only Pal in the game at rank 8 and Selyne the only one at 7, but neither is realistic early. Anubis is the pick most players should chase: rank 6 Handiwork with Mining 6 and Transporting 4 on the same body, so one slot covers the bench, the ore node and the haul back to the chest. If you want the full 109-Pal ranking with spawn counts and food costs, the best Pals for Handiwork guide has it.

Pal	Handiwork	Other jobs	Why it works
Solenne	8	Gathering 4, Transporting 2	The only rank 8 in the game — nothing empties a queue faster
Selyne	7	Medicine Production 6, Transporting 3	Sole rank 7, and the Medicine 6 covers your potion bench too
Anubis	6	Mining 6, Transporting 4	The best all-rounder — bench, ore and hauling in one slot
Renjishi	6	Kindling 8, Gathering 5, Transporting 5	Rank 8 Kindling on the side, so it doubles as your furnace Pal
Silvance	6	Medicine Production 8, Planting 6, Gathering 4	Four jobs at rank 4 or better — the densest work sheet here
Dandilord	6	Planting 8, Medicine Production 6, Gathering 5	Rank 8 Planting makes it a farm and bench Pal at once
Flaracle	6	Kindling 7, Transporting 2	Fire Pal that heats the furnace between crafting jobs
Venusa	6	Gathering 6, Medicine Production 5, Transporting 2	Rank 6 in two jobs on a common body
Splatterina	6	Medicine Production 5, Lumbering 3, Transporting 2	Rarity 4, and three jobs beside the bench
Wistella	6	Medicine Production 6, Transporting 1	Rarity 2 — the cheapest rank 6 crafter in the game, so field several
Lapure	6	Gathering 5	Common rank 6 with no wasted suitabilities
Sekhmet	6	Mining 3, Transporting 2	Anubis's cheaper stand-in until you catch the real thing
Bellanoir Libero	6	Medicine Production 7, Transporting 4	Raid boss reward — rank 6 crafting with rank 7 medicine attached

Work Speed Passives That Matter

Every Pal in the game starts at 100 Work Speed, so passives are where crafting throughput is actually won or lost. Stack the four best positives across a Pal's four slots and you are looking at +245% Work Speed, which turns a rank 4 body into something quicker than a bare rank 6. The negatives are just as loud in the other direction — Slacker alone eats 30% of a Pal's output, and Musclehead halves it. Check the passives before you commit a Pal to a bench; the best passives for base Pals guide covers the breeding side.

What to Craft at Each Stage

Workload is the number to plan around, because it decides how long a Pal is tied up rather than how expensive the materials look. The early game is trivially cheap — a Stone Pickaxe is 500 workload and an Arrow batch of 10 is 1,000 — and then it explodes: Gatling Gun is 800,000 and Hexolite Armor a flat million. The jump from Metal Armor at 20,000 to Pal Metal Armor at 150,000 is where most players first feel the need for a proper crafting roster instead of one Pal.

Stage	Craft first	Tech Lv.	Workload	Materials
Early	Stone Pickaxe	1	500	5 Stone, 5 Wood
Early	Pal Sphere	2	300	1 Paldium Fragment
Early	Cloth Outfit	4	2,000	2 Cloth, 7 Fiber
Early	Common Shield	4	3,000	10 Paldium Fragment, 20 Wood, 20 Stone, 10 Fiber
Mid	Crossbow	13	15,000	50 Wood, 40 Stone, 10 Ingot, 2 Nail
Mid	Metal Armor	23	20,000	30 Ingot, 10 Leather, 5 Cloth
Mid	Makeshift Handgun	24	40,000	35 Ingot, 10 High Quality Pal Oil, 30 Fiber
Mid	Ultra Sphere	35	20,000	5 Paldium Fragment, 3 Refined Ingot, 10 Wood, 10 Stone
Late	Refined Metal Armor	37	50,000	30 Refined Ingot, 15 Leather, 1 High Quality Cloth
Late	Assault Rifle	45	100,000	40 Refined Ingot, 10 Polymer, 10 Carbon Fiber
Late	Pal Metal Armor	46	150,000	20 Pal Metal Ingot, 20 Leather, 2 High Quality Cloth
End	Gatling Gun	54	800,000	150 Pal Metal Ingot, 70 Plasteel, 70 Carbon Fiber
End	Hexolite Armor	59	1,000,000	50 Hexolite, 20 Plasteel, 10 High Quality Cloth
End	Ancient Armor	68	500,000	30 Soralite Ingot, 3 AI Core
End	Beam Launcher	80	3,500,000	100 Paloxite Ingot, 50 Bio Battery, 10 AI Core, 10 Ancient Civilization Core

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