# How to Catch and Sell Humans: Prices and Best Targets

Every human in Palworld can be caught, at a tenth of a Pal's odds. Here's the catch rating, the easiest targets, what each human sells for, the four you can't catch at all, and the kill drops worth more than the sale.

Source: https://palworld-db.com/guides/how-to-catch-and-sell-humans
Updated: 2026-08-24

Humans work exactly like Pals in a Pal Sphere — knock the HP down, throw, and a Syndicate Thug or a village shopkeeper goes in your party the same way a [Lamball](https://palworld-db.com/pal/lamball) would. This guide covers the catch rating that makes it ten times harder than it looks, which humans are the easy targets, what all 412 of them are worth when you sell, the four you physically cannot catch, and the one human whose corpse pays better than any sale.

## Human Catch Rate and Base Stats

Every human in the game shares one profile. There are 129 named human roles spread across 412 entries, and apart from HP and gold value they are near-identical: rarity 1, no element, no gender, no partner skill, and a catch rating of 0.1. That last number is the whole story. An ordinary Pal sits at 1.0 and the stingiest Pal in the game, [Mimog](https://palworld-db.com/pal/mimog), sits at 0.8 — a human hands you a tenth of the odds you would get on a Pal in the same shape, at the same level, with the same sphere.

| Field | Value | What it means for you |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Catch rating | 0.1 | One tenth of a normal Pal's odds — the single reason this is slow |
| Rarity | 1 | All 412 entries, no exceptions — rarity never raises the difficulty here |
| Element | None | No type advantage in either direction; damage type does not matter |
| HP | 20 to 100 | 20 on villagers, 50 on thugs and shopkeepers, 100 on guards and PIDF |
| Gender | None | Humans cannot breed, with each other or with Pals |
| Partner skill | None | Nothing to trigger in the party or at the base |
| Work suitability | Handiwork on every single one | Most also carry Lumbering and Mining at Lv 1 |
| Palpedia entry | None | Catching humans is not part of any completion count |
| Gold value | 1,000 to 10,000 | Five flat price tiers — see the sell table below |

The two rows worth staring at are gender and partner skill. No gender means no [breeding](https://palworld-db.com/breeding) — a caught human is a dead end, not a project. No partner skill means the thing you keep it for has to be the human itself, not a bonus it grants, and that narrows the shortlist to the merchants.

## How to Catch a Human

Nothing about the throw is different — the same modifiers that stack on a Pal capture stack on a human, they just start from a much worse base. Remaining HP is still the biggest lever by a mile, worth roughly a nine-fold swing between a full bar and a sliver, so the order is always fight first, throw last. Back throws are the free 1.5x nobody uses often enough: break line of sight, circle round, and throw at a human that has stopped tracking you.

| Factor | Effect | How to use it on a human |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Remaining HP | ~9x swing from full to near-zero | The one thing worth doing every time — get them to a sliver before the first throw |
| Sphere tier | 7 to 43 capture power | Bring the best you can craft; at 0.1 the sphere tier is doing real work |
| Back throw | ~1.5x | Leave the fight, let them drop aggro, come back and throw at their back |
| Lifmunk Effigy rank | +0.5 capture power per rank | Permanent for the save and it compounds with everything else |
| Sphere modules | +1 to +3 capture power | [All 6 sphere modules](https://palworld-db.com/guides/all-sphere-modules), from Heavy at Tech 19 up to Homing |
| Partner skill in party | +1 to +5 capture power | [Wispaw](https://palworld-db.com/pal/wispaw) on sneak throws, [Muffly](https://palworld-db.com/pal/muffly) on frozen targets, [Souffline](https://palworld-db.com/pal/souffline) on tangled ones |
| World setting | Casual 2x, Normal 1x, Hard 0.8x | Set at world creation and it multiplies the 0.1 straight through |

Do the arithmetic before you commit a stack. A human on Normal difficulty with a full HP bar and a basic [Pal Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere) is close to hopeless; the same human at a sliver of HP, hit from behind with an [Ultimate Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Ultimate) and a maxed effigy rank, is a routine catch. Run the exact percentage on the [capture chance calculator](https://palworld-db.com/capture) before you decide whether the target is worth the spheres.

### Bring the Best Sphere You Can Craft

Capture power runs 7 to 43 across the seven craftable tiers, so upgrading your sphere is a straight six-fold multiplier on a fight you were going to win anyway. The early jumps are the cheapest ones — Pal Sphere to Mega doubles your power for one extra Ingot per sphere. Craft them rather than buy them: an Ultimate Sphere costs 12,560 gold at a merchant, which is nearly three times what the most valuable human on the map sells for.

| Sphere | Tech Lv | Capture power |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Pal Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere) | 2 | 7 |
| [Mega Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Mega) | 14 | 14 |
| [Giga Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Giga) | 20 | 20 |
| [Hyper Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Tera) | 27 | 26 |
| [Ultra Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Master) | 35 | 32 |
| [Legendary Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Legend) | 44 | 37 |
| [Ultimate Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Ultimate) | 51 | 43 |

### Fire and Poison Arrows Do the Chip Damage for You

The hard part of a human capture is getting the bar low without overshooting and killing them, and that is exactly what a status effect is for. [Poison Arrows](https://palworld-db.com/item/Arrow_Poison) and [Fire Arrows](https://palworld-db.com/item/Arrow_Fire) tick the HP down in small predictable steps from range, which beats swinging a weapon that might one-shot a 20 HP villager. Both are early crafts and both fire from the same crossbow family, so a stack of each in your bag costs almost nothing.

### Syndicate Thugs Are the Cheapest Practice

If you just want a human in a sphere, take a [Syndicate Thug](https://palworld-db.com/guides/syndicate-thugs). They sit at 50 HP and 50 Defense, the lowest combat floor of any armed human, they spawn at the 48 marked camps pinned on [our map's camp layer](https://palworld-db.com/map?layers=camp), and — the part that actually matters — they are flagged as criminals, so nothing you do to them raises your bounty. Every other easy target on the island is a civilian, and civilians cost you money.

## Easiest Humans to Catch

Since the catch rating is flat at 0.1 across almost the whole roster, "easiest" comes down to two things: how little HP you have to chew through, and whether hitting them makes you Wanted. Villagers are the softest bodies in the game at 20 HP, but they are non-criminals — the Syndicate roster is the one that gives you low HP and legal impunity in the same package.

| Human | HP | Gold value | Why it's an easy target |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Syndicate Thug | 50 | 1,000–3,000 | Criminal, so zero bounty; lowest stats of any armed human; 48 camps to pick from |
| Villager | 20 | 1,000 | Softest body in the game, but non-criminal — a 1,000 bounty the moment you swing |
| Free Pal Alliance Believer | 50 | 1,000–3,000 | Criminal faction, 50 HP, and their camps are fixed locations |
| Islander | 20–100 | 1,000–8,000 | Wildly variable — 74 variants, so check the body before you commit |
| Syndicate Swordsman | 50 | 1,000–5,000 | Melee only, so you can kite it down to a sliver with arrows and never take a hit |
| Syndicate Cleaner | 100–100 | 5,000 | Criminal, and worth five times a Thug if you plan to sell it |

The Thug is the pick for a first attempt and the Cleaner is the pick once you are actually farming sales — same faction, same absence of legal consequences, five times the payout. The Villager row is here mostly as a warning: it looks like the obvious easy catch and it is the one that will put a bounty on you and pull PIDF down on your head.

## The Humans You Cannot Catch

Nineteen entries drop to a 0.01 catch rating — a tenth again of the already-punishing human baseline, which puts them somewhere between very slow and practically impossible without a full stack of top-tier spheres. Four more are flagged at zero, meaning no sphere will ever stick no matter what you do to them. If you have been throwing at one of these and wondering what you are doing wrong, the answer is nothing.

| Human | Catch rating | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Dr. Brawn | 0.01 | Ten times harder than a normal human — bring the whole stack |
| Mercenary Bodyguard | 0.01 | Escorts a Pal Tamer, so you are fighting two things at once |
| Sturdy Mercenary | 0.01 | Shotgun carrier, 50–100 HP depending on the variant |
| Messenger of Love | 0.01 | One of the rarest human spawns on the island |
| Islander (specific variants) | 0.01 | Most Islanders are 0.1 — only a few variants are locked down this hard |
| PIDF Chief | 0 | Flagged uncatchable outright |
| Jailed Ex-Chief | 0 | Flagged uncatchable outright |
| Reincarnated Guy | 0 | Flagged uncatchable outright |
| Islander (story variant) | 0 | Flagged uncatchable outright |

Everything else on the [full NPC and human list](https://palworld-db.com/npcs) — all 129 named roles — sits at the standard 0.1. That includes every Syndicate fighter, every PIDF officer, every merchant and every villager, which is why the shortlist of humans actually worth catching is decided by value and utility rather than by difficulty.

## What Humans Sell For

Humans carry a gold value exactly like Pals do, and it runs on the same curve — the buy multiplier starts at 1.65x at level 1 and climbs 0.15 per level, and a sale pays back one twentieth of that. Unlike Pals, humans only come in five flat value tiers, so the level of the one you caught matters far more than which one it was. A Lv 50 human at the top tier is a 4,500 gold sale; the same human at Lv 10 is 1,500.

| Gold value | Who sits in this tier | Sell at Lv 10 | Sell at Lv 30 | Sell at Lv 50 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1,000 | Villagers, club Thugs, most settlement shopkeepers | 150 | 300 | 450 |
| 3,000 | Handgun Thugs, crossbow Believers | 450 | 900 | 1,350 |
| 5,000 | Syndicate Gunners, Hunters, Cleaners, Pal Merchants, Moonflower ninja, Feybreak Warriors | 750 | 1,500 | 2,250 |
| 8,000 | Guards, Syndicate Crushers, Free Pal Alliance Judicators, veteran Pal Tamers | 1,200 | 2,400 | 3,600 |
| 10,000 | Black Marketeers, Medal Merchants, every PIDF unit, Syndicate Elites and Veterans, Executioners | 1,500 | 3,000 | 4,500 |

That top row is the ceiling, and it is a low one. 4,500 gold is the absolute most a human will ever return, and getting there means catching a Lv 50 PIDF officer or Black Marketeer at 0.1 odds through however many spheres that takes. Compare it against the [Pal price list](https://palworld-db.com/guides/pal-buy-and-sell-values) and the case falls apart quickly — Pals reach far higher base values, catch at ten times the rate, and can be bred into something better.

> **Tip.** Do not level a human hoping for a bigger sale. The 20:1 gap between buy and sell price means every level you add costs you far more in [Training Crystals](https://palworld-db.com/item/LvUP_01) and food than it ever returns at the counter. Sell what you caught at the level you caught it, and put the [Ultra Spheres](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Master) toward something you actually want.

## Which Humans Are Worth Keeping

There is exactly one good reason to keep a human instead of selling it, and that reason is a shop. Catch a merchant and it comes home with you — a [Black Marketeer](https://palworld-db.com/guides/all-black-marketeer-locations), a Pal Merchant or a Wandering Merchant standing in your own base is a permanent counter you can dump loot at without a single loading screen. Drop it into a [Viewing Cage](https://palworld-db.com/guides/how-to-get-viewing-cage) and it stops eating a base worker slot while staying available to talk to from outside.

| Human | Gold value | Work ratings on paper | Why keep it |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Black Marketeer | 10,000 | Handiwork 2, Mining 2, Transporting 2 | A Pal shop in your base — the single most useful human to own |
| Medal Merchant | 10,000 | Handiwork 2, Lumbering 2, Transporting 2 | Medal Shop access without the trip |
| Pal Merchant | 5,000 | Handiwork 1, Watering 1, Lumbering 1, Mining 1 | Cheap to catch and it buys and sells Pals on demand |
| Wandering Merchant | 5,000 | Handiwork 1, Watering 1, Lumbering 1, Mining 1 | Spheres and basics on tap; the easiest merchant to find in the first place |
| Feybreak Berserker | 8,000 | Handiwork 2, Lumbering 3, Mining 3, Transporting 3 | The best raw worker among humans — 11 rating points across four jobs |
| Azure Covenant Enforcer | 5,000 | Watering 4, Handiwork 3, Transporting 2 | The only human with a Lv 4 rating in a job you'd actually staff |

Read that work column with your eyes open. Those ratings exist, but a human has no partner skill, no elemental identity and no ceiling above Lv 4 in anything, so a base built on humans is a base running at a fraction of what ordinary Pals would give you. Keep the merchants for the counter they bring; use the [work optimizer](https://palworld-db.com/work-optimizer) and real Pals for everything that has to be produced.

## Can You Breed Humans?

No. Every one of the 412 human entries has no gender assigned at all, and the breeding farm needs a male and a female to produce an egg. That rules out human-with-human pairings and human-with-Pal pairings in the same stroke — a caught human is the only one you will ever have of that exact thing, and there is no way to roll it for better passives. The [breeding calculator](https://palworld-db.com/breeding) only covers the 288 Pals for that reason.

## Killing and Butchering Humans for Drops

Humans drop loot on death exactly like Pals, and the [Meat Cleaver](https://palworld-db.com/item/MeatCutterKnife) works on a caught one in your party the same way it works on a Pal. What comes out is whatever they were carrying — bread, coins, spheres, their own ammunition — rather than anything grim. The practical upshot is that for most humans, killing pays more reliably than catching, because a 40% coin roll beats a 0.1 catch rating every single time.

| Human | Drop | Chance | Amount |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Black Marketeer | [Gold Coin](https://palworld-db.com/item/Money) | 100% | 10,000–15,000 |
| Black Marketeer | [Gold Key](https://palworld-db.com/item/TreasureBoxKey03) | 100% | 1 |
| Medal Merchant | [Gold Coin](https://palworld-db.com/item/Money) | 100% | 10,000–15,000 |
| Moonflower Genin / Jonin | [Gold Coin](https://palworld-db.com/item/Money) + [Silver Key](https://palworld-db.com/item/TreasureBoxKey02) | 50% / 2% | 200–400 / 1 |
| Feybreak Warrior / Berserker | [Gold Coin](https://palworld-db.com/item/Money) + [Silver Key](https://palworld-db.com/item/TreasureBoxKey02) | 50% / 2% | 200–400 / 1 |
| Executioner (Genetic Research Unit) | [Gold Coin](https://palworld-db.com/item/Money) + [Circuit Board](https://palworld-db.com/item/MachineParts2) | 50% / 10% | 200–400 / 1 |
| Syndicate Crusher | [Giga Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Giga) + [Gold Coin](https://palworld-db.com/item/Money) | 40% / 40% | 1–2 / 100–300 |
| Syndicate Cleaner | [Flame Organ](https://palworld-db.com/item/FireOrgan) | 50% | 1 |
| PIDF officers | [Mega Sphere](https://palworld-db.com/item/PalSphere_Mega) + [Gold Coin](https://palworld-db.com/item/Money) | 40% / 40% | 1–2 / 50–200 |
| Villager | [Bread](https://palworld-db.com/item/Pan) + [Gold Coin](https://palworld-db.com/item/Money) | 40% / 40% | 1–2 / 10–100 |
| Oil rig Syndicate (any) | [Crude Oil](https://palworld-db.com/item/CrudeOil) | 15–60% | 1 |

The Black Marketeer line is not a typo. A guaranteed 10,000 to 15,000 gold plus a guaranteed [Gold Key](https://palworld-db.com/item/TreasureBoxKey03) makes it comfortably the richest single human kill in the game — more than double what the best possible human sale returns, from a target that requires no spheres at all. There are nine fixed Marketeer spots and they respawn, which is why it turns up in every conversation about [farming gold fast](https://palworld-db.com/guides/how-to-farm-gold).

> **Tip.** Killing a Black Marketeer takes the shop away until it respawns, and it is a civilian, so the bounty lands on you the moment you swing. If you want the Pal stock more than the coins, catch it and cage it instead — the shop follows the merchant into your base and the coins are gone either way once you have killed it.

## What Attacking Humans Costs You

Every crime against a non-criminal human adds to a bounty on your head, and the PIDF turn up to collect it. Syndicate members, Free Pal Alliance fighters and Fire Cult martyrs are already flagged as criminals, so hitting them costs nothing at all — which is the real reason the catching advice always points at a Syndicate camp rather than at the village down the road.

| Offence | Bounty added |
| --- | --- |
| Theft | 500 |
| Trespassing | 500 |
| Assault on a non-criminal | 1,000 |
| Attacking a PIDF officer | 3,000 |
| Murder | 3,000 |
| Killing a PIDF officer | 5,000 |

Note the gap between assault and murder. Knocking a villager down to a sliver to catch it costs you 1,000; overshooting and killing it costs 3,000 on top, and a stray shot at the officer who shows up is another 3,000. That is the cheapest possible argument for practising on Thugs first — a botched capture on a criminal costs you a sphere and nothing else.

## Should You Catch Humans At All?

For almost everything, no. A human costs ten times the spheres, sells for a fraction of what a good Pal does, has no partner skill, cannot be bred, and never appears in the Palpedia so there is no completion pressure either. The exception is narrow and genuinely good: catch a merchant, cage it in your base, and you have removed a travel loop from every play session from then on. Catch one Syndicate Thug for the novelty, catch a Black Marketeer for the shop, and spend the rest of your spheres on the [Pals worth building around](https://palworld-db.com/best-pals).

## Related Guides

More on catching, merchants and money:
- [List of All NPCs and Humans](https://palworld-db.com/npcs)
- [How to Catch Pals, All Sphere Tiers, and Capture Rate](https://palworld-db.com/guides/how-to-catch-pals)
- [Palworld Capture Chance Calculator](https://palworld-db.com/capture)
- [Syndicate Thugs: Where to Find Them and What They Drop](https://palworld-db.com/guides/syndicate-thugs)
- [All Black Marketeer Locations](https://palworld-db.com/guides/all-black-marketeer-locations)
- [Pal Buy and Sell Values: Price Formula and Full Price List](https://palworld-db.com/guides/pal-buy-and-sell-values)
- [How to Farm Gold Fast: Best Money Making Methods](https://palworld-db.com/guides/how-to-farm-gold)
- [What to Buy from Merchants: Best Items Worth Your Gold](https://palworld-db.com/guides/what-to-buy-from-merchants)
- [How to Get Viewing Cage: Level 15, Materials, and Uses](https://palworld-db.com/guides/how-to-get-viewing-cage)
- [Every Merchant and What They Sell](https://palworld-db.com/merchants)
- [All Palworld Guides](https://palworld-db.com/guides)


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Palworld Database — every number on this page comes from the game's own data files.