OSRS Herblore Guide 1-99 (2026): Fastest, Cheap and Mixology

Quick summary

• Step zero is Druidic Ritual. You can't train Herblore at all until it's done. It gives 250 XP, which is level 3 (OSRS Wiki).
• Skip to 19 with three quests: Jungle Potion, Recruitment Drive and The Dig Site.
• Fastest: always make the best potion you can, then Saradomin brews at 81, ancient brews at 85 and Armadyl brews from 89. The Sailing-era Armadyl brew is the fastest common potion on the wiki's table, at 563,750 XP/h.
• Cheaper: prayer potions from 38, then super restores from 63 to 99, at about 356,000 XP/h.
• Rewards first: Mastering Mixology from 60 gives the alchemist's amulet, prescription goggles and the reagent pouch. Those cut the cost of every potion you make afterwards. By the wiki's rates, Herblore takes only a few dozen hours of potion making, but it costs a lot of gold. So the real question isn't how fast you can go, but how much you want to spend and which rewards you want on the way. This OSRS Herblore guide gives a route for each goal, prices it, then walks through every step. Rates, potion costs and Mixology figures come from the OSRS Wiki's Herblore training page and Mastering Mixology page, checked on October 28, 2026. 99 needs 13,034,431 XP, and every hour or cost estimate is our arithmetic on the wiki's figures. Herblore is members-only.

Pick a route

Your goal	Route	Rough potion-making hours, 3–99 (our arithmetic)
Fastest	Quests → best potion at every level → Saradomin brews 81 → ancient brews 85 → Armadyl brews 89–99	About 26 h
Cheaper, still fast	Quests → prayer potions 38–63 → super restores 63–99	About 37 h
Rewards first	Cheaper route to 60 → Mixology until you have the amulet, goggles and pouch → super restores or brews	About 37 h of potions, plus roughly 9 h of Mixology at 81+
Mixology only (60–99)	Mastering Mixology for the whole way	About 180 h at the wiki's 70,000 XP/h
Low cost, low speed	Guthix rests from 18, tar, or cleaning herbs	Hundreds of hours; use these only for part of the way

We worked out each figure by dividing the XP between levels by the wiki's XP/h for the potion used in that range. For the fastest route, that's 14.5 h for 89–99 on Armadyl brews, 3.0 h for 85–89 on ancient brews, 2.4 h for 81–85 on Saradomin brews, 3.2 h for 72–81 on ranging potions and under 3 h for everything below 72. For the cheaper route, 63–99 on super restores is 12,665,832 XP at 356,000 XP/h, or 35.6 h. The hours leave out buying time, breaks and banking slips.

Example: you're 60 Herblore and have finished Children of the Sun. Spend about 9 hours in Mixology first (after 81 if you can, since that's when MixALot orders unlock). The alchemist's amulet and prescription goggles then save doses and secondaries on the roughly 89,000 super restores between 63 and 99.

Do these in order

1. Druidic Ritual. Start at the stone circle north of Taverley. It needs raw bear, rat, beef and chicken meat (OSRS Best in Slot) and gives 250 Herblore XP.
2. Jungle Potion (needs level 3), Recruitment Drive and The Dig Site (needs level 10 after the first two). Together they take you to 19.
3. Buy or make unfinished potions. Set withdraw-X to 14 so each bank trip is 14 unfinished potions and 14 secondaries.
4. Prayer potions at 38. The first big jump, and among the most traded potions in the game.
5. Children of the Sun, ready for Mixology at 60.
6. Super restores at 63, ranging potions at 72, Saradomin brews at 81, ancient brews at 85.
7. Song of the Elves if you can manage it. It's 40,000 XP and opens divine potions with crystal dust.

Levels 1–19: Do the quests

The wiki's Herblore quest table lists 14 quests worth 171,850 XP in total. Most come later in your account's life, but use the early ones first.

Quest	Herblore XP	Herblore level needed
Druidic Ritual	250	None
Jungle Potion	775	3
Recruitment Drive	1,000	None
Heroes' Quest	1,325	25
The Dig Site	2,000	10
Shades of Mort'ton	2,000	15
Zogre Flesh Eaters	2,000	8
Fairytale II – Cure a Queen	3,500	57
Land of the Goblins	8,000	48
My Arm's Big Adventure	10,000	31
Eadgar's Ruse	11,000	31
Grim Tales	15,000	52
Song of the Elves	40,000	70
While Guthix Sleeps	75,000	65

Druidic Ritual, Jungle Potion, Recruitment Drive and The Dig Site add up to 4,025 XP. Level 19 needs 3,973 XP, so the four quests put you just over 19 (our arithmetic from the wiki's experience table).

Levels and XP figures are from the OSRS Wiki. Note the quest requirements around each one too. For example, Recruitment Drive has Black Knights' Fortress and Druidic Ritual as prerequisites on the wiki, and The Dig Site needs Agility, Herblore and Thieving levels.

How potion making works

Each potion has two steps (OSRS Wiki):

1. Herb + vial of water = unfinished potion. This gives no XP. Most players buy unfinished potions ready-made, or make a stockpile in advance.
2. Unfinished potion + secondary = finished potion. This step gives all the XP. Use 14 unfinished potions and 14 secondaries per inventory, combine, bank, and repeat.

Cleaning grimy herbs gives a little XP of its own (2.5 for guam up to 15 for torstol on the wiki), but it's slow, so it's a money method rather than a training method.

Tip: keep a pestle and mortar in your inventory for recipes that need a crushed secondary, like unicorn horn dust or a crushed nest (OSRS Best in Slot).

Follow the potion ladder (3–99)

These are the wiki's XP/h figures for the main training potions, at about 2,500 potions an hour. "Use until" shows where the fastest route moves on.

Level	Potion	Unfinished potion + secondary	XP/h (wiki)	Use until
3	Attack potion	Guam + eye of newt	62,500	5
5	Antipoison	Marrentill + unicorn horn dust	About 90,000 (OSRS Best in Slot)	12
12	Strength potion	Tarromin + limpwurt root	125,000	26
26	Energy potion	Harralander + chocolate dust	168,750	38
38	Prayer potion	Ranarr + snape grass	218,750	45
45	Super attack	Irit + eye of newt	250,000	52
52	Super energy	Avantoe + mort myre fungus	293,750	55
55	Super strength	Kwuarm + limpwurt root	312,500	63
63	Super restore	Snapdragon + red spiders' eggs	356,000	66
66	Super defence	Cadantine + white berries	375,000	72
72	Ranging potion	Dwarf weed + wine of Zamorak	406,250	81
76	Magic potion	Lantadyme + potato cactus	431,250	(alternative to ranging)
78	Zamorak brew	Torstol + jangerberries	437,500	(alternative to ranging)
81	Saradomin brew	Toadflax + crushed nest	450,000	85
85	Ancient brew	Dwarf weed + nihil dust	522,500	89
88	Menaphite remedy	Dwarf weed + lily of the sands	500,000	(cheaper alternative to ancient brews)
89	Armadyl brew	Umbral potion (unf) + rainbow crab paste	563,750	99

How many potions each step takes

We divided the XP for each range by the XP per potion (our arithmetic):

Range	Potion	XP needed	About how many potions
38–63	Prayer potion (87.5 XP)	338,191	3,900
63–99	Super restore (142.5 XP)	12,665,832	88,900
81–85	Saradomin brew (180 XP)	1,065,776	5,900
85–89	Ancient brew (190 XP)	1,583,701	8,300
89–99	Armadyl brew (205 XP)	8,192,136	40,000

Count these before you buy, so you know how much stock a stretch like super restores really needs. Check the Grand Exchange buy limit and trade volume for each ingredient in-game before you plan a long session, especially for Armadyl brews: both their ingredients arrived with Sailing in November 2025 and are traded in smaller volumes than snapdragons.

How much does 99 Herblore cost?

The wiki's potion table prices every potion at live Grand Exchange prices. At October 28, 2026 prices, the cost per XP for the main training potions was roughly:

Potion	Level	Coins per XP (wiki, Oct 28)
Super restore	63	3.4
Ranging potion	72	3.7
Saradomin brew	81	7.7
Menaphite remedy	88	9.2
Armadyl brew	89	14.5
Ancient brew	85	30.0

Our arithmetic: super restores from 63 to 99 cost about 43 million coins before any Mixology savings. The fastest route from 72 (ranging potions, Saradomin brews, ancient brews, Armadyl brews) costs about 179 million, most of it on the Armadyl brews. Staying on Saradomin brews from 81 to 89 instead of switching to ancient brews at 85 adds about half an hour and saves about 35 million. Prices change daily, so recheck the table before you buy.

Example: a player at 81 with 60 million coins to spend makes Saradomin brews to 89, then Armadyl brews until the money runs out, and finishes on super restores. That keeps most of the speed of the fastest route at a fraction of the ancient-brew cost.

Use the cheaper route

The cheaper route uses potions that sell well, because you can sell them back for close to what the ingredients cost. That's the logic in both OSRS Best in Slot and OSRSGuide.com.

1. Quests to 19, then strength and energy potions to 38. These are cheap and only take minutes.
2. Prayer potions, 38–63. About 1.5 hours by our arithmetic.
3. Super restores, 63–99. About 35.6 hours. Optionally switch to ranging potions from 72, or super combats from 90 if you have the supers already.
4. Sell as you go so your money isn't tied up in stock.

Prices move every day, so check the wiki's live table before you commit to a potion. Its profit columns change with the market, and so does which potion is cheapest per XP.

Super combats aren't faster. The wiki puts them at 324,900 XP/h, below Saradomin brews. People choose them at 90 because they use supers you might already have, not because they're faster.

Cut your costs with gear

There's no Herblore outfit that adds XP. Instead, gear reduces how many ingredients you use:

Item	Effect (OSRS Wiki)	How to get it
Amulet of chemistry	5% chance to make a 4-dose potion	Enchanting a jade amulet, or the Grand Exchange
Alchemist's amulet	15% chance to make a 4-dose potion; holds charges from amulets of chemistry	Mastering Mixology
Prescription goggles	10% chance to save a secondary ingredient	Mastering Mixology
Reagent pouch	Stores up to 26 of each secondary	Mastering Mixology; lets you carry more per trip
Potion storage	Bank section for potions, unfinished potions and vials	Mastering Mixology

The alchemist's amulet comes with 50 charges. Each amulet of chemistry used on it adds 10 more.

Play Mastering Mixology (60–99)

Mastering Mixology is a Herblore minigame in Aldarin, released on September 25, 2024. It needs 60 Herblore (not boostable) and Children of the Sun. All the recipes unlock at 81 (OSRS Wiki).

Getting there: the Minigame Teleport (added for Mixology in March 2026), fairy ring CKQ, the quetzal to Aldarin, or a ship from Sunset Coast. World 470 is the official Mixology world.

How a round works:

1. Refine herbs into paste. Put clean herbs or unfinished potions into the refiner by the bank chest. Low herbs make mox paste, mid herbs lye or aga paste, and high herbs aga paste. Tarromin is the wiki's cheapest herb per mox paste. Refining passively gives about 16,500 XP/h, and clicking nearly doubles it.
2. Fill the hopper. It holds up to 3,000 of each paste.
3. Mix the base. Pull the mox, aga and lye levers for the order. The names are a hint: Marley's MoonLight is mox-mox-lye, and AquaLux Amalgam is aga-lye-aga.
4. Process it at the agitator, alembic or retort, as the order says. Clicking at the right time is faster and gives bonus XP.
5. Deliver at the conveyor belt. Filling two orders at once gives 20% more resin, and three at once gives 40% more.

Digweed spawns in the room's corners now and then. Adding it to a potion doubles that potion's XP and resin. The strategies page says to save it for MixALot orders.

Base	Level	XP per order (wiki)
Alco-AugmentAtor, Mammoth-Might Mix, LipLack Liquor	60	190
Mystic Mana Amalgam	63	215
Marley's MoonLight	66	240
Azure Aura Mix	69	265
AquaLux Amalgam	72	290
MegaLite Liquid	75	315
Anti-Leech Lotion	78	340
MixALot	81	365

Rates: at 81, the wiki gives about 70,000 XP/h with every speed-up, with about 3,000 of each resin. Passive play gets about 45,000 XP/h. The strategies page describes a setup that reaches up to 105,000 XP/h by preparing every potion type in advance.

Which rewards to buy, and in what order

Reward	Mox / Aga / Lye resin	Wiki's time to unlock at 81+
Alchemist's amulet	6,900 / 5,650 / 7,400	2 h 28 min
Prescription goggles	8,600 / 7,000 / 9,350	3 h 07 min
Reagent pouch	13,800 / 11,200 / 15,100	5 h 02 min
Potion storage	7,750 / 6,300 / 8,950	2 h 59 min
Chugging barrel	17,250 / 14,000 / 18,600	6 h 12 min

The wiki's time column assumes each reward on its own. Buying the amulet, goggles and pouch together needs 25,700 lye resin, which at about 3,000 resin an hour is roughly 8.6 hours (our arithmetic). Buy the amulet first because it saves on every potion. The goggles come next, then the pouch.

When Mixology is the right choice: it's far slower than banking potions, so most players visit it for rewards, then go back. It suits you if you're short on gold, since paste comes from cheap herbs.

Compare the other methods

Method	Requirements	Rate (OSRS Wiki)	Best use
Making tar	Pestle and mortar, swamp tar, herbs; 19 for guam, up to 55 for irit	61,000 (guam) to 170,000 (irit) XP/h	Cheap XP; swamp tar has a 13,000 buy limit
Cleaning herbs, by hand	Herb's level	About 10,000 herbs/h	Money, not XP
Cleaning herbs, auto	Same	About 3,000 herbs/h	AFK money
Degrime	70 Magic, A Kingdom Divided, Arceuus spellbook	About 600 casts/h	Cleans a whole inventory per cast; Magic and Herblore XP at once
Guthix rest	18 Herblore, part of One Small Favour	About 1,400/h, 82,600 XP/h	Cheap alternative to strength and energy potions
Barbarian mixes	Barbarian Herblore training	Varies	The wiki says not to train with them unless you'll use them

Where the money comes from

The methods that earn money are mostly the ones that give little or no XP (OSRS Best in Slot):

• Cleaning grimy herbs, by clicking or with Degrime.
• Making unfinished potions: no XP, but tradeable.
• Divine potions: after Song of the Elves, crystal dust turns a potion into its divine version.

Adjust for ironmen, free-to-play and returning players

• Ironmen: herbs, not gold, limit you. Farming herb runs are the main supply; see our Farming guide for every herb patch. With 80 Hunter and 31 Herblore, herbiboar on Fossil Island gives extra herbs too (our Hunter guide). Save ranarrs and snapdragons for prayer potions and super restores. Bird nests from Woodcutting give the crushed nests for brews (Woodcutting guide). Stamina potions need amylase from marks of grace, which our Agility guide covers. Mixology helps ironmen most, because the goggles and amulet stretch every herb.
• Free-to-play: you can't train Herblore. Druidic Ritual is a members quest and every recipe needs members items (OSRS Best in Slot).
• Returning players: check for Mastering Mixology, the potion storage bank tab and the reagent pouch if you've been away since 2024. The wiki's potion table now goes up to extended super antifire at 98. It also lists newer potions such as the surge potion at 81, the Menaphite remedy at 88 and the Armadyl brew at 89, so an older guide may be missing levels you can use.
• Accounts working toward raids and bosses: potions at 78+ and 90+ matter for Chambers of Xeric, per OSRS Best in Slot. Prayer potions and super restores carry most mid-level bossing, from Barrows to Zulrah, where anti-venom (87) also becomes worth making.
• Sailing players: the Armadyl brew, extended stamina potion and other Sailing-era recipes use materials from Sailing content; our Sailing guide covers where they come from.

Potions feed nearly every boss and skill; the OSRS hub lists our guides for the rest of Old School RuneScape.

Want a hand with this?

If you would rather not grind this part yourself, OSRS skill-leveling services are listed on FullBoosts. Read Jagex's Rules of Old School RuneScape before you buy any service from anyone, FullBoosts included — a marketplace listing isn't publisher permission.

FAQ

What is the fastest way to get 99 Herblore in OSRS? Do the quests to 19, then make the best potion your level allows: Saradomin brews from 81, ancient brews from 85 and Armadyl brews from 89. That's about 26 hours of potion making by our arithmetic.

What is the cheapest way to train Herblore? Prayer potions from 38 and super restores from 63, selling as you go: about 3.4 coins per XP at late-October 2026 prices. Tar and Guthix rests cost less again but are much slower.

How much does 99 Herblore cost? About 43 million coins on super restores from 63, or about 179 million on the fastest brew route from 72, at October 28, 2026 prices (our arithmetic on the wiki's table).

Which quests give Herblore XP? Fourteen quests give 171,850 XP, led by While Guthix Sleeps (75,000) and Song of the Elves (40,000). Druidic Ritual, Jungle Potion, Recruitment Drive and The Dig Site take you to 19.

Is Mastering Mixology worth it? For the alchemist's amulet, prescription goggles and reagent pouch, yes. That's about 8.6 hours at 81+ by our arithmetic. For XP alone, banking potions is several times faster.

Can you train Herblore in F2P? No. Druidic Ritual is a members quest, and every recipe needs members items.

Related guides

• OSRS hub
• OSRS money-making guide
• OSRS Slayer guide
• OSRS Runecrafting guide 1-99
• OSRS Prayer guide 1-99
• OSRS Farming guide 1-99
• OSRS Barrows guide
• OSRS Agility guide 1-99