Guides / Enchanting Strategy / Emerald Cost for Enchanted Books: Normal vs. Cured Villagers
Emerald Cost for Enchanted Books: Normal vs. Cured Villagers
Published October 11, 2026
AnvilCalc's calculator now shows an emerald cost alongside every plan's XP cost, right on the step that actually buys the book — for anything the plan needs to buy, whether that's a freshly-obtained book (no declared source at all) or a book from a villager trade you've declared in your inventory. A one-off item you already physically own is the only thing that's actually free. This guide covers where those numbers come from, the reference price table by level, and how much a cured villager actually saves you.
A villager trade is never free, even once it's in your inventory
A plan's XP cost already distinguishes two kinds of books: ones you own outright (a specific book or item entered in your inventory) and ones you've marked as always available from a villager (the "Available from villagers" grid, or a regular item tagged with that origin). Only the first kind is genuinely free in emerald terms — a standing villager trade is a repeatable purchase, not something already in your pocket, so every book the plan actually buys from one still costs emeralds, even under "Only use" inventory (see Using the Calculator). "Don't use" inventory, by contrast, ignores your declared villager trades entirely and assumes every book is freshly obtained instead — the emerald total only ever hits zero when a plan is built purely from one-off owned items, with no villager trades or fresh purchases involved at all.
Each villager-books entry has its own Cured toggle, right next to the enchantment level in your inventory — mark it once you've actually cured that specific villager, and every price this calculator shows for that trade (per step, and in the plan total) uses the discounted cured price instead of guessing.
Reference prices by level
A librarian's "sell enchanted book" trade is priced somewhere in a random range that depends on the enchantment's level and whether it's a treasure enchantment — Mending, Frost Walker, Curse of Binding, and Curse of Vanishing, which the game treats as worth roughly double. Everything else (Sharpness, Protection, Unbreaking, Efficiency, and so on) is a standard enchantment. AnvilCalc uses the midpoint of that real range as a single representative number, since the actual price is randomized per trade and per villager. Each cell below reads normal price / cured price; a dash means that enchantment doesn't reach that level.
Standard enchantments:
| Enchantment | I | II | III | IV | V |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aqua Affinity | 12/1 | — | — | — | — |
| Bane of Arthropods | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | 44/24 |
| Blast Protection | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | — |
| Breach | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | — |
| Channeling | 12/1 | — | — | — | — |
| Density | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | 44/24 |
| Depth Strider | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Efficiency | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | 44/24 |
| Feather Falling | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | — |
| Fire Aspect | 12/1 | 20/1 | — | — | — |
| Fire Protection | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | — |
| Flame | 12/1 | — | — | — | — |
| Fortune | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Impaling | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | 44/24 |
| Infinity | 12/1 | — | — | — | — |
| Knockback | 12/1 | 20/1 | — | — | — |
| Looting | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Loyalty | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Luck of the Sea | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Lure | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Multishot | 12/1 | — | — | — | — |
| Piercing | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | — |
| Power | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | 44/24 |
| Projectile Protection | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | — |
| Protection | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | — |
| Punch | 12/1 | 20/1 | — | — | — |
| Quick Charge | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Respiration | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Riptide | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Sharpness | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | 44/24 |
| Silk Touch | 12/1 | — | — | — | — |
| Smite | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | 36/16 | 44/24 |
| Sweeping Edge | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Thorns | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
| Unbreaking | 12/1 | 20/1 | 28/8 | — | — |
Treasure enchantments:
| Enchantment | I | II | III | IV | V |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frost Walker | 24/4 | 40/20 | — | — | — |
| Mending | 24/4 | — | — | — | — |
Prices are capped at 64 emeralds regardless of level or treasure status — the same cap the game itself enforces on every trade, which is why no cell above ever exceeds that even before the cured discount.
Three enchantments are deliberately missing from both tables: Soul Speed, Swift Sneak, and Wind Burst are all treasure enchantments that librarians never actually offer in vanilla — Soul Speed only comes from piglin bartering, killed piglins' golden boots, or bastion remnant loot, Swift Sneak only from Ancient City loot chests (never from piglins), and Wind Burst only from Trial Chamber vaults. None of the three are obtainable from fishing. Since there's no real villager trade to put a price on, AnvilCalc doesn't show an emerald cost for them at all, even when the plan still needs to freshly obtain one — it's simply left out of the total, rather than given a fictitious price. Curse of Binding and Curse of Vanishing are tradeable but left out of the table since nobody sets them as a target enchantment on purpose.
How curing changes the price
Curing a zombie villager (full how-to: How to Cure a Zombie Villager) grants a permanent reputation bonus with that specific villager — one that never decays and can't be stacked further by re-curing the same villager again. That reputation subtracts directly from every trade price: with the Librarian's enchanted-book trade and a freshly cured villager, that works out to a flat 20-emerald discount, floored at the game's 1-emerald price minimum. That's why cheap, low-level books often end up costing almost nothing from a cured villager, while an expensive level V treasure book still costs a meaningful amount even after the discount — the discount is a flat subtraction, not a percentage.
Reputation, demand, and why your actual price will vary
The 20-emerald cured discount above is the one thing AnvilCalc's estimate actually accounts for. Real in-game prices can move further in either direction from several other factors this calculator deliberately doesn't try to model precisely:
- Hero of the Village — defeating a raid near a village gives every villager there a temporary price reduction (roughly 30% at its lowest level, more at higher raid difficulty), stacking with any curing discount.
- Gossip from other villagers — a cured villager "gossips" positively about you to nearby villagers, giving them small, temporary discounts too (much smaller than the permanent one tied to the villager you actually cured).
- Demand — repeatedly buying the same trade from one villager raises its price each time, until it restocks; conversely, a trade sitting unused can drift back down.
- Negative reputation — attacking villagers or breaking their beds does the opposite of curing, raising prices (Bedrock Edition never lets negative reputation push a price up; Java Edition does).
None of this changes which books your plan needs — only what you'd actually pay for them on a given day, with a given villager. Treat both numbers AnvilCalc shows as a reasonable ballpark, not a quote.
Emerald costs shown anywhere on AnvilCalc are approximate. They use a single representative price per enchantment/level rather than simulating the game's full randomized trade and reputation system, and should be treated as a ballpark, not an exact quote.
For the order to buy librarian books in and how to cycle a librarian for the one you want, see Minecraft Librarian Trades.
Frequently asked questions
Does the emerald cost include books I already own?
No — a specific, one-off item or book you own outright is free. A villager trade is different: even once it's declared in your inventory, it's still a repeatable purchase, so the plan charges emeralds for it every time it actually buys from that trade, same as a freshly-obtained book. Mark a villager Cured in your inventory to get the discounted price instead of the normal one.
Why are the normal and cured prices so different for cheap books but similar for expensive ones?
Curing applies a flat 20-emerald discount, not a percentage. For a cheap level I book (around 12 emeralds normally), that discount floors the price at 1 emerald. For an expensive level V treasure book (capped at 64), the same flat 20-emerald discount still leaves a meaningful price.
Are these exact prices, or an estimate?
An estimate. Real villager trades are randomized within a range and shift with demand, Hero of the Village, and gossip from other villagers — AnvilCalc shows a single representative number (the midpoint of the real price range) rather than simulating all of that.
Why doesn't curing bring every price down to 1 emerald?
Because the discount from curing is a flat subtraction (about 20 emeralds), not a reduction to a fixed floor. It only reaches the 1-emerald minimum for books that were already cheap to begin with — an expensive treasure-enchantment book at a high level is still costly even after the discount.
Can I get Soul Speed, Swift Sneak, or Wind Burst from a villager?
Not in vanilla Minecraft — librarians never actually offer these three treasure enchantments as trades, so AnvilCalc doesn't show an emerald cost for them at all, even when a plan still needs to freshly obtain one. They're simply left out of the total rather than given a fictitious price.
How do I mark a villager as cured?
On the /inventory page, open "Available from villagers" and tap Cured on the specific enchantment/level you've cured that villager for. It only affects that one declared trade — curing one villager's Protection trade doesn't discount a separate Unbreaking trade from a different villager.