FFXIV tradecraft leves: allowances, HQ rewards and turn-ins to your next level

Tradecraft leves are requests from clients for a crafted item. You accept them at a levemete with leve allowances, craft the item and hand it to the client for EXP and gil. The leve comparison lists every tradecraft leve your class can take, ranks them by EXP per allowance and counts the turn-ins to your target level.

How do allowances work?

Accepting a leve spends one leve allowance. Allowances build up over time; the Timers window shows when the next ones arrive, and your Journal lists the leves you have accepted. Because allowances are the limit, the useful measure is EXP per allowance, not EXP per leve.

What does a high-quality hand-in change?

Handing in a high-quality item earns 100% more EXP and gil. Items that cannot be high quality, such as many intermediate materials, pay the normal reward only; the comparison shows when the HQ option does not apply.

What are large-scale leves?

Some leves accept the requested item up to three times, and a few up to six times, for a single allowance. Every delivery pays the full reward. In Japanese and French their names start with 大口依頼 and Grosse commande. They are the best EXP per allowance at most levels, and the comparison shows their deliveries per allowance in its own column.

How many turn-ins do I need?

The game sets a fixed amount of EXP for each level. The comparison adds up the EXP from your current level and EXP to your target, divides it by the EXP of one delivery and rounds up. It then divides the turn-ins by the deliveries per allowance to get the allowances you will spend.

Worked example

A level 40 leatherworker wants level 50 and crafts high quality. Levels 40 to 49 need 1,996,000 EXP. The best EXP per allowance at level 40 is The Tao of Rabbits: 61,560 EXP per delivery, 123,120 for high quality, three deliveries per allowance. That is 17 turn-ins of the Boarskin Harness for 6 allowances, earning 7,922 gil on the way. Its recipe needs Boar Leather, two Steel Ingots, Aldgoat Leather and shards, so 17 harnesses need 17 Boar Leather and 34 Steel Ingots; the button under the materials opens all of it in the Crafting Planner.