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Pick a route by what you are paying with
- Paying with gold: arrows or darts. Both are fast enough that 99 takes a fraction of the time of any other skill, and both lose money on every set.
- Paying with attention: cutting longbows or Vale Totems. Cheap, sometimes profitable, and steady enough to do while watching something.
- Paying with nothing: darts or bolts made while you run, wait for a trial to load or stand at a herb patch. Slow by the hour, but the hours were idle anyway.
Levels 1 to 30: four quests and iron arrows
Animal Magnetism, Big Chompy Bird Hunting and Zogre Flesh Eaters give 3,262 Fletching xp between them, which is level 18. The Fremennik Trials adds 2,812 more, taking you to 22, and iron arrows close the gap to 30 in a few minutes. That skips headless arrows and arrow shafts entirely, and you will want The Fremennik Trials for plenty else.
No quests? Make headless arrows from shafts and feathers to 15 (45,000 xp an hour from level 1), then iron arrows, then steel arrows at 30.
The fastest route: arrows
Attaching arrowtips to headless arrows makes 15 arrows per action, and at a steady 3,000 sets an hour the rates below follow. Most players land a little under them, but the pattern holds. Buy headless arrows ready-made, or make your own from arrow shafts and feathers for an extra 1 xp per arrow if you have time to spare:
| Arrows | Level | XP each | XP per hour (3,000 sets of 15) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steel | 30 | 5 | 225,000 |
| Mithril | 45 | 7.5 | 337,500 |
| Adamant | 60 | 10 | 450,000 |
| Rune | 75 | 12.5 | 562,500 |
| Amethyst | 82 | 13.5 | 607,500 |
| Dragon | 90 | 15 | 675,000 |
Arrows have one big advantage over darts: they do not need dart tips, so supply is rarely a problem; compare the rune arrow price with its parts before you buy in bulk. Amethyst arrows need amethyst arrowtips, chiselled from amethyst that miners get at 92.
How long the arrow route takes
Following the arrow table from 30 to 99 at full speed works out to roughly 22 hours of play: under an hour to reach 60, about two hours from 60 to 75, seven or so from 75 to 90 and the last eleven on dragon arrows. Real sessions run slower, but it remains one of the shortest 99s in the game for anyone with the gold.
Javelins sit alongside arrows. Steel javelins at 32 give about 225,000 xp an hour with normal clicking, 300,000 with 3-tick and 450,000 with 1-tick, and dragon javelins at 92 reach about 675,000 without any tick tricks.
Darts: the zero-time favourite
Darts take two clicks per set of ten and can be made while you walk, so they are the classic choice for Fletching during Agility laps, bank runs or travel. Your xp per hour depends entirely on click speed, which makes them hard to quote as a single rate, but quick clickers often get more from them than from arrows of the same tier.
| Darts | Level | XP per dart |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 10 | 1.8 |
| Iron | 22 | 3.8 |
| Steel | 37 | 7.5 |
| Mithril | 52 | 11.2 |
| Adamant | 67 | 15 |
| Rune | 81 | 18.8 |
| Amethyst | 90 | 21 |
| Dragon | 95 | 25 |
Some accounts need to change a game setting before two-click dart making works, so check that first. Mithril and adamant darts are often among the cheapest per xp; the table above lets you compare today's prices.
Good moments for darts are any activity with short gaps: Agility courses between obstacles, Hunter traps while you wait (not black salamanders or black chinchompas, which need constant attention), farm runs, quest dialogue and even trips between Slayer tasks. A few hundred darts here and there add up to whole levels over a week.
Bolts: cheaper, slower, still semi-AFK
Bolts work the same way as arrows, ten per action. They give less xp per hour but cost less per xp at most tiers:
| Bolts | Level | XP per hour |
|---|---|---|
| Steel | 46 | 105,000 |
| Mithril | 54 | 150,000 |
| Adamant | 61 | 210,000 |
| Rune | 69 | 300,000 |
| Dragon | 84 | 360,000 |
Broad bolts at 55 and broad arrows at 52 need the Broader fletching unlock, 300 Slayer reward points. They are cheap because Slayer masters sell the parts, and they are the standard ironman route; broad arrows give 10 xp each. Our Slayer guide covers how to bank the points.
Bows and Vale Totems: cheap and calm
Cutting unstrung longbows from logs is the traditional AFK method: one click per inventory, about 75 xp per yew longbow (u) at 70 and 91.5 per magic longbow (u) at 85, with another 75 or 91.5 for stringing. A fletching knife cuts each bow in two ticks instead of three, and a bow string spool lets you string with only one spare inventory space. Logs from your own Woodcutting training cover most of the cost. Longbows give a little more xp per log than shortbows, so cut longbows unless a Vale Totems decoration calls for shortbows.
Vale Totems, unlocked by its miniquest, gives bonus xp for carving totems and decorating them with bows of the same wood. A full loop of eight totems with a log basket and a fletching knife on maple shortbows runs about 135,000 xp an hour, which is excellent for mid levels and costs very little.
Ironman Fletching
Ironmen cannot buy arrowtips or dart tips by the thousand, so the usual route is bows from their own logs or the Kingdom of Miscellania, plus broad arrows and broad bolts once Slayer points allow. Vale Totems is especially good here because it turns modest piles of logs into strong xp. Darts become realistic later, from the dart tips you smith yourself or loot.
Making money with Fletching
Bolt tipping is the profitable branch: cutting gems into bolt tips and attaching them to bolts. Ruby and diamond tips on dragon bolts, or onyx and dragonstone tips on runite bolts, can earn well, but they need a large stack of gold to start and margins swing with gem prices. Stringing yew and magic longbows usually turns a small profit too. The Fletching money makers list ranks every method by profit at current prices, and the Fletching calculator shows the total cost to any goal from your current xp.
Levels to aim for
52 for broad arrows, 70 for yew longbows, 78 to make a toxic blowpipe, 80 for the magic shortbow, 84 for dragon bolts, 90 for amethyst darts and dragon arrows, 92 for dragon javelins and 95 for dragon darts. Fletching also boosts easily: a dragonfruit pie gives +4, enough to start a new tier a few levels early, and the Fletching boosts page lists the other options with their current prices.