Island Sanctuary Leveling Guide: How to Earn Experience on Island Sanctuary and Increase your Sanctuary Rank

All the ways to earn Island EXP on Island Sanctuary to increase your Sanctuary Rank.

See also: List of Repeatable and One-Time-Only Island EXP Sources

Unlock the Islekeep's Index

Before you can earn Island EXP, you have to unlock Island Sanctuary and the Islekeep's Index. Check the Island Sanctuary Walkthrough for the steps to unlock these features.

Leveling Advice

Below, you will find some advice to help you earn Island EXP. If you are looking for the list of EXP sources, you can skip ahead to List of Repeatable and One-Time-Only Island EXP Sources.

Don't Automate the Cropland or Pasture Until Max Rank

At Rank 7, you can unlock the Caretaker Service to automate the pasture and the Gardening Service to automate the cropland, but you won't earn any Island EXP from the cropland or pasture if you automate them. You only earn Island EXP if you manually gather leavings from your animals and manually gather produce from your crops, so don't automate them until you have reached the maximum Sanctuary Rank.

Always Be Workshopping

As you proceed through the Island Sanctuary quests, you will build a workshop, which automatically produces handicrafts if you schedule agendas. Whenever you collect your Workshop earnings, you earn 70 Island EXP per hour of successful production runs, so make sure to always have things scheduled. When you are first starting out, you won't have a lot of materials, so just focus on scheduling whatever you have the materials for. Check Material Allocation in the Islekeep's Index to make sure that you have enough materials for the agendas you have scheduled. You won't earn EXP if there are insufficient materials for your scheduled agendas.

Fill your Cropland and Pasture

You earn EXP each time you gather produce from crops and leavings from animals, so you will earn more EXP the more animals you catch and the more crops you plant. Make sure to fill your cropland and pasture to capacity, to get the maximum amount of EXP from them.

Check Your Island At Least Once a Day (After You Catch Some Animals)

After you build the pasture and catch at least one animal, you can gather leavings once a day, so be sure to check at least once a day to get EXP from gathering the leavings. Your animals will have leavings whether you feed them or not.

Levelling Walkthrough

For more information on levelling up through each rank, read the Island Sanctuary Walkthrough.

List of Repeatable Island EXP Sources

EXPSource of Island EXP
120Gather produce from crops (each crop has produce once every two days)
70 per hour, per workshopCollect Workshop earnings. (EXP only earned for successful production runs)
50Gather leavings from a pasture animal (each animal has leavings once per day)
20Capture a wild animal
10Gather from a node
10Craft feed or restraints

List of One-Time-Only EXP Sources

EXPSource of EXP
300Craft an Islekeep's Stone Hatchet
750Construct the Cozy Cabin
2500Complete "The Coziest of Cabins" vision
3000Complete the "Top Crops" vision
4000Complete the "Adorable Animals" vision
7500Complete "The Perfect Paradise" vision
17500Complete the "A Subterranean Investigation" vision
20000Complete the "An Idyllic Island" vision
9240Craft the Islekeep's Mythril Pickaxe (Rank 17)
9240Craft the Islekeep's Chisel (Rank 17)
760Create vacant plot 1
760Create vacant plot 2
720Create vacant plot 3
720Create vacant plot 4
720Create vacant plot 5
570Craft the Islekeep's Stone Hammer (Rank 3)
1425Complete the construction first Workshop
1425Complete the construction second Workshop
1425Complete the construction third Workshop
1620Complete the construction of the Towering Tree Fort
1800Complete the construction of the Quixotic Windmill
1995Complete the construction of the Boiling Bathhouse
2460Complete the construction of the Lominsan Lighthouse
1980Complete the construction first Granary
1980Complete the construction second Granary
5000Complete the "A Workshop of Wonders" vision
675Craft Basic Mammet-Sized Builder's Tools (Rank 4)
720Craft Better Mammet-Sized Builder's Tools (Rank 5)
2025Create the vacant plot for Landmark I (Rank 4)
1755Renovate your cabin to Cozy Cabin II (Rank 4)
2300Renovate first workshop to Workshop II
2300Renovate second workshop to Workshop II
2300Renovate third workshop to Workshop II
2760Renovate first workshop to Workshop III
2760Renovate second workshop to Workshop III
2760Renovate third workshop to Workshop III
2300Renovate first granary to Granary II
2300Renovate second granary to Granary II
2760Renovate first granary to Granary III
2760Renovate second granary to Granary III
997Craft an Islekeep's Bronze Gig (Rank 7)
997Craft the Best Mammet-Sized Builder's Tools (Rank 7)
2565Create vacant plots 6 and 7
2565Renovate your cabin to Cozy Cabin III
997Craft the Mammet-Sized Cropworker's Tools (Rank 7)
997Craft the Mammet-Sized Pastureworker's Tools (Rank 7)
1035Craft the Islekeep's Bronze Beakaxe (Rank 8)
?Craft the Mammet-sized Spelunking Tools (Rank 12)
3185Craft the Islekeep's Steel Hammer (Rank 13)
?Complete the vision to open the caves
7500Renovate your cabin to Cozy Cabin IV (Rank 13)
4090Renovate first granary to Granary IV
4090Renovate second granary to Granary IV
8400Renovate first granary to Granary V
8400Renovate second granary to Granary V
5225Renovate first workshop to Workshop IV
5225Renovate second workshop to Workshop IV
5225Renovate third workshop to Workshop IV
5225Renovate fourth workshop to Workshop IV
12000Renovate first workshop to Workshop V
12000Renovate second workshop to Workshop V
12000Renovate third workshop to Workshop V
12000Renovate fourth workshop to Workshop V
4225Craft the Bestestest Mammet-sized Builder's Tools (Rank 15)
4875Create vacant plots 8 and 9
?Craft the Rank 16 Tools