Apex Legends Crafting Metals Farming Guide

Read This First

There is no Crafting Metals farming spot, and this guide will not invent one. Crafting Metals come from exactly two places — Apex Packs and Battle Pass rewards — and Apex Packs come from leveling up, the Battle Pass, and events. Every "metals farm" you will find online is a repackaged leveling guide, because the metals loop IS the leveling loop: account XP becomes packs, packs become metals, metals become skins. What this guide does is make that chain as efficient as possible, keep the five currencies strictly separated so you never spend the wrong one, and tell you exactly what a Legendary skin costs in the only honest unit available — packs, levels, and splits. It also says plainly what EA does not publish: the drop rates inside a pack. Without those, no honest "metals per hour" figure exists, and this guide does not print one.

Apex Legends is Respawn's free-to-play battle royale, live since February 4, 2019, and it is not an MMO. Nothing in it is tradeable, nothing you buy affects a match, and EA states it does not sell items that offer a gameplay advantage. Everything in this guide is cosmetic currency and unlock currency. If a site offers to sell you Crafting Metals or Heirloom Shards for cash, EA says Crafting Metals cannot be bought or gifted — treat that offer as a scam. If you only read three sections, read The Five Currencies, What Crafting Actually Costs, and Packs Are the Farm.

The Five Currencies — Kept Strictly Separate

Every Apex spending mistake comes from mixing these up. There are five currencies, and each one has exactly one job. Learn the table before you spend anything.

Source: EA Help, "Apex Legends currency guide". The two loops that matter for this guide: Crafting Metals are a by-product of packs, and Legend Tokens are a by-product of levels. Packs themselves also come from levels, so both loops feed off one thing — account XP. That is why the leveling guide and this guide are the same grind viewed from two ends.

What Crafting Actually Costs

EA's help page lists the base crafting costs by rarity, and what a duplicate pays back. The refund rate is the key to the whole economy: a duplicate is worth exactly half of its own craft cost.

Source: EA Help currency guide (base costs and refunds); EA's Imperial Guard post, March 2023, via community currency guide (2,400 event pricing). The wiki column in some guides shows higher costs for some items, which probably reflects premium or event pricing — always check the cost shown on the item in the crafting menu before you spend, because the menu is the truth and a guide is a snapshot.

Three hard rules from EA's page: you cannot craft Mythic or Iconic tier items, you cannot break down an item for Crafting Metals after you have made it, and Crafting Metals cannot be refunded. Every craft is final. That is why this guide spends so much time on what to craft first — the metals are the easy part; the decision is the hard part.

Packs Are the Farm

Since Crafting Metals only come from packs, the farm is the pack supply. There are four sources, and they are all downstream of playing.

1. Level-up packs: 199 by level 500, 544 over 2,000 levels

One pack per level from 2 to 20 (19 packs), one every two levels from 22 to 300 (140 packs), one every five levels from 305 to 500 (40 packs) — 199 packs by level 500. The three extra tiers added in Season 14 bring 345 more, for 544 total over 2,000 levels. Every pack is three items, and every duplicate item becomes Crafting Metals at half its craft value. A pack that drops three duplicates you already own is pure metals; a pack that drops something new is a skin you did not have to craft. Both outcomes move you forward — that is the only sense in which packs are "efficient".

Conflict carried: one community page claims no Apex Packs are granted past level 500, contradicting EA's Season 14 statement of 345 additional packs. This guide uses EA's figure, but if your tier-2 drops do not match the schedule, that page may describe a later silent change. EA has not restated the 544 figure since August 2022.

2. Battle Pass packs: 7 free, 14 total per split

Season 31 Split 1's pass pays 14 Apex Packs across its 60 levels — 7 on the free track, 7 more on the paid track. Two passes per season means 28 packs a season from the pass alone, before a single level-up pack. The pass is the only pack source you can buy, and at 950 Apex Coins against 1,300 paid back across the pass, it pays for itself if you finish it.

3. Event packs and event trackers

Events regularly hand out free packs on a reward tracker — the 5th Anniversary Collection Event's free track, for example, included two Event Packs plus 50 Crafting Metals directly. Event Points come from event challenges in the lobby tab. Always clear the free track before the event ends; the packs on it are the cheapest packs in the game, because they cost play instead of money or levels.

4. Bought packs: 100 Apex Coins each, 10 for 1,000

You can buy Apex Packs at 100 Apex Coins each. At 1,000 Apex Coins for $9.99 US, ten packs cost $9.99. This is the only way to convert real money into Crafting Metals, and it is a bad conversion unless you are chasing a specific heirloom: packs are a lottery ticket for metals, not a purchase of metals. Buy the battle pass instead — it pays packs, metals, coins, and shards for the same money.

One EA note worth knowing: Apex Packs are not available in all territories, so players in some regions see other rewards in their place. If your pass shows something other than packs, that is why.

The Battle Pass: The Deterministic Metals Source

Packs are a lottery. The Battle Pass is a salary. That is the distinction that matters, because the pass is the only place where Crafting Metals arrive in a fixed, known amount.

Read that table as a plan: one Premium pass per split is one Legendary craft per split, guaranteed, before a single pack is opened. Two splits a season is two Legendary crafts a season, guaranteed, for 950 Apex Coins per split — and the pass pays back 1,300 Coins, so the second split's pass is funded by the first. A player who finishes both passes every season crafts two Legendaries a season without ever opening a level-up pack. Everything from packs is on top of that.

Apex Packs: What Is Inside (and What EA Will Not Tell You)

Every Apex Pack holds three items. Each item is a cosmetic — a Legend skin, a weapon skin, a banner, a quip, a finisher, a charm, a skydive emote — at Common, Rare, Epic, or Legendary rarity. If you already own an item, you get Crafting Metals instead, at exactly half its craft value: 15 for a Common duplicate, 30 for a Rare, 200 for an Epic, 600 for a Legendary. That refund table is the entire metals economy in miniature, and it explains the shape of the grind: early on, most packs pay new items; late, when you own most Commons and Rares, most packs pay metals.

What EA does not publish is the drop rate — the odds of each rarity inside a pack. Without those odds, no one can honestly tell you the expected metals per pack, and without expected metals per pack, no one can honestly tell you metals per hour. Any site that quotes either number has invented the drop rates. The honest statement is directional: as your collection fills, your packs convert to metals more often, so the metals rate rises with your account level even though your play does not change. A level 400 account earns more metals per pack than a level 40 account, because the level 400 account already owns the cheap items.

There are also special pack types. Event Packs are Apex Packs tied to a collection event: each one unlocks a random item from the event collection plus items from the evergreen pool, and they cost 700 Apex Coins each during the event. Legendary packs and themed packs appear in the store from time to time with guaranteed rarity floors. The rules for each are printed on the pack in the store — read them there, because they change per event and no guide can keep up with a rotating store.

One more EA note: Apex Packs are not available in all territories, so players in some regions see other rewards in their place on the Battle Pass. If your pass shows something other than packs, that is why — and it is also why this guide never treats packs as the only metals source. The Battle Pass's 1,200 metals per split are the same in every territory.

Leveling Is Farming: Turn XP Into Metals

There is no separate metals grind, so the farming plan is the leveling plan with a different scoreboard. Everything that earns account XP earns packs, and everything that earns packs earns metals. The leveling guide's full XP table applies here word for word; this section is the short version, scored in packs.

• Survival time is the metals stat. 3 XP per second survived, paid while your squad lives — even while you spectate. A 15-minute match pays 2,700 XP from time alone. At 18,000 XP per level from level 58, roughly seven long matches is one level, and one level is 600 Legend Tokens and (on pack levels) a pack. Short matches are the enemy: a 3-minute death pays 540 XP and nothing else.
• Full premade squad: +10% survival XP. Two friends, every match, for free. It is the only multiplier that touches the biggest XP source.
• First kill of the day: 500 XP. One kill, once a day, free.
• Do not quit after death. Your survival XP accrues while your squad lives. Quitting forfeits it — and the pack progress that goes with it.
• Ranked does double duty. Ranked matches pay account XP while you climb, so a ranked session levels you and moves your ladder at the same time. There is no reason to grind pubs for XP once you are level 20 unless you prefer them.

Heirloom Shards: The Other Pack Lottery (Keep It Separate)

Heirloom Shards are the reason pack counting matters beyond metals, and they are the currency most often confused with Crafting Metals. They are not the same thing, they do not convert, and they are spent in a different store.

• Source: Apex Packs only. Under 1% chance per pack, per EA. Guaranteed once when you open your 500th pack under EA's rules. One drop is 150 shards.
• Cost: 150 shards buys one heirloom (a Legend's Mythic melee weapon) or one Prestige skin in the Mythic Store.
• The math that matters: 500 packs is the guarantee, and leveling alone pays 544 packs over 2,000 levels. A free-to-play account that levels to the cap is guaranteed at least one heirloom without spending anything. Buying packs to reach 500 faster costs 50,000 Apex Coins at the 10-for-1,000 rate — roughly $500 — which is why nobody should buy packs for shards unless they have already decided the heirloom is worth that much to them.
• Collection events are the other route: collecting all 24 cosmetics in a Collection Event has paid 150 Heirloom Shards (5th Anniversary, 2024). The cheapest path there is crafting the Epic items with Crafting Metals and buying the rest with Event Packs — which is the one place where metals and shards interact, and the only place they should.

Do not spend Crafting Metals chasing Heirloom Shards except through a collection event you have already decided to complete. Metals buy skins. Shards buy heirlooms. Different stores, different math.

Exotic Shards: The Artifact Currency (Also Separate)

Exotic Shards upgrade Mythic weapons — Artifact items — through customization tiers. The Mythic R-301 (February 2025) had four upgrades; the Mythic C.A.R. of Season 30 has five tiers, from its base form to full rethemes. Sources: the Premium Battle Pass pays 10 Exotic Shards per pass, and they can also be bought with real money. Events have paid up to 20 as milestone rewards (Haute Shot, July 2025) and 50 in the 7th Anniversary event for players who already owned every Reactive skin. Exotic Shards buy nothing that Crafting Metals buy, and Crafting Metals buy nothing that Exotic Shards buy. Keep them apart in your head the same way the game keeps them apart in the store.

Legend Tokens: The Predictable Currency

Legend Tokens are the only currency in Apex with an exact, published earn rate: 600 per account level from level 4, forever. They buy Legends (12,000 each — twenty levels), Legendary skin recolors (10,500, community-reported), and daily challenge rerolls. They are the most predictable currency in the game, and the farming plan for them is just the leveling plan: play, level, spend 12,000, repeat. There is nothing to optimize beyond playing, which is why this section is short — and why any guide that promises a Legend Token "farm" is selling you the leveling guide with a different title.

What to Craft First

Metals are final — no refunds, no breaking items down. Spend in this order:

1. A Legendary skin for a weapon you use every match. The R-99, R-301, Flatline, or Wingman — whichever you pick up first in every drop. You will see it hundreds of times a season; a skin you never equip is 1,200 metals in a drawer.
2. A Legendary skin for your main Legend. One Legend, one skin, the one you play most. Not three Legends, not the newest one — your main.
3. Event Epic items, during collection events, if you want the shards. Epic event items cost 800 Crafting Metals (per the 5th Anniversary pricing) and are the cheapest way to complete a 24-item set for 150 Heirloom Shards. Only do this if you have already decided the heirloom is worth it — otherwise the metals are better spent on the first two items on this list.
4. Everything else, last. Finishers are Legendary-only and cost 1,200; quips, banners, and holosprays are cheap but forgettable. Craft them when you have metals to burn, not before.

And the negative list, which matters more:

• Never craft Commons (30) or Rares (60). Packs hand them out constantly. Crafting one is paying for something the game was about to give you free.
• Never craft a skin for a weapon you do not use. The crafting menu shows everything; your loadout shows what matters.
• Never craft an event Legendary at 2,400 without checking the Apex Coin price. Some event items are cheaper in Coins than in metals, and metals are the currency you cannot buy back.
• Never craft the day a new event starts. Wait for the event's free track and the full item list — the skin you want may be on the track, or the event may add a version you prefer.

Farming Traps

• Buying Crafting Metals. They cannot be bought or gifted. Any site, seller, or account offering Crafting Metals or Heirloom Shards for cash is a scam — EA's help page is explicit, and the "metals" never arrive because they cannot be transferred.
• Buying packs for metals. A pack is three random items. At 100 Coins a pack, you are paying $1 per lottery ticket for metals that average far below the 1,200 a Legendary costs. The battle pass is the only pack purchase that makes sense.
• Crafting before checking the menu price. Base Legendary is 1,200; event Legendary can be 2,400. The menu shows the real price. The guide shows the base price. Trust the menu.
• Confusing the currencies. Legend Tokens do not craft. Crafting Metals do not unlock Legends. Heirloom Shards do not buy skins. Exotic Shards do not buy heirlooms. Every wrong-currency purchase in Apex comes from forgetting this table.
• Chasing metals per hour. There is no published drop rate, so there is no honest rate. Anyone quoting one is guessing. Plan on the deterministic income — 1,200 per pass split — and let packs be a bonus.
• Skipping the free event track. Event trackers hand out packs and metals for playing. Leaving them unclaimed is leaving packs on the table.

The Season Calendar: When Metals Arrive

Metals do not arrive evenly. They arrive in lumps — pass completions, level-up packs, event tracks — and planning around the lumps is the difference between crafting what you want and staring at 1,150 metals for a month. Here is the deterministic income for one season, using Season 31's confirmed numbers.

Two Legendary crafts a season, guaranteed, for 950 Apex Coins per split — and the pass pays back 1,300 Coins, so the second split funds itself from the first. A player who finishes both passes every season and never opens a level-up pack still crafts two Legendaries a season. Everything from packs is on top of that. The plan writes itself: buy the pass early in the split, finish it, bank the 1,200 metals, and spend them on the skin you decided on before the season started — not on the skin that caught your eye on the last day.

Collection Events: The Metals-to-Shards Play

Collection Events are the one place where Crafting Metals and Heirloom Shards interact, and the only place they should. A Collection Event offers 24 premium cosmetics; collecting all 24 has paid 150 Heirloom Shards — exactly one heirloom. The cheapest path, worked out publicly for the 5th Anniversary event in 2024, is to craft the Epic items with Crafting Metals (800 each in that event's pricing), claim the two free Event Packs from the event tracker, and buy the remaining items with Event Packs at 700 Apex Coins each. Done that way, the full set cost at most 15,400 Apex Coins — about $154 — against the $500 it would cost to buy 500 packs for the shard guarantee.

The rules for using events well:

• Decide before the event starts whether you want the shards. If you do not, ignore the event's premium track entirely and take only the free rewards. Half-completing a collection is the most expensive way to play it — you spend metals and Coins and get no shards.
• Craft Epics first, buy Legendaries last. Epic event items are the cheapest crafts (800 metals in the 5th Anniversary pricing); Legendary event items run 1,800 to 2,400. Crafting the Epics first minimizes the number of Event Packs you have to buy.
• Claim the free Event Packs. The event tracker hands out two Event Packs for playing. They are the cheapest items in the set because they cost Event Points, not Coins or metals.
• Check the Legendary price in Coins before crafting it. Some event Legendaries are cheaper to buy outright (1,800 Apex Coins) than to craft (2,400 metals). Metals are the currency you cannot buy back; Coins are the currency you can.

Event pricing changes per event, and the 5th Anniversary figures are from 2024 — the structure (craft Epics, buy the rest, two free packs) has held, but the exact numbers have not been re-verified for Season 31's events. Check the store before you commit metals to any event item.

Apex Coins: What to Spend Them On (and What Not To)

Apex Coins are the only currency you buy with real money, and the spending order is fixed. Break it and you pay more for less.

1. The Premium Battle Pass, 950 Coins. First, every split. It pays back 1,300 Coins, 1,200 Crafting Metals, 14 Apex Packs, and 10 Exotic Shards. No other purchase in the game returns more than it costs. Buy it early in the split so you have time to finish it.
2. Event Packs, 700 Coins each — only to complete a collection you have already decided to finish. See the section above. Never buy Event Packs speculatively.
3. Store cosmetics you cannot craft. Mythic and Iconic items cannot be crafted, so Coins (or Exotic Shards) are the only route. Buy these only after the pass is paid for.
4. Apex Packs, 100 Coins each — last, and usually never. A pack is three random items. At $1 per pack, you are paying for a lottery ticket whose metals value is unknown and almost certainly below the price. The only honest reason to buy packs is the 500-pack Heirloom Shard guarantee, and that costs 50,000 Coins — roughly $500 — which is a decision, not a purchase.

Pack prices in the US: 1,000 Apex Coins lists at $9.99, which is why two 500-Coin purchases ($9.98) cover the 950-Coin pass with 50 Coins spare. Larger bundles exist and their per-Coin price improves with size, but their exact current prices were not re-verified for November 2026 — this guide states only the 1,000-Coin price and the 950-Coin pass cost, both verified.

What Metals Cannot Buy: Mythic, Iconic, and Reactive Skins

Crafting Metals have a ceiling, and it matters: you cannot craft Mythic or Iconic tier items. The rarest cosmetics in the game live outside the crafting menu, and knowing that before you save 1,200 metals for something that is not there saves you the disappointment.

• Heirlooms and Prestige skins cost Heirloom Shards (150 each) in the Mythic Store. Metals do not buy them, and shards do not buy crafted skins. Different stores, different currencies — the separation from the first section of this guide, applied to the top of the ladder.
• Reactive weapon skins come from the Battle Pass (Season 31 Split 1 pays a Reactive Wingman at level 60) and from events. They evolve as you deal damage in a match. They are not craftable, and they are not sold for metals after the fact — if you want one, you earn it during its pass or event.
• Artifact customizations cost Exotic Shards, not metals. The Mythic C.A.R. of Season 30 has five upgrade tiers; each tier is Exotic Shards, earned from the pass (10 per pass) or bought with real money.
• Collection event items can be crafted — at the event price, up to 2,400 metals for a Legendary — or bought with Apex Coins or won from Event Packs. The crafting menu is one of three routes for those items, not the only one.

The practical rule: metals buy the standard catalog — every normal Legendary, Epic, Rare, and Common cosmetic in the game. If an item is Mythic, Iconic, Reactive, or an Artifact, it is not in that catalog, and no amount of metals will put it there.

The Duplicate Curve: Why Veterans Earn Faster

The metals economy has a shape that rewards time, and it is worth understanding because it explains why two players opening the same number of packs earn different amounts of metals. A new account's first 19 packs (levels 2–20, one per level) are almost all new items — Commons and Rares you do not own yet, a few Epics, the occasional Legendary. Duplicates are rare, so metals are rare. A veteran account at level 400 owns most Commons and Rares already, so most packs pay duplicates — 15 or 30 metals per Common or Rare duplicate, 200 per Epic, 600 per Legendary — and the metals pile up without any change in play.

That curve is also why the "farm" feels slow at first and then accelerates. It is not that you got better at farming. It is that your collection filled up, and the game started paying you in metals instead of items. There is no way to skip the filling-up phase except to play through it — and no reason to, because the items you collect along the way are the skins you would otherwise have crafted. The system is self-balancing in exactly one direction: time in, metals out, faster the longer you play.

Patch State

Season 31: Cipher — live since November 3, 2026. The Premium pass costs 950 Apex Coins and pays 1,300 back, 1,200 Crafting Metals, 14 Apex Packs, and 10 Exotic Shards across 60 levels. The free track pays 7 Apex Packs and 200 Apex Coins. Split 2 is not yet dated; the Split 1 pass stops selling December 15, 2026. Currency rules are unchanged in Cipher — five currencies, same costs, same separation. Last checked November 9, 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

Every fact in this guide carries its source. Currency and crafting facts come from EA Help; pack schedules and Battle Pass contents come from EA's Season 14 notes and EA's Season 31 battle pass page; conflicts are flagged rather than settled silently. Last checked November 9, 2026.

• EA Help: Apex Legends currency guide (five currencies, crafting costs, duplicate refunds, "cannot be bought or gifted")
• EA Help: How to get the Apex Legends Battle Pass (two passes per season, 60 levels, Premium 950 Apex Coins)
• HowToVideoGame: Apex Legends Season 31 Battle Pass rewards and price (1,200 Crafting Metals, 14 packs, 1,300 Coins)
• SenseOS: How to Unlock Legends in Apex — every currency explained (Exotic Shards, event pricing, checked Oct–Nov 2026)
• SenseOS: Apex Max Level — 500, the tiers after it (199 packs by 500, 544 over 2,000)
• GameSpot: Apex Legends 5th Anniversary Collection Event (150 Heirloom Shards, 2,400 Crafting Metals event Legendary pricing)
• Esports Driven: Your Ultimate Crafting Materials Guide for Apex Legends (crafting costs by rarity)
• Esports Driven: How to Get Apex Packs in Apex Legends (pack schedule by level)
• Virtwave: Apex Coins Calculator (US prices checked Oct 8, 2026 — 1,000 Apex Coins $9.99)
• GameRiv: Apex Legends Season 31 Battle Pass (Ultimate 1,200 Crafting Metals — reported, pre-launch expectation)
• Apex Legends Wiki: Experience (match XP table — community-maintained)
• MMODude: Apex Legends Season 30 Split 2 Battle Pass (1,200 Crafting Metals, 14 packs, Ultimate instant rewards)