OSRS Sand Crabs Guide: XP Rates & Locations

Sand Crabs are one of the most popular AFK training monsters in Old School RuneScape. They have extremely low Defense, high Hitpoints (60 HP), and no aggressive attacks, making them perfect for early to mid-level combat training.
They provide excellent XP rates for minimal effort, and are especially ideal for melee and ranged training before moving to Ammonite Crabs or NMZ.

Requirements

  Quest Access: Client of Kourend

Tip: You don’t need high defense gear — prioritize ranged or strength and attack bonuses.

Location

Sand crabs can only be found in P2P areas such as Hosidius' coast, Crabclaw Isle, Crabclaw Caves, and the Isle of Souls. The most popular locations are Hosidius and Crabclaw Isle, which are usually crowded, but have up to 125 spawns in total, so you should be able to find a good spot even if you have to hop worlds a few times, depending on the time of day.

There are different areas:

Hosidius Coast - The easiest and most common spot for beginners.

Sand Crab Island - An island south of the coast, accessible by paying 10,000 coins to the Sandy Crab NPC. This island has more dense spawns and less competition.

Crabclaw caves - This cave is located west of the coat of Hosidius or south of the woodcutting guild; to access it, you must have partially completed the depths of despair quest; it contains 15 spawns of sand crabs and is usually less crowded due to the requirements needed to begin the depths of despair quest, which are: Client of Kourend completion, X Marks the spot and 18 agility.

Isle of Souls - This island is one of the least popular places to train with sand crabs; it is located west of Feldip Hills and is best known as the location for the Soul Wars minigame. It has 15 spawns on its coast.

Avium Savannah - southern coast

Outer Fortis - part of Civitas Illa Fortis

Fastest Ways to Get There

•   Player-Owned House in Great Kourend: Use your house teleport if located there.
•   Scroll of Redirection (from NMZ) → Redirect a house tab to Great Kourend.
•   Amulet of Glory → Draynor Village → Walk west to Port Sarim, then speak to Veos to sail to Port Piscarilius. From there, run south along the beach until you see the Sand Crabs.
•    Skill necklace teleports you to the woodcutting guild → Run south
  
  

How to Aggro Sand Crabs

Sand Crabs begin combat when you walk near their rock-like form. They’ll remain aggressive for about 10–15 minutes.
Once they stop attacking:

1. Run far away
2. Then return — they’ll re-aggro.
   On the island, you can run from one side to the other to reset their aggression efficiently with 1-2 clicks.

Tip: If you are using RuneLite, you can use the aggressive monsters' plugin, which shows you the timer of how much time you have left before they stop attacking you because they are aggressive.

  EXP Rates

Here are the different experience rates that you should expect depending on your combat method.

  Experience rates when training melee

You can get about 5,000 average XP per hour from levels 1 to 20.

From levels 20 to 40, you can expect to gain about 12,000 XP per hour on average.

From levels 40 to 60, you can gain up to 30,000 XP per hour by using a dragon scimitar.

If you decide to kill sand crabs until you reach 99 melee combat, you should start gaining 50,000-70,000 experience per hour if you use the best combat gear you can find.  

• Low levels (1-50): ~5–15k XP/hr
• Mid-levels (60–80): ~20–45k XP/hr
• High levels (90+): ~50–70k XP/hr

  Experience rates when training ranged

Beginning levels are quite quick when training at ammonite crabs, and when you get to 70 ranged, you can expect to gain 40,000 experience per hour, and as you get closer to 99 ranged, you can gain up to 90,000 experience per hour.

• Low Levels (1-50): ~5-15k XP/hr
• Mid Levels (50-75) ~20-45k XP/hr
• High Levels (75+) ~55-90k XP/hr

  Experience rates when training magic

When training magic at ammonite crabs, you should expect about up to 30,000-70,000 experience per hour from level 60 to 99 magic. The recommended spell to use is the fire wave, but this method is expensive, and it may be worth considering options that are similar in cost but have faster experience rates, such as ice bursting/barrage maniacal monkeys.

• Low levels (1-60): ~10–30k XP/hr
• Mid levels (60–80): ~30–50k XP/hr
• High levels (90+): ~50–70k XP/hr

XP rates are lower than Ammonite Crabs, but ideal for players who haven’t completed Bone Voyage or don't want to scout too many worlds.

How to Find an Empty World

Sand Crab areas, especially on the island, can get crowded (not a private island)

• Use the RuneLite World Hopper plugin for quick world switching.
• Prioritize less-populated worlds
• Early morning or late-night hours (game time) often have more open spots.

Tip: If someone takes your spot, sometimes it's better to be passive and look for another world instead of staying and fighting for the spot for half the EXP per hour, sometimes it's not about ego, but about efficiency.

Sand Crabs vs. Ammonite Crabs

Sand Crabs vs Gemstone Crabs

Gemstone Crab XP reduction

Yes, Gemstone Crab XP rates have been reduced by 12.5%, but they remain favorable due to consistent, AFK combat with no downtime for overkill damage. The reduced rate is compensated by the constant 10-minute attack intervals, which can lead to higher overall experience per hour, especially compared to other methods where experience is lost through overkill damage or downtime. 

XP per damage: You will get 87.5% of the usual experience per damage dealt. 

For example, (1) damage is now worth (3.5) experience instead of (4).

If you already have access to Gemstone Crab content and meet the requirements, it is generally superior in real use to Sand Crabs for most players (especially for prolonged AFK sessions). Players seeking maximum XP/hour will prefer Gemstone Crabs, while those after a simple, easy-access AFK method should stick with Sand Crabs.

Verdict: If you’re a newer player or looking for a stress-free AFK spot, Sand Crabs are still the best option. For those with access to Varlamore and higher combat stats, Gemstone Crab offer better XP rates and longer aggro timers, making them the superior choice for efficient, extended training sessions.

In short: Sand Crabs are better for early training; Ammonite Crabs are superior later and Gemstone Crab is meta between all crabs at the moment (2025)

Drops

  Weapons and Armour
Bronze pickaxe (1/21.33), Iron pickaxe (1/25.6)

  Seaweed
Seaweed (1/32), Seaweed ×2 (1/32), Seaweed ×5 (1/64), Edible seaweed ×2 (1/64)

  Ore
Tin ore ×3 (1/32), Iron ore (1/64), Coal ×2 (1/64), Copper ore ×3 (1/64)

  Oyster
Oyster ×2 (1/10.67), Oyster (1/14.22), Empty oyster (1/42.67), Empty oyster ×3 (1/128), Oyster pearl (1/128)

Other
Bucket of sand (1/21.33), Opal bolt tips ×5 (1/64), Fishing bait ×10 (1/64), Spinach roll (1/128), Casket (1/128)

  Gem drop table
Uncut sapphire (1/512; 1/260), Uncut emerald (1/1,024; 1/520), Uncut ruby (1/2,048; 1/1,040), Chaos talisman (1/5,461; 1/2,773), Nature talisman (1/5,461; 1/2,773), Uncut diamond (1/8,192; 1/4,160), Loop half of key (1/16,384; 1/8,320), Tooth half of key (1/16,384; 1/8,320), Rune javelin ×5 (1/16,384; 1/8,320), Rune spear (1/262,144; 1/15,600), Shield left half (1/524,288; 1/31,200), Dragon spear (1/699,051; 1/41,600)

  Tertiary
Clue scroll (easy) (1/128)

Conclusion

Sand Crabs are the best early AFK training method for melee or range in OSRS.
No quest requirements, low damage, and high XP rates make them perfect for beginners or anyone wanting laid-back training. Although if you want more EXP per hour, more AFK, and better experience, you can go for the Gemstone Crab.
Once you outgrow them, move on to Ammonite, Gemstone Crabs, or Nightmare Zone for even faster gains.