The demon butler is the best OSRS house servant for Construction, carrying 26 items per trip with a seven-second round trip from Construction level 50. Below that, the cook at 30 is the first servant that can visit the sawmill, and the butler at 40 is the sensible interim step. Which one you should hire depends on your level, your method and how much banking your training actually involves.
Servants matter because Construction training is bottlenecked by material supply, not by building. A servant walks to the bank, fetches noted planks and brings them back while you keep working. Take the servant away and any published experience rate collapses, because you become the delivery system.
Every servant compared
All five servants are hired from the Servants’ Guild in Ardougne. Levels, fees, capacities and trip times below are fixed game mechanics from the OSRS Wiki servant table.
| Servant | Construction level | Fee | Capacity | Trip time | Sawmill | Food served |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rick | 20 | 500 coins | 6 items | 60s | No | Shrimps |
| Maid | 25 | 1,000 coins | 10 items | 30s | No | Stew |
| Cook | 30 | 3,000 coins | 16 items | 17s | Yes | Pineapple pizza |
| Butler | 40 | 5,000 coins | 20 items | 12s | Yes | Chocolate cake |
| Demon butler | 50 | 10,000 coins | 26 items | 7s | Yes | Curry |
The fee is charged every eight trips, so a demon butler bills 10,000 coins per eight loads. Divided across 26 items a trip, that is roughly 48 coins per item delivered. A rounding error next to a mahogany plank.
Capacity and trip time are two different upgrades
Reading the table as a single ladder hides what is actually improving. Two things change as you move up, and they matter in different situations.
Capacity decides how many builds you get between deliveries. A build consuming six planks turns 26 items into four builds and change; the same delivery from Rick gives you one build.
Trip time decides whether you ever stand still. Rick takes a full minute to return. If your build consumes his six planks in fifteen seconds, you spend three quarters of the loop waiting. The demon butler’s seven-second trip is short enough that a well-set-up player never runs dry.
The jump from Rick to the cook is the single largest quality-of-life change in the list: capacity nearly triples and trip time drops by more than two thirds.
Sawmill access changes what you can buy
Only the cook, butler and demon butler can be sent to the sawmill. That matters if you buy logs rather than finished planks, because it lets the servant handle conversion instead of you running the trip yourself.
Whether that saves you money is a separate question that depends on the gap between log prices, the sawmill fee and finished plank prices on the day. The Oak vs Teak vs Mahogany planks comparison works through that decision, and the plank acquisition comparison covers the Plank Make spell as a third option.
Which servant for which method
Servant choice follows the plank appetite of your method rather than your level.
Oak larders (level 33). Eight oak planks per build. A cook’s 16 items is exactly two builds; the butler’s 20 gives two builds with four planks spare. Either works comfortably. This is the stretch where most players are still below 50 anyway.
Mahogany tables (level 52). Six mahogany planks per build. By the time you unlock the method you already meet the demon butler’s level requirement, so there is no reason to run anything else.
Gnome benches (level 77). Six mahogany planks per build across two seating hotspots. This is the most delivery-hungry method in the game and the demon butler is effectively mandatory.
Oak doors (level 74). Ten oak planks per build. A demon butler’s 26 items covers two doors with six planks left over, which is a slightly awkward remainder but still the best available.
Mahogany Homes. No servant involved. Contracts happen in NPC houses, not yours, so this is the one Construction method where servant choice is irrelevant.
When upgrading is worth it
The fee differences are small enough that the honest answer is usually “upgrade as soon as you qualify”. Three cases deserve a moment’s thought.
Level 20 to 30. Rick and the maid cannot use the sawmill and have long trip times. If you are within a session or two of level 30, training to the cook before starting a long grind is worth more than the levels cost.
Level 40 butler. A perfectly good servant for oak-based training. If your plan is oak larders to 52 and you are not in a hurry, there is no urgency to push to 50 purely for the demon butler.
Level 50 demon butler. Once you are training mahogany, this is not optional. The Butler vs Demon Butler comparison works through the specific case where players hesitate.
Running the loop properly
The servant only helps if you never wait for it. The sequence that produces published rates is:
- Build the piece of furniture.
- Remove it immediately.
- Keep building from the planks still in your inventory.
- Call the servant and hand over noted planks while you continue.
- Pay the fee proactively rather than letting the eight-trip counter interrupt you.
Standing still during the fetch is the single largest gap between a headline rate and a real one. So is a badly placed build spot: put the hotspot and the servant’s path close together, and choose a house portal you can reach quickly.
The player-owned house setup guide covers room layout and portal choice.
Turning servant choice into a number
Servant selection changes how fast you get through a plank pile, not how many planks the pile needs. The plank count and the gold come from your level, your target and your method.
Estimate the planks required for your target and you will see the delivery load your servant has to handle: a 99 on gnome benches means 82,566 mahogany planks, which is over 3,000 demon butler trips. That figure is what makes the seven-second trip time worth 10,000 coins every eight loads.
A note on the figures here
Servant levels, fees, capacities and trip times come from the OSRS Wiki servant comparison table and are fixed mechanics. The per-item fee calculations use those same fixed values. Plank prices referenced elsewhere in this article were checked on 25 August 2026 and change with the market. The GE price tracker has current figures.