Merchant RPG vs Idle Clans
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Merchant RPG
Manage a fantasy shopkeeping empire by sending heroes on quests for materials and using crafters to create gear. Balance crafting, selling, and hero upgrades to build your trade empire and conquer foes. This offline idle RPG blends tycoon mechanics with traditional RPG elements.
- Send heroes on quests
- Craft weapons and armor
- Manage shop economy
- Upgrade heroes and crafters
- Raid bosses
- Customize characters
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Be the Merchant of your very own empire! Quest, Craft, Profit, Upgrade! As the Merchant, you are the commander of your own domain! Blending together traditional RPG systems, tycoon mechanics, and a fantasy overworld, Merchant aims to reimagine the traditional mobile RPG. In Merchant, players take the role of a shopkeeper who must manage a team of Heroes and Crafters. Heroes are sent out on quests in order to fight enemies and gather materials. Crafters then use those materials to create weapons and armor. As the shopkeeper, players must balance their micro-economies between selling items for gold and crafting items to better ensure success for the Heroes. * * * TAKE REIGN OF YOUR MARKET - Send Heroes out on epic adventures! - Pay Crafters to create gear! - Earn gold and dictate the direction of your economy! - Grow your inventory and profit from your trade empire! VICTORY THROUGH CONQUEST - Choose your cast of characters from multiple Hero classes! - Ride out to battle to bring back items and loot! - Customize your champions with weapons and armor! - Band together to raid powerful bosses as a party! - Better performance leads to greater rewards! CRAFT YOUR LEGACY - Utilize the unique Crafters to create items and gear to use and sell! - Train the Crafters to create better items, allowing them to master their trade! - Ensure the victory of your Heroes by outfitting them with superior items! * * *
Idle Clans
Embark on an epic multiplayer idle MMORPG adventure. Train skills, engage in deep combat, craft gear, and master commerce in a player-driven economy. Join or form clans to conquer challenges and ascend leaderboards.
- Train 20+ unique skills
- Deep combat system
- Offline progression
- Craft armor and weapons
- Enchant jewelry
- Brew potions
- Player-driven economy
- Clan system
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Idle Clans aims to provide the classic MMORPG experience in a casual way. Everything you would expect from an MMORPG, but at your own pace. You don't need to quit your day job to keep up with others. If you only have a moment, that's still enough to keep your character progressing. CLANS The game's title might give it away, but a central part of the game is its clan system. Create a clan or join an existing one to collaborate with others and speed up your own progression. Clans can unlock clan-specific upgrades, clan events, clan bosses and clan quests. Some clans are very casual, some coordinate at levels our government agencies could take notes from. The clan recruitment centre makes it easy to find the right clan for you. PLAYER-DRIVEN ECONOMY Every item you purchase on the player market has been obtained or crafted by another player. SKILLS & COMBAT Deep, interconnected skilling, crafting and combat systems are the core of the game. There are dozens of skills to level up along with an ever-growing collection of items, upgrades and modifiers. Content varies from lowly turkeys that are incapable of doing harm to end-game bosses and raids that'll put your game knowledge to the test. Completing every achievement grants you the Grandmaster rank. That's a journey lasting years, and we might be biased here, but what a journey it is! FREE-TO-PLAY Idle Clans is free-to-play with optional in-app purchases. These provide tokens that can be claimed for permanent ranks. The tokens are tradeable, meaning anything in the game shop can also be bought with in-game gold, as many players opt to do. COMMUNITY Idle Clans has been actively developed since its launch in 2023, and our amazing community has played a massive part in shaping the game. With 10k+ players in our Discord server, there's no shortage of ideas and discussion.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Idle Clans at none against Merchant RPG's shown. Idle Clans also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 4 months) and review sentiment (89% vs 69%). Merchant RPG's advantage is iOS requirement (8.0 vs 13.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Merchant RPG sells 10 one-off in-app purchases and Idle Clans sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Merchant RPG against 4.7 for Idle Clans. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 276 and 610 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 69% of Merchant RPG's written reviews are positive against 89% of Idle Clans's.
Merchant RPG ships an update every 4 months, Idle Clans every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Merchant RPG | Idle Clans |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (276 ratings) | 4.7 (610 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 68.9% of reviews | 88.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 276 | 610 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 67 MB | 317 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Retora Game Studios | Isam Games Oy |
Customer experience
Merchant RPG
Idle Clans
User reviews
Merchant RPG
From 276 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Addictive gameplay
- 👍 Simple yet deep mechanics
- 🎨 Lovely pixel art style
- 💰 Fair monetization model
- ⏱️ Quick progression
Room to improve
- 🔇 Cuts off background audio
- 🤔 Confusing for new players
- 🤖 Lack of combat animations
- 🧠 Repetitive gameplay loop
Idle Clans
From 610 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Free-to-play friendly
- 🚀 Efficient idle progression
- 💡 Engaging multiplayer features
- 👍 Balanced progression without pay-to-win
- 👍 Helpful and active community
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional connectivity issues
- ⏱️ Long event durations for larger clans
- 💰 Premium content locked behind paywall
Bugs and requests
Merchant RPG
Reported bugs
3 issues- Ads not working properly
- Inventory management issues
- Progression-blocking bugs
Requested features
4 requests- Add save slots or cloud sync
- Improve equipment visuals
- Implement auto-repeat quests
- Provide more guidance for new players
Idle Clans
Reported bugs
2 issues- Loading screen freezes
- Inability to change character name
Requested features
3 requests- Reduce event task time
- Add more end-game content
- Improve mobile optimization
In-app purchases
Merchant RPG
- 16 Inventory Slots$0.99
- 16 Additional Inventory Slots II$0.99
- 16 Additional Inventory Slots III$0.99
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- 16 Additional Inventory Slots$0.99
- Unlock the Jeweler$0.99
- Hero Slot I$0.99
- Enchanter Unlock$1.99
- Frozen Tome Expansion$2.99
- Scribe Expansion$3.99
- Unlocks Everything$14.99
Idle Clans
- Extra inventory space$1.99
- Extra clan vault space$1.99
- Exterminating token$3.99
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Boss hunter$3.99
- Auto loadout token$3.99
- Auto raid token$4.99
- Questing scroll$4.99
- Premium$9.99
- Gigantic holiday currency pack$17.99
- Inventory space token (x10)$17.99








