Comparison

Merchant vs Goblin's Workshop

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Merchant

Embark on a fantasy adventure where you manage a guild, send heroes on quests, and craft valuable items. Trade with customers, gather resources, and collaborate with friends in this unique RPG experience.

Highlights
  • Guild management
  • Hero quests
  • Item crafting
  • Customer sales
  • Resource gathering
  • Online multiplayer
Features
Read full description

Blending together traditional RPG systems, management mechanics, and a fantasy overworld, Merchant Guilds aims to reimagine the traditional mobile RPG. Play with your friends in a Guild as you send heroes on quests, craft equipment from your winnings, sell items to customers, and send workers out to gather more materials. Including online multiplayer functionality and developed by a team that is focused on this game for the foreseeable future

About

Goblin's Workshop

A simulation RPG where you craft weapons, recruit monsters, and explore to gather materials. Sell items to monsters, upgrade your transport, and equip your monsters to battle humans and reclaim territories.

Highlights
  • Item crafting and selling
  • Monster recruitment and exploration
  • RPG combat mechanics
  • Idle gameplay
  • Monster equipment upgrades
  • Territory battles
Features
Read full description

***** goblin's Workshop is a simple and easy item making simulation & RPG idle game. ***** Make weapons, recruit monsters to explore, get more materials and make more powerful weapons! Defeat the evil humans! [Introduction] In the game, you can make all kinds of items to sell to monsters to earn money, from time to time there will be a variety of monsters to visit your store. If you are very idle, you can also click them to pimp, from them to cut more money. When there are not enough materials, you must send your monster hired soldiers to explore the world to get more resources. If you have some money, please buy a better transport wagon for the monsters to ride. But the humans in this world is not a vegetarian, they occupy many territories. So your monsters if the equipped items are too bad to explore, it is easy to be beaten by human! You can leave the better items to your monsters to put on, so that the monsters increase more combat power. The crap will be left to other idiot customers to buy it, this is the right way to do business! Well, no more chit chat. I'm going to the market to buy materials and drink... [Terms of Use] https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Merchant4 screens
Goblin's Workshop4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Merchant at 4.4 against Goblin's Workshop's 3.7. Merchant also leads on ratings volume (52 vs 9). Goblin's Workshop's advantage is review sentiment (71% vs 50%) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). On price, update cadence, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Merchant sells 10 one-off in-app purchases and Goblin's Workshop sells 11 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Merchant holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Merchant has 52 ratings behind it against 9, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 50% of Merchant's written reviews are positive against 71% of Goblin's Workshop's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Merchant ships an update every 2 weeks, Goblin's Workshop every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and September 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Merchant versus Goblin's Workshop: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMerchantGoblin's Workshop
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (52 ratings) — better3.7 (9 ratings)
Positive reviews50.0% of reviews71.4% of reviews — better
Number of ratings52 — better9
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsYesYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.012.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size410 MB423 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperRetora Game StudiosJUNG CHUN HUNG

Customer experience

Merchant

All ratings52 ratings
Positive82.7%
Neutral1.9%
Negative15.4%
Written reviews16 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral18.8%
Negative31.3%

Goblin's Workshop

All ratings8 ratings
Positive62.5%
Neutral12.5%
Negative25.0%
Written reviews7 reviews
Positive71.4%
Neutral14.3%
Negative14.3%

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Merchant

One-time10
  • Extra Daily Challenge$0.99
  • Extra Daily Challenge Upg #2$0.99
  • Hero Slots Unlock$1.99
Show 7 more
  • Additional Inventory Slots$1.99
  • Second Inventory Upgrade$1.99
  • Extra Crafting Slot$3.99
  • Extra Hero Loadouts$9.99
  • Ad Free Mode$9.99
  • Unlock All Upgrades$29.99
  • Unlock All Upgrades$34.99
11 purchases

Goblin's Workshop

Subscriptions3
  • Double Bless$9.997 Days
  • Goblin King's Bless$9.997 Days
  • Hire Crystal Miner$14.991 Month
One-time8
  • Fistful of crystals$0.99
  • Unlock a random recipe$1.99
  • Pouch of crystals$2.99
Show 5 more
  • Chest of crystals$9.99
  • 3x Battle Speed$9.99
  • Newbie Special Package$9.99
  • Barrel of crystals$29.99
  • Unlock all monsters$47.99

Questions

Is Merchant free?
Merchant is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Goblin's Workshop free?
Goblin's Workshop is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Merchant or Goblin's Workshop?
Merchant is rated higher. Merchant averages 4.4 out of 5 from 52 ratings, while Goblin's Workshop averages 3.7 from 9 ratings.
Do Merchant or Goblin's Workshop have ads?
Both Merchant and Goblin's Workshop show ads.
Which is updated more often, Merchant or Goblin's Workshop?
Merchant ships an update every 2 weeks, and Goblin's Workshop every 3 weeks. Most recently, Merchant was updated on October 15, 2026 and Goblin's Workshop on September 30, 2026.

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