Money Tycoon Early-Game vs Late-Game Spending Curves
The first ten days of Money Tycoon look the same as the last ten, but the optimal spending pattern is completely different. Here is the math behind the shift.
Introduction
Money Tycoon compresses thirty in-game days into about two and a half minutes of real time, with each day lasting roughly five seconds. That compression means a decision on day 3 ripples all the way to day 30, while a decision on day 25 barely matters. Knowing where in the run you are, and what to spend on, is the difference between a respectable score and a top-tier one.
This guide splits the thirty days into three phases and gives the optimal spending pattern for each, because the right pattern is not the same throughout.
The Three Phases
Like most incremental games, Money Tycoon rewards compounding, so timing matters more than raw spending. The run divides naturally into three phases:
- Early game, days 1 to 10: earnings are tiny and the question is how to bootstrap.
- Mid game, days 11 to 20: passive businesses are paying out and click income fills the gaps.
- Late game, days 21 to 30: you scale existing investments and time them around boost days.
Each phase has a different optimal pattern, and treating them all the same is the most common mistake.
Early Game: Bootstrap the Cheapest Business
You start with $50 and a small click value. The first decision is whether to grind clicks or buy a business immediately, and the math favors buying. Any business paying out in the first few days produces compounding income that clicking cannot match. Focus on the cheapest passive business and buy multiples: five copies of one type triggers a 1.25x permanent milestone bonus, and reaching that in phase one beats spreading purchases across two or three types. Click upgrades this early are almost always a mistake unless a few clicks would close the gap to your next purchase, because they scale poorly against passive milestones.
Mid Game: Diversify and Stack Milestones
By day 11 you should earn enough per day to afford second and third business types, and diversification starts to pay. Each type can independently hit the 1.25x milestone, and milestones stack across types, so a common pattern is to push two or three types to five copies each before buying a sixth of any single one. Breadth of milestones generates more income than depth in one line, at least until the late game. This is also when click upgrades earn their keep: with passive income flowing, they extend your buying power in the gaps between payouts, and each upgrade applies to every click for the rest of the run.
Late Game: Boost-Day Stacking
The late game is dominated by boost days, which triple passive income and are visible in the passive-income panel ahead of time. The play is to maximize the income flowing into each boost. Two days before a boost, redirect spending toward whichever business has the highest payout per copy and stack as many copies as you can afford, so when the boost lands that income gets tripled. After a boost, spend the resulting cash pile immediately rather than saving it; saving through a boost wastes potential because the multiplier has already fired.
Using Double Money and Half-Off Purchases
Both power-ups have limited uses, and their value is all about timing. Double Money is best at the moment you hold the most cash, usually right after a boost day, since doubling cash that came from a 3x boost is multiplicative and produces huge spikes. Half-Off Purchases is best during a heavy spending phase, roughly days 12 to 18, when you are scaling milestones across types, because half-priced businesses let you reach more milestones in less time.
The Final Two Days
Days 29 and 30 give almost no return on new purchases. A business costing $1,000 that pays $100 a day returns $200 over the final two days, a 20 percent return, versus $1,500 over fifteen days if bought on day 15, a 150 percent return. By day 28 or so, stop buying. Spend on click upgrades only if you are still actively clicking; otherwise let existing passive income compound and bank cash to the end.
Putting It Into Practice
The run is short enough to test several spending patterns in one sitting. Use the Money Tycoon guide demo to experiment without touching your competitive score, and see the broader fundamentals in our Money Tycoon strategy guide. Compare a run that front-loads click upgrades against one that front-loads passive businesses, and the gap becomes obvious within a few attempts. Then take it to today's board.
Sources
Wikipedia, Incremental game.
Wikipedia, Compound interest.
About the author
Timmothy is a student who has loved puzzle games since childhood and likes digging into how they actually work. He writes about the science and history behind the games on Daily.