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The upgrading system present in the game is based on the number of a certain cookie generator that the player owns. For example, the Prune Juice upgrade for Grandmas requires that players own 50 Grandmas. While some upgrades might take a while to build up to, they tend to be very worthwhile for the patient (or AFK) Cookie Clicker player.

Updated December 13, 2021 by Erik Petrovich: Cookie Clicker is a labor of love, consistently updated throughout the many years of its existence with new features to keep players guessing where the real end-game is. To get there, though, players have to upgrade smartly and invest their hard-earned Cookies and Heavenly Chips in upgrades that actually matter. The best Cookie Clicker upgrades are those that either permanently affect the game (even through Prestige levels) or give players an instant massive boost to their cookie output. While many of these upgrades are purchasable pretty early on, most have stronger versions that more powerfully affect production when unlocked later down the line.

Persistent Memory

Cost: 500 Heavenly Chips Pre-Requisites: “Legacy” Upgrade

The Persistent Memory upgrade is a Prestige option that players can earn relatively early into a long-term Cookie Clicker playthrough. For 500 Heavenly Chips the Persistent Memory upgrade makes all research in all future playthroughs 10 times faster. This rapidly increases the rate players are able to purchase new Cookie generators not normally available.

To upgrade Persistent Memory players have to have Legacy purchased. This occurs the first time the player Ascends and spends their first Heavenly Chip, so it’s not so much a pre-requisite as it is a normal part of Ascension.

Permanent Upgrade Slots

Cost: 100 Heavenly Chips Pre-Requisites: “Legacy”

Permanent Upgrade Slots are powerful Cookie Clicker upgrades that let players keep the benefits of an upgrade through multiple playthroughs (and multiple Prestige levels). The first Permanent Upgrade Slot costs a paltry 100 Heavenly Chips in the Ascension screen, but the cost escalates quickly to 20,000 for the second Upgrade Slot, three million for the third, 400 million for the fourth, and 50 billion for the fifth.

These Upgrade Slots can be slotted with any normal Upgrade purchased in Cookie Clicker. The Cookie Clicker best permanent upgrades to slot are those that give the largest boost to production through a playthrough, like Trillion Fingers which increases Cursor production massively even from the start.

Thousand Fingers

Cost: 100,000 Cookies Pre-Requisites: Purchase 25 Cursors

There are several Cookie Clicker upgrades pertaining to Auto-Clickers that might not seem powerful at first glance. The Auto-Clicker is, of course, the weakest cookie generator in Cookie Clicker, but it’s also the cheapest and players tend to amass them faster than other generators.

Thousand Fingers adds 0.1 cookies generated by Auto-Clickers for each non-cursor object owned. There are a variety of upgrades between Thousand Fingers and Trillion Fingers that increase this number, but Trillion Fingers offers the largest jump in power with a 20 times multiplier added to Thousand Fingers.

Forwards From Grandma

Cost: 1000 Cookies Pre-Requisites: 1 Grandma purchased

Grandmas are the second-cheapest cookie generator in the game and one that players tend to build lots of at the start. They lose their luster over time, but with certain upgrades, they become powerhouses in their own right.

The upgrades that make Grandmas twice as efficient are all unlocked at certain milestones. Forwards from Grandma requires one owned Grandma, while Double-Thick Glasses requires the player to own 100 Grandmas. This adds up significantly over time.

Farmer Grandmas

Cost: 55,000 Cookies Pre-Requisites: 15 Farms and 1 Grandma purchased

Several Cookie Clicker upgrades to the Grandmas are only unlocked when the player has at least 15 of another type of generator. As a few examples, Farmer Grandmas require 15 Farms, Worker Grandmas require 15 Factories, and AntiGrandmas require 15 Antimatter Condensers.

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Each of these upgrades is twofold. Grandmas become twice as efficient and the associated other item gains +1 Cookies Per Second (CPS) for a certain number of Grandmas. Farmer Grandmas increase Farm CpS by 1% for every Grandma owned, while AntiGrandmas increase Antimatter Machine CpS by 1% for every 11 Grandmas owned.

Kitten Helpers

Cost: 9 Million Cookies Pre-Requisites: 52% Milk (13 Achievements)

The Kitten Helpers upgrade is unlocked once the player has earned at least 13 total achievements in Cookie Clicker. It unlocks the ability to increase CpS across the board depending on how much Milk a player has. Milk is earned every time the player has earned an achievement at a 4% increase each.

The Kitten Helpers upgrade only increases CpS by 0.1% of the total Milk, but as Milk increases so too does cookie production for every single owned object (and, of course, for every click). Players have to unlock specific Prestige-related upgrades to fully unlock the potential of their Milk.

Heavenly Chip Secret

Cost: 11 Cookies Pre-Requisites: “Legacy” Upgrade

When a player goes into Ascension and gains Prestige ranks, the game restarts. However, their Prestige stays the same between playthroughs and so do the permanent upgrades unlocked through the game’s skill tree. When restarting, the player gains CpS based on their current Prestige – but it’s not available at first.

Players have to buy special upgrades like the Heavenly Chip Secret to unlock a certain amount of their Prestige levels. If a player is at Prestige 100, for example, they will only have a 5% increase to CpS with the Heavenly Chip Secret unlock. As more of these upgrades are unlocked, such as Heavenly Cookie Stand and Heavenly Bakery, the full Prestige potential is given to the player.

Lucky Day (and Serendipity/Get Lucky)

Cost: 777,777 Cookies Pre-Requisites: 7 Golden Cookies collected

There are three Golden Cookie-related Cookie Clicker upgrades – Lucky Day, Serendipity, and Get Lucky. Each upgrade makes Golden Cookies appear twice as often and stick around for double the time. At the start of the game, Golden Cookies only stay for a few seconds, but with these upgrades, the benefits and buffs can last for minutes.

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Each one requires the player to have clicked a certain number of cookies. Lucky Day requires 7 to have been clicked and costs 777 Million cookies, Serendipity requires 27 and costs 77 Billion cookies, and Get Lucky requires 77 Golden Cookies clicked and costs 77 Trillion cookies.

How To Bake Your Dragon

Cost: 9 Heavenly Chips Pre-Requisites: None

A Crumbly Egg is an upgrade that first requires players to purchase the Prestige level 9 Ascension upgrade titled “How To Bake Your Dragon”. Once A Crumbly Egg is unlocked for 25 cookies, a Dragon Egg will appear on screen, giving players a side objective to complete in taking care of the little fella.

As the player earns more cookies the dragon egg hatches and turns into Krumblor, a Cookie Dragon. Krumblor will give the player new upgrades and unique gameplay changes, like reduced upgrade cost, increased Golden Cookie chance, and even the game-wide cookie multiplier.

Cost: Varies greatly – anywhere from 66 trillion Cookies to 2. 4 decillion Cookies Pre-Requisites: “Synergies” Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 Upgrades purchased, must own a certain amount of each Cookie Producer

There are several Synergy upgrades in Cookie Clicker that only unlock when two conditions are met. The first is that the “Synergies Vol. 1” or “Synergies Vol. 2” upgrades must be unlocked. The second is that the player must own a certain number of each of the two associated objects for each synergy upgrade.

Seismic Magic, for example, requires “Synergies Vol. 1” unlocked as well as 15 Mines and 15 Wizard Towers purchased. For this, Mines gain 5% CpS for every Wizard Tower, while Wizard Towers gain 0.1% CpS for every Mine. The Synergy upgrades are often Cookie Clicker’s best upgrades for players with a plan to focus on only a few producers.

Cookie Clicker is available on Google Play, Steam, and the Apple Store, or in its original browser-based version.

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