Best Cookie Clicker Strategy Guide

By Laurel Devoto Updated July 1, 2021

At first glance, Cookie Clicker doesn’t look like it would require much in the way of strategy. When I started playing, I thought it was about clicking and waiting for cookies to bake. There’s a lot more to it than that, though.

Knowing the value of your buildings, the purpose of the upgrades, and how to increase your overall production will help you bake cookies faster than ever. You’ll be able to level buildings, unlock minigames, and purchase units that initially seem out of reach.

Best Cookie Clicker Strategy

The best Cookie Clicker strategies revolve around building selection, upgrades, and ascension.

Upgrade Early and Often

Upgrades don’t look quite as exciting as purchasing new cookie-producing facilities — but they give you a lot of bang for your buck. Upgrades are located above the building purchase area and increase cookie production and building efficiency.

Even if it means waiting to buy a new grandma or a portal, purchase the upgrades. Even if it seems like a small impact at first, they add up over time. Many of them apply to every building in a particular category or every building you own, which helps increase production even more quickly.

Choose Your Upgrades Wisely

Focusing on upgrades doesn’t mean you should purchase every upgrade as soon as you can. If you’re someone who likes to sit on the window and click, buy the upgrades that improve clicking. If not, purchase the upgrades that increase non-click production.

Don’t Skimp on Starter Units

Grandmas and cursors don’t seem as exciting when you can unlock shipments or alchemy labs but don’t make the mistake of skipping over them. Upgrades throughout the game increase the efficiency of the grandmas and cursors. They can also have a significant impact on how quickly other buildings produce cookies.

Invest-more-on-Grandmas-and-cursors-at-early

Purchase these units early in the game and continue topping them up throughout.

Not All Buildings are Equal

You don’t want the same number of each building. While you want many of the first two units — grandmas and cursors — you don’t need to make out the rest. Purchase 200 of each and then focus on buildings that give you a higher rate of return on total cookie production.

Walk Away for Awhile

Even if you’re a serious clicker, sometimes it’s better just to let the game run. While it might feel satisfying to purchase a large number of early upgrades, instead, let your cookies build up. When you come back, you can buy shipments, portals, or even time machines.

Every time you purchase a higher upgrade, you get a more satisfying CPS number. This means that every time you come back, there will be more cookies waiting for you.

Ascend and Reap Rewards

Ascending won’t make much sense at first glance. To ascend, click under the word “Legacy,” but beware: you will lose your buildings, cookies, and upgrades. What you gain are prestige levels and heavenly chips.

Prestige levels increase your CPS by 1 percent per level. Heavenly chips let you purchase upgrades. For example, the Heavenly Luck upgrade makes golden cookies appear 5 percent more often.

The upgrades take a long time to earn; they’re dependent on the number of cookies you’ve baked. However, they will have a significant impact on your success in the long run.

Go for Achievements

You can’t actively collect milk. Instead, you get more milk when you unlock achievements. Though you can’t see the achievements you haven’t earned in the game, you can click “Stats” to see the ones you’ve had so far.

Read through them, and you’ll have an idea of what you need to do to get more achievements. For example, increase the number of cursors, farms, or sugar lumps you’ve selected to reach new achievements.

Milk increases your cookie production. You can also improve your milk effects by selecting kitten upgrades.

Be Patient with Your Sugar Lumps

Sugar lumps begins to appear once you’ve made one billion cookies. You can trade each sugar lump for building upgrades. These upgrades unlock profitable minigames.

The trick is that each sugar lump takes almost a full day to mature. You might be impatient but clicking it before it’s ready to be harvested means you only have a 50 percent chance to receive it. So be patient and only harvest when the sugar lumps are ripe.

Choose the Right Building Upgrades

While you can upgrade many of the buildings with sugar lumps, consider starting with the temple. It gives you the Pantheon game where you choose three spirits to worship at a time. This Cookie Clicker minigame gives you a buff that continues even when you aren’t actively playing the game.

You can also upgrade the wizard tower, which lets you cast golden cookies. The benefit of this game is that golden cookie combos can give you a more significant boost.

Actually Click Your Cookies

I’ve had Cookie Clicker open on my browser for about ten days now, and I still open the tab and click from time to time. It’s an excellent way to break up essential tasks or give myself a mental break. More importantly, being on the screen means you might catch a golden cookie.

Golden cookies give you a limited time boost in production most often. Sometimes they just give you a bundle of free cookies. All you have to do is click on them, read the effect, and follow the instructions — if there are any.

For example, one of the golden cookies I got increased my clicker production for one minute. So I stayed on the screen and clicked as fast as I could! My reward was some extra cookies to trade for more upgrades.

Golden cookies appear, pulse, and disappear in less than 15 seconds. You must be on the screen to activate them.

So open your browser and start clicking. But don’t just focus on the cookies! Keep your eyes on sugar lumps, ascensions, and upgrades to create the best Cookie Clicker strategy.