Frequently Asked Questions (2024)

The information in this page mostly caters to early-game players, i.e. players on their first ascension. For intermediate/advanced players, please see External Resources for guides. This page focuses on providing brief answers to common questions - for in-depth information, refer to the seperate pages or linked guides.

Miscellaneous FAQ

Where can I find help from other players?

If you need help from others, you can join the DashNet Forums Discord server, the official Discord server for Cookie Clicker and other DashNet games and seek help from an active community of players from both mobile and web/steam. or view a plethora of guides. You can also ask for help on the r/cookieclicker subreddit.

Is there an ending to Cookie Clicker?

No, there is no ending to Cookie Clicker. Some players consider the game completed after all achievements have been unlocked, although others play further after that, striving to bake more and more cookies.

Is using an autoclicker / using a planner / using mods / savescumming cheating?

Cookie Clicker is a singleplayer game and it should be played the way that allows the player to have the most fun. However, some of these are not allowed in certain leaderboards. If you are going for a leaderboard position, please check the leaderboard rules first to see whether your playstyle is considered accceptable.

Is using the debug menu to give myself infinity cookies cheating?

Yes.

What's the difference between the game on web, steam and mobile?

The web and Steam versions are basically the same game with small differences. Steam includes music, features cloud saving, and its heralds are based on the number of players online (usually 100). Web lacks music, includes ads, and its heralds are locked at 41, but is free.

The android app has less content but is actively being worked on by Orteil who wishes to add all the content from web and Steam to the app. This wiki mainly focuses on content for the web and Steam versions of the game.

As of 2024, there is no Cookie Clicker iOS app by Orteil.

When is the next update?

No one knows. Since Orteil has confirmed that there will be no more buildings added, the next update could be a new minigame, possibly the long-awaited Dungeons.

GC? FtHoF? DO ASS CLGCF?

These are commonly used community terms. See here for the full list of terms and what they mean.

When should I ascend/legacy for the first time?

Main article: Ascension

It is reccommended to ascend for the first time when the number next to the Legacy button reaches 365 or above after having baked a total of 48.627 quintillion cookies. This will grant a +365% Prestige multiplier on the next run and 365 Heavenly Chips to spend on heavenly upgrades. To view which heavenly upgrades to buy and when to ascend during future ascensions, refer to the ascension guide.

What easy achievements can I get?

Main article: Achievements

There are a handful of easy achievements, primarily in the miscellaneous category. Most of which can be done in the early game. Since achievements provide Milk that gives a CpS multiplier with Kitten upgrades, unlocking these will be beneficial to cookie production.

Easy Achievements

Icon	Name	Description	How to Get
	Cookie-dunker	Dunk the cookie. "You did it!"	Shrink the game window until the Big Cookie touches the milk. Requires at least 3 achievements in total for milk to appear.
	Tiny cookie	Click the tiny cookie. "These aren't the cookies you're clicking for."	Click the tiny cookie icons found in the Stats page.
	What's in a name	Give your bakery a name.	Click the bakery's name at the top of the Big Cookie and press Confirm on the popup (renaming is not required).
	Here you go	Click this achievement slot. "All you had to do was ask."	Click the achievement slot in the Stats page that's placed after What's in a name and before Tabloid addiction.
	Tabloid addiction	Click on the news ticker 50 times. "Page 6: Mad individual clicks on picture of pastry in a futile attempt to escape boredom! Also page 6: British parliament ate my baby!"	Self-explanatory.
	Stifling the press	Squish the news ticker flat, then click on it. "Narrow in here or is it just me?"	Horizontally shrink the window until news ticker's height is higher than its width.
	Olden days	Find the forgotten madeleine. "DashNet Farms remembers."	Click on the madeleine located at the bottom right of the Info page.
	Uncanny clicker	Click really, really fast. "Well I'll be!"	Click really fast, or use an autoclicker, at the speed of 15 clicks per second for 6 clicks.
	Baby it's old outside	Click one of Santa's helper grandmas during Christmas season.	Click one of the grandmas during Christmas Season with the Christmas-exclusive outfit.
	Just wrong	Sell a grandma. "I thought you loved me."	Self-explanatory.

• A resized window for Cookie-dunker and Stifling the press

• The "tiny cookies" in the Stats page

• The location of the achievement slot for Here you go

• The location of the forgotten madeleine (bottom right) for Olden days

• One of Santa's helper Grandmas in the building screen for Baby it's old outside

Easy Shadow Achievements

While these do not provide milk, and thus do not contribute towards CpS, here are some easy shadow achievements.

0 - 1 billion cookies

What is milk and what does it do?

Main article: Milk

Milk pools at the bottom of the screen, increasing as achievements are unlocked. The Kitten upgrade line (starting at 9 million cookies) provides a boost to CpS based on the number of achievements unlocked. A new milk rank featuring a different flavour is unlocked every 25 achievements.

Should I buy this building or this upgrade?

Generally, it is recommended to buy 15 of each building before going to the next one. To get a rough estimate on whether a building or an upgrade is worth the cost, hovering over a building will display the percentage of CpS it makes/boosts. Alternatively, mods like Cookie Monster or a website can be used to calculate the best possible purchase.

1 billion - 1 quadrillion cookies

What are sugar lumps?

Main article: Sugar Lumps

Sugar lumps are a valuable currency in Cookie Clicker. They can be spent on leveling buildings to give a production boost to that building or to unlock a minigame. They can also be spent to trigger a special event on a minigame.

What is a minigame?

Main article: Minigames

Minigames are additional interactable elements in Cookie Clicker. As of now, 4 buildings each have an associated minigame although Orteil plans to add minigames to all 20 buildings.

The Farm's minigame is the Garden, the Bank's minigame is the Stock Market, the Temple's minigame is the Pantheon and the Wizard Tower's minigame is the Grimoire,

Minigames can be unlocked by levelling its associated building to level 1 with a sugar lump. Further levelling up a minigame's associated building may boost it in some way.

How do I spend my sugar lumps?

Spend the first 4 sugar lumps on Wizard Towers, Temples, Farms and Banks in that order, leveling them each to level 1. This will unlock all 4 minigames.

Next, level Farms all the way to level 9 to unlock the max plot size for the Garden minigame.

After this, level Cursors to level 12 to fully upgrade the Stock Market office for max stock capacity and to unlock all 3 loans.

Once this is done, hoard 100 sugar lumps without spending them for a future heavenly upgrade.

Past this, you must refer to the full sugar lump spending guide. Through the course of gameplay, it may sometimes be beneficial to spend a lump to refill Grimoire mana during a combo and in even rarer cases spend a lump on the garden or pantheon.

Grimoire?

Main article: Grimoire

The Grimoire is the Wizard Tower minigame and one of the most useful minigames. The Grimoire has 9 spells, the most important of which is the Force the Hand of Fate (FtHoF) spell that summons a golden cookie. This allows performing combos at will to gain a whole lot of cookies in a few seconds. For more information, see the section on combos below.

Pantheon?

Main article: Pantheon

The Pantheon is the Temple minigame, allowing different spirits to be worshiped in three slots of varying effectiveness. The Pantheon can be used to optimise for playing idle (leaving the game in the background to generate cookies) or active (clicking golden cookies) playstyles. Setups for both can be found on the Pantheon article or the external Pantheon guide.

Garden?

Main article: Garden

The Garden is the Farm minigame, allowing for the cultivation of a variety of plants that can give useful effects. The Garden is the most complicated minigame but can prove useful as the game progresses. For information on this minigame, see the Garden article, strategy page and external guide. The external guide has a step-by-step section to breed starter-level plants, especially useful to those new to the Garden.

Stock Market?

Main article: Stock Market

The Stock Market is the Bank minigame, allowing for the trading of stocks for cookie profit and taking out loans to boost production for a limited time. While the Stock Market may not be extremely profitable especially as combos become more and more powerful, it is the source of many achievements and its loans can prove useful in combos.

What are combos and how do I use them to gain lots of cookies fast?

A combo is the fastest way to get cookies in Cookie Clicker. It is performed by stacking two or more golden cookie effects at the same time. Combos involve 1 or more CpS buffs such as Frenzy and a Building Special (an effect that boosts CpS based on the number of a randomly selected building) and 1 or 2 click buffs such as Click Frenzy (an effect that boosts gains from clicking by 777x).

A combo is usually paired with temporarily CpS buffs. In the early game, players can use the Pantheon spirit Godzamok, which boosts clicking gains based on buildings sold, in the Diamond slot. During a combo, sell all buildings that make/boost less than 2% of the overall CpS to gain a large boost to clicking gains.

In most combos, a Click Frenzy is obtained from the Grimoire spell Force the Hand of Fate (FtHoF). Unlike natural golden cookies which have about 3% chance to give a Click Frenzy, FtHoF golden cookies have a 25% chance to give a Click Frenzy.

The simplest combo is a Frenzy + Click Frenzy. To accomplish this, simply get a Frenzy from regular golden cookies. Then, cast FtHoF and hope it gives a Click Frenzy. If it does, sell buildings to Godzamok before clicking as fast as possible.

For more information on combos, see the simple combo guide.

Why did my golden cookie display a strange message instead of giving me a buff?

On rare occasions, golden cookies result in a blab, displaying one of 38 messages. While this only has a ~0.003% chance of coming from a natural golden cookie, it has a significantly increased chance of coming from the Grimoire spell Force the Hand of Fate, with a 1.37% chance of coming from FtHoF golden cookies and a 10% chance of coming from FtHof wrath cookies.

1 quadrillion cookies - 48 quintillion cookies (first ascension)

What is the Grandmapocalypse?

Main article: Grandmapocalypse

The Grandmapocalypse is an event in Cookie Clicker that primarily benefits the idle playstyle. It is triggered and advanced by certain research upgrades.

The Grandmapocalypse has two major effects on gameplay. Firstly, it replaces golden cookies with wrath cookies, a variant of golden cookies that are red. While wrath cookies can give negative effects, such as halving the CpS for a short amount of time or causing cookies from the bank to be lost, wrath cookies can also give special positive effects like the rare Elder Frenzy, multiplying the CpS by 666 for a very brief period of time. Secondly, it summons wrinklers around the Big Cookie, which leech away a portion of the CpS. Wrinklers can be popped, causing each one to explode into the number of cookies they collectively leeched, plus an extra 10%.

How do I start the Grandmapocalypse?

The Grandmapocalypse is triggered and advanced by certain research upgrades. To start, you should have the "Elder" achievement for owning 7 Grandma types (the seventh one being Cosmic grandmas requiring 15 Shipments and costing 255 billion cookies). This will unlock the Bingo center/Research facility upgrade for 1 quadrillion cookies. Purchasing this will begin the research upgrades.

Each research upgrade takes 30 minutes to unlock, the timer starting once the previous one has been purchased. Research upgrades are useful as they benefit your CpS and Grandma production. There are three research upgrades that advance the Grandmapocalypse. The first is One mind, the fifth research upgrade, starting the Grandmapocalypse at Stage 1. The second is Communal brainsweep, the seventh research upgrade, advancing the Grandmapocalypse to Stage 2. The third is Elder Pact, the ninth and last research upgrade, advancing the Grandmapocalypse to the final Stage 3. The costs of research upgrades start at 1 quadrillion and subsequently double in price, with Elder Pact costing 256 quadrillion.

The Grandmapocalypse has a greater effect the higher the stage at you are at. At Stage 1, 33% of the golden cookies are replaced with wrath cookies and wrinklers appear at a slow pace. At Stage 2, 66% of the golden cookies are replaced with wrath cookies and wrinklers appear twice as fast. At Stage 3, all golden cookies are replaced with wrath cookies and wrinklers appear 3 times faster than they did in Stage 1.

Should I start the Grandmapocalypse / Should I buy all the research upgrades?

Completing all the research upgrades has advantages to both idle and active players. The research upgrades in total provide a ~16% CpS multiplier in addition to the boosts to Grandma production, and the Grandmapocalypse unlocks numerous achievements.

After completing all research upgrades and unlocking Elder Pledge, it is recommended for active players to use Elder Pledge to disable the Grandmapocalypse. This will bring back golden cookies, allowing players to perform combos. Idle players, on the other hand, should leave the Grandmapocalypse active. Idle players can benefit from wrinklers by leaving them for a long time and then popping them if one needs a large amount of cookies to make a big purchase. As wrinklers, when popped, give more cookies than they leeched, having all 10 wrinklers feeding on the Big Cookie results in a net CpS multiplier of 6x. While this is extremely powerful to idle players, this is not worth it for active players as having the Grandmapocalypse enabled makes combos much harder as wrath cookies spawn instead of golden cookies, outweighing the benefits that the Grandmapocalypse provides.

Should I use Elder Pledge or Elder Covenant if I want to disable the Grandmapocalypse?

Elder Pledge is generally recommended for disabling the Grandmapocalypse. While its cost multiplies every time it is used, it cannot go above 4.4 trillion cookies, meaning the cost of using it is always insignificant. Its duration is insignificant, because if a player is away long enough such that Elder Pledge runs out and the Grandmapocalypse is enabled again, it would be a positive as the player would be idle. Elder Covenant gives the player a 5% CpS debuff, making it not worth it except if the player wants to disable the Grandmapocalypse overnight to remove the chances of getting a meaty sugar lump.

I've ascended, what now?

Check here to see which heavenly upgrades to buy.

48 quintillion cookies (first ascension) - 420 novemdecillion cookies (all heavenly upgrades)

Why is the game so fast now?

Due to the buffs from heavenly upgrades, prestige, and achievements, cookie production increases exponentially.

I overshot my ascension goal, what do I do?

If you manage to get more cookies than your o or ascension requires in the ascension guide, you can spend your extra heavenly chips on the next ascension’s upgrades.

What Garden / Pantheon / Krumblor setup should I use?

The best mutation and beneficial (e.g. boosting CpS, golden cookie frequency) setups for the Garden can be found in the Garden Strategies page.Useful Pantheon setups for different playstyles can be found in the Pantheon page.A list for the uses and strategies for all Krumblor auras can be found on the Krumblor page.

How do I get achievements like Speed baking 3, True Neverclick and Hardcore without wiping my save?

To get these achievements, you will need to activate the “Born again” challenge mode in the ascension menu. This will start an ascension with no benefits from prestige or heavenly upgrades, in which you can attempt these achievements. You will get these benefits back on your next ascension.

Why do Cursors make more than 90% of my CpS?

During midgame, a combination of the heavenly upgrade Unshackled cursors and the synergy upgrade Mice clicking mice will boost cursors to become a very powerful building. As you progress further though, other buildings will begin to outclass Cursors.

I leveled a building up, but my CpS went down!

This is due to the fact that you have the heavenly upgrade Sugar baking unlocked, which boosts your CpS by 1% for every sugar lump you have up to 100. Generally, after leveling Banks, Temples and Wizard towers to level 1, Farms to level 9 and Cursors to level 12, you should hoard 100 lumps without spending them. A full sugar lump spending guide can be found here.

How do I get lucky payout / I'm missing one or two heavenly upgrades and I can't find them in the ascension tree!

Icon	Name	Unlock condition	Base price	Description	ID
	Lucky Digit	"Heavenly luck" purchased, current prestige level contains at least one instance of "7"	777	+1% Prestige level on CpS. +1% golden cookie effect duration. +1% golden cookie lifespan. "This upgrade is a little bit shy and only appears when your prestige level contains a 7."	411
	Lucky Number	"Lucky Digit" and "Lasting fortune" purchased, current prestige level contains at least two instances of "7"	77,777	+1% Prestige level on CpS. +1% golden cookie effect duration. +1% golden cookie lifespan. "This upgrade is a reclusive hermit and only appears when your prestige level contains two 7's."	412
	Lucky Payout	"Lucky Number" and "Decisive fate" purchased, current prestige level contains at least four instances of "7"	77.778 million	+1% Prestige level on CpS. +1% golden cookie effect duration. +1% golden cookie lifespan. "This upgrade took an oath of complete seclusion from the rest of the world and only appears when your prestige level contains four 7's."	413

These upgrades require your total prestige level to contain a certain amount of 7s (e.g. a prestige level of 878,776,725 would unlock all 3 upgrades). Remember to turn off "Short Numbers" in the options to see the last few digits of the prestige level.

My question isn't here!

If your question isn't here, you may opt to search the wiki on that particular topic, see the external guides or seek help on the DashNet Forums Discord server or the r/cookieclicker subreddit.