SimCity BuildIt - Fastest Way to Make Money


Are you facing some expensive road upgrades? Dr. Vu needs 160k to upgrade? It's time to make some money, but what do you build? What makes you the most money in the least amount of time in SimCity BuildIt?

I previously did some calculations on dollars per total minute of build time. As I've continued to play this game, I've come to the conclusion that the time spent in the raw good factories is mostly irrelevant. The bigger factor is the time spent using up a slot in the commercial buildings. With this concept in mind, I took a fresh look at my calculations and removed the time needed in the raw good factories and recalculated the $/minute rate.  I assumed that I had an infinite amount of raw goods: wood, metal, plastic, etc. and recalculated everything. In essence, it's a rate that quantifies dollars per minute of commercial building build time. The assumption is that you'll be able to manage your raw good factories to ensure the commercial buildings can stay busy 100% of the time.

After running the calculations, I sorted results by the top $/minute rates. The results are below. The boxes are colored by which commercial building produces them. Note that these are for the default, non-upgraded, commercial build times. "Critical Path" means it's the commercial good with the longest lead time.

FactoryMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
Flour Bag5702 Seeds, 2 Textiles0:300:303019
Nails802 Metal0:050:05516
Donuts9501 Flour Bag, 1 Sugar & SpicesFlour Bag0:300:451:157512.7
Ice Cream Sandwich2,5601 Bread Roll, 1 CreamBreadroll+Cream3:300:143:4422411.4
Burgers3,6201 Beef, 1 Bread Roll, 1 BBQ GrillBread+Beef4:450:355:2032011.3
Lemonade Bottle1,6902 Glass, 2 Sugar & Spice, 1 Fruit & B.Fruit1:301:002:3015011.3
Bricks1902 Minerals0:200:20209.5
Bread Roll1,8402 Flour Bags, 1 Cream2 Flour+Cream2:151:003:151959.44
Chairs3002 Wood, 1 Nail, 1 HammerHammer0:140:200:34348.82
Cement4402 Minerals, 1 Chemical0:500:50508.8
TV1,2802 Plastic, 2 Glass, 2 Electrical Comp.2:302:301508.53
Lighting System8901 Chemical, 1 Electrical Comp, 1 Glass1:451:451058.48
Pizza2,5601 Flour Bag, 1 Cheese, 1 BeefFlour+Cheese+Beef4:450:245:093098.28
Fruit & Berries7302 Seeds, 1 Tree SaplingTree Sapling1:301:30908.11
Vegetables1602 Seeds0:200:20208
Cap6002 Textiles, 1 Measuring TapeMeasuring Tape0:201:001:20807.5
Glue4401 Plastic, 2 Chemicals1:001:00607.33
Shoes9802 Textiles, 1 Plastic, 1 GlueGlue1:001:152:151357.26
Cheese Fries1,0501 Vegetable, 1 CheeseVeg.+Cheese2:050:202:251457.24
Green Smoothie1,1502 Vegetables, 1 Fruit & Berries2 Veg+Fruit2:100:302:401607.19
Tables5001 Plank, 2 Nails, 1 HammerPlank + 2 Nails0:400:301:10707.14
Cherry Cheesecake2,2401 Flour Bag, 1 Fruit & B., 1 CheeseFlour+Fruit+Cheese3:451:305:153157.11
Couch1,8103 Textiles, 1 Drill, 1 GlueDrill2:002:304:302706.7
Watch5802 Plastic, 1 Glass, 1 Chemical1:301:30906.44
Hammer901 Metal, 1 Wood0:140:14146.43
Home Textiles6102 Textiles, 1 Measuring TapeMeasuring Tape0:201:151:35956.42
Garden Gnomes1,6002 Cement, 1 Glue2 Cement+Glue2:401:304:102506.4
Cheese6602 Animal Feed1:451:451056.29
Cream4401 Animal Feed1:151:15755.87
Beef8603 Animal Feed2:302:301505.73
Cooking Utensils2502 Metal, 2 Plastic, 2 Wood0:450:45455.56
Measuring Tape1101 Metal, 1 Plastic0:200:20205.5
Grass3101 Seed, 1 ShovelShovel0:300:301:00605.17
Refridgerator1,0602 Plastic, 2 Chemical, 2 Electrical Comp.3:303:302105.05
Shovel1501 Metal, 1 Wood, 1 Plastic0:300:30305
Drill5902 Metal, 2 Plastic, 1 Electrical Comp.2:002:001204.92
Fire Pit1,7402 Bricks, 1 Shovel, 2 Cement2 Cement2:204:006:203804.58
Business Suits1,1703 Textiles, 1 Measuring T., 1 GlueGlue1:003:304:302704.33
Frozen Yogurt.1,7501 Fruit & B., 1 Cream, 1 Sugar & SpicesCream+Fruit2:454:006:454054.32
Garden Furniture8202 Planks, 2 Plastic, 2 Textiles2 Planks1:002:153:151954.21
Planks1202 Wood0:300:30304
Tree Saplings4202 Seeds, 1 ShovelShovel0:301:302:001203.5
BBQ Grill5303 Metal, 1 Cooking UtensilCooking Utensil0:452:453:302102.52

Here's the same data, sorted by top dollar earner for each commercial building.

Building Supplies StoreMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
Nails802 Metal0:050:05516
Bricks1902 Minerals0:200:20209.5
Cement4402 Minerals, 1 Chemical0:500:50508.8
Glue4401 Plastic, 2 Chemicals1:001:00607.33
Planks1202 Wood0:300:30304
Hardware StoreMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
Hammer901 Metal, 1 Wood0:140:14146.43
Cooking Utensils2502 Metal, 2 Plastic, 2 Wood0:450:45455.56
Measuring Tape1101 Metal, 1 Plastic0:200:20205.5
Shovel1501 Metal, 1 Wood, 1 Plastic0:300:30305
Drill5902 Metal, 2 Plastic, 1 Electrical Comp.2:002:001204.92
Farmers MarketMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
Flour Bag5702 Seeds, 2 Textiles0:300:303019
Fruit & Berries7302 Seeds, 1 Tree SaplingTree Sapling1:301:30908.11
Vegetables1602 Seeds0:200:20208
Cheese6602 Animal Feed1:451:451056.29
Cream4401 Animal Feed1:151:15755.87
Beef8603 Animal Feed2:302:301505.73
Furniture StoreMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
Chairs3002 Wood, 1 Nail, 1 HammerHammer0:140:200:34348.82
Tables5001 Plank, 2 Nails, 1 HammerPlank + 2 Nails0:400:301:10707.14
Couch1,8103 Textiles, 1 Drill, 1 GlueDrill2:002:304:302706.7
Home Textiles6102 Textiles, 1 Measuring TapeMeasuring Tape0:201:151:35956.42
Gardening SuppliesMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
Garden Gnomes1,6002 Cement, 1 Glue2 Cement+Glue2:401:304:102506.4
Grass3101 Seed, 1 ShovelShovel0:300:301:00605.17
Fire Pit1,7402 Bricks, 1 Shovel, 2 Cement2 Cement2:204:006:203804.58
Garden Furniture8202 Planks, 2 Plastic, 2 Textiles2 Planks1:002:153:151954.21
Tree Saplings4202 Seeds, 1 ShovelShovel0:301:302:001203.5
Donut ShopMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
Donuts9501 Flour Bag, 1 Sugar & SpicesFlour Bag0:300:451:157512.67
Bread Roll1,8402 Flour Bags, 1 Cream2 Flour+Cream2:151:003:151959.44
Green Smoothie1,1502 Vegetables, 1 Fruit & Berries2 Veg+Fruit2:100:302:401607.19
Cherry Cheesecake2,2401 Flour Bag, 1 Fruit & B., 1 CheeseFlour+Fruit+Cheese3:451:305:153157.11
Frozen Yogurt.1,7501 Fruit & B., 1 Cream, 1 Sugar & SpicesCream+Fruit2:454:006:454054.32
Fashion StoreMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
Cap6002 Textiles, 1 Measuring TapeMeasuring Tape0:201:001:20807.5
Shoes9802 Textiles, 1 Plastic, 1 GlueGlue1:001:152:151357.26
Watch5802 Plastic, 1 Glass, 1 Chemical1:301:30906.44
Business Suits1,1703 Textiles, 1 Measuring T., 1 GlueGlue1:003:304:302704.33
Fast Food RestaurantMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
Ice Cream Sandwich2,5601 Bread Roll, 1 CreamBreadroll+Cream3:300:143:4422411.43
Burgers3,6201 Beef, 1 Bread Roll, 1 BBQ GrillBread+Beef4:450:355:2032011.31
Lemonade Bottle1,6902 Glass, 2 Sugar & Spice, 1 Fruit & B.Fruit1:301:002:3015011.27
Pizza2,5601 Flour Bag, 1 Cheese, 1 BeefFlour+Cheese+Beef4:450:245:093098.28
Cheese Fries1,0501 Vegetable, 1 CheeseVeg.+Cheese2:050:202:251457.24
Home AppliancesMax $Materials RequiredCritical PathRaw M.Ass'yTotalMin$/Min
TV1,2802 Plastic, 2 Glass, 2 Electrical Comp.2:302:301508.53
Lighting System8901 Chemical, 1 Electrical Comp, 1 Glass1:451:451058.48
Refridgerator1,0602 Plastic, 2 Chemical, 2 Electrical Comp.3:303:302105.05
BBQ Grill5303 Metal, 1 Cooking UtensilCooking Utensil0:452:453:302102.52

My recommended setup for maximizing profit over long periods
I've tried out several setups and the one I like the most focuses on making
  • Donuts (flour bag, sugar and spices) $12.70/min
  • Bricks (minerals) $9.50/min
  • TVs (plastic, glass, electrical components) $8.53/min
  • Caps (textiles, measuring tape) $7.50/min
  • Home Textiles (textiles, measuring tape) $6.42/min
  • Tape Measures for home textiles, caps and to sell as-is(metal, plastic) $5.50/min
  • Garden Furniture (planks, plastic, textiles) $4.21/min
Flour production is ramped up...
Donut production at full capacity
Primary Items
Donuts, TVs and caps are all the top items for their store. Nails have a higher profit rate than bricks, but would require a lot of baby-sitting, so I swap out nails and build bricks instead. Bricks have a great return rate and only require minerals to make. 

Secondary Items
Home Textiles
Home textiles have a relatively low return rate, but the tape measure needed to produce them are easy to add into the supply chain when you're already making them for caps. The other furniture store items you could produce would require both the hardware store and building supplies store. Because bricks ($9.50/min) have such a high return, I prefer to keep the building supplies store focused on those instead.

Garden Furniture
Garden furniture also has a relatively low return rate, but in order to build something else in the garden supplies store, you'd have to use the building supplies store for lengthy periods or focus the hardware store on building shovels (grass, tree saplings). Garden furniture requires only planks which means the gardening supplies store can be used with as small an impact on brick production as possible. I like to build planks while I sleep at night, so that during the day I can focus on bricks.

Why do I make donuts when flour has a higher earn rate?
If you sell flour as-is, you're leaving the donut shop empty. So if you're already making flour, you might as well turn them into donuts. For more on the farmers market, continue reading below.

Maximizing the use of your farmers market. 
Many of the highest priced items in the game have to move through the farmers market at one point or the other. I've analyzed all the items that are produced in, or require goods from the farmers market and determined an earnings per time spent only in the farmers market.

Example: The bread roll is assembled in the donut shop, but requires two flour bags and one cream from the farmers market. Each flour bag uses the farmers market for 30 minutes and the cream 75 minutes. In order to produce a single bread roll, the farmers market will be used for 30+30+75=135 minutes. The earnings for a single bread roll is $1840, so $1840/135 min spent in the farmers market = $13.63/farmers market minutes

As you can see from the results below, donuts are by far the best item for your farmers market to be producing. If you sell flour bags, lemonade bottles, bread rolls or burgers, you are settling for a lower rate of return for the very valuable production time of the farmers market.

Earnings per Minute spent in the Farmers Market

Max $Materials RequiredFarmers Mkt ItemsF Mkt TimeAss'yTotalMin$/Min
Donuts9501 Flour Bag, 1 Sugar & SpicesFlour Bag0:300:3030$31.67
Flour Bag5702 Seeds, 2 Textiles0:300:3030$19.00
Lemonade Bottle1,6902 Glass, 2 Sugar & Spice, 1 Fruit & B.Fruit1:301:3090$18.78
Bread Roll1,8402 Flour Bags, 1 Cream2 Flour+Cream2:152:15135$13.63
Burgers3,6201 Beef, 1 Bread Roll, 1 BBQ GrillBread+Beef4:454:45285$12.70
Ice Cream Sandwich2,5601 Bread Roll, 1 CreamBreadroll+Cream3:303:30210$12.19
Frozen Yogurt.1,7501 Fruit & B., 1 Cream, 1 Sugar & SpicesCream+Fruit2:452:45165$10.61
Cherry Cheesecake2,2401 Flour Bag, 1 Fruit & B., 1 CheeseFlour+Fruit+Cheese3:453:45225$9.96
Pizza2,5601 Flour Bag, 1 Cheese, 1 BeefFlour+Cheese+Beef4:454:45285$8.98
Green Smoothie1,1502 Vegetables, 1 Fruit & Berries2 Veg+Fruit2:102:10130$8.85
Cheese Fries1,0501 Vegetable, 1 CheeseVeg.+Cheese2:052:05125$8.40
Fruit & Berries7302 Seeds, 1 Tree SaplingTree Sapling1:301:3090$8.11
Vegetables1602 Seeds0:200:2020$8.00
Cheese6602 Animal Feed1:451:45105$6.29
Cream4401 Animal Feed1:151:1575$5.87
Beef8603 Animal Feed2:302:30150$5.73

When to sell
I usually sell all items in packs of five. When the game first came out I used to sell donuts/caps/TVs in pairs, but I don't think that makes much sense these days. Most players have been playing for a long time and have large storage capacities, so buying 5 packs of everything is not difficult.

Why you should always be building TVs: TVs have the highest $/minute rate for the home appliance store, require only raw goods, and have a long build time which makes it easy to load up. All of the electronic store items are easily found in the Trade HQ, thus you should just fill the queue with TVs and let it run 24/7. If you ever need a lightbulb, refridgerator or grill, purchase it.

Ways to make extra money
The downside with this setup is that the fast food restaurant doesn't get used. When possible, I'll pick up watermelon, cheese or cream and make additional fast food items.

Kicking things up a notch
Keep in mind that the commercial buildings can all be upgraded to decrease the build times up to 20%. It's a big upfront cost, but over time can pay for itself. Take a look at the upgrade costs and benefits on the Commercial Build Time page.

For further explanation, take All Your Blocks' master class on the Fastest Way to 1,000,000 Simoleons




Let me know what you think?
The trick with this is finding a combination of high rate items that allows you to have as many stores active as possible. Have you thought of an alternate combination? I'd love to hear your ideas. Leave a comment below.

Expert Methods
Want to make money the way the expert players do it? Learn about burger farming. A full description of this method can be found here. 

55 comments:

  1. I used to do that, but it's too much work on the factory side. I now do donuts, glue, seedlings and watches ( swichted from hats). Stopped doing tvs,( hard sell on global trade) same with home textiles. Now I only have to be in my city 3 times in a 4 hour period. 2 of those times 20 miins apart for seed, plastic, etc production.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Best set up i have tried so far.Thank you.

      Delete
  2. Where are you selling these items? Are you hoping other players buy what you're giving out?

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Green Smoothie only takes one vegetable and one fruit and berries, not two vegetables. It might move the Green Smoothie up the rankings a bit, but it still isn't as good as the donut. Thanks for this by the way!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oooh. Good catch. Thanks for the heads up. Will need to fix that.

      Delete
  4. I have algorithms that make possible to explore all possible strategies. Best strategy culminates at 93k$ per day and is: nails/hammers+shovels/flour/chairs/grass/donuts/shoes/nothing/TV.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Can you explain further? Can you maximise for less involvement and money?

      Delete
  5. Hi!
    i was wondering do you have this in a printable version, like pdf ?

    ReplyDelete
  6. What about sugar and spices, it takes 4hours to manufacture them but they earn a good $27.5/min

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sugar and Spices take 4 hours (240 minutes) and can be sold for a maximum of $110. That's $110/240min=$0.46/min. In an earlier version of this page, where I included all items and did total min(including raw goods) it came out as 4th from the bottom. You can see that here: http://www.simcityplanningguide.com/2015/01/BuildItTradeEfficiency.html

      Delete
    2. OK. I figured out what you meant. If you stock up all 12 factories with sugar and spice and let it run, then yes you could make $27.50/minute, which I agree would be a pretty good return. It's especially nice since you could just set it and forget it for 4 hours, so it's super easy to keep running. That would be a good strategy if you don't have time to micromanage the game (if you're at work, or out for the day). Good idea!

      Delete
  7. Why not just make plastic, 7 factories, all in parallel, 84,000 per day?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, that could certainly work. It would require a bit too frequent reloading for my taste, but would especially be a good option for those who wan to grind out money at a lower level. Someone else suggested just producing spices, which if you stuck to only that, would work well. It would require less activity than plastic since it has a long build time. It's probably easier to sell than plastic too. All good ideas. Thanks!

      Delete
    2. At higher levels, both are very hard to sell and you will end up loading up your trade depot and not being able to get rid of them. Spices especially are often sold cut-rate because the new contest of mayors forces lots of people to make 40-50 of them and people don't have room to store them and can't divest the space fast enough.

      Which is why it's also important to really build up the amount of slots in the sales depot, and it's also one of the best uses of sim cash because it's always only $10 instead of a sliding rate.

      Delete
  8. According to my calculation, donuts provide much more simeleons/minute than flour bags. It was at the rate of21.1$/min. Since donuts and flour bags require separate stores for production, they can be done simultaneously. Hence it requires only 45 minutes to actually complete a donut. This also give way tofurther adjustments in production time, like it requires 40 minutes to actually complete a table rather than 30minutes in furniture store, because it takes 40 minutes to manufacture a plank and 2 nails to complete in buildings supply store. Thus, according to my calculations, for under 22 level, at which I am, donut - $21.1/min
    Flour bag - $19/min
    Shoes - $13/min
    Tables - $12.5/min
    Green smoothies - $10.45/min
    Cap - $ 10/min etc.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Great info! I am currently selling flour and using the 'built it tear it down repeat' strategy. I only have 6 skyscrapers and the other lots I build then bulldoze for about 700 each time. Kind of tedious but I want to make some bank and get my infrastructure pimped out before I start tackling the rest of the map.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think I am missing something... what are you building and tearing down? Residential housing does not lok to give any $ back to bulldoze... THanks!

      Delete
    2. mike at early levels of the game you make a lot more money with the upgrade part of building. so if you tear down a building and then upgrade it a couple times. if you just upgrade over and over then you have to buy utilities and quickly
      can't keep up. the upgrades are cheap and you make a lot of money. Later in the game the upgrades are super expensive and so that doesn't work so well.

      Delete
  10. I just sell wood. 6 factories producing 18 every 3 minutes which I sell for 360. That's 7200 an hour and super simple.

    ReplyDelete
  11. so what is the highest record for earning money for only selling goods?

    ReplyDelete
  12. interesting....however, you've forgotten the rule of supply/demand. Certain items will sell out immediately. We all know what those items are...because we can never seem to find them in the trade depot. Figure out the fastest/easiest route to produce those things in the highest demand...that would be impressive. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This! Certain items are always in supply and harder to shift, whereas other things are snapped up straight away. Watermelons are a rare find, and get snapped up quickly - soda bottles or even burgers can be difficult to shift at times.

      Delete
  13. Something to think about is game play style or times. For most people that do sleep 8 hrs at nigh what would be the best set it and forget it item? Then in the morning sell those goods and set up more stuff to make. Versus if you have time to micromanage for an hour what is you best return.

    ReplyDelete
  14. My strategy is based on the simplest most structured way of making a decent amount of cash, with no babysitting and above all with demanded items, donuts are good but the market is flooded so it takes longer to sell. If you do a daily pick & sell every 8 hours (7am, 3pm & 11pm) stacking your 12 factories (60 items) with either animal feed or electrical components you can make 25k or 28k a day. You could turn them into cream once you have a hefty stock but the return is not great on cream. If you have a population of 300k you should be making around 22k in taxes at 100% happiness. So 22k+28k= 50k if you want 1M... 1M divided by 50 equals 20 days!!! In 20 days you are on the mill.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The new update only lets you sell 5 items instead of 10. Dose that affect the chart in any way?

    ReplyDelete
  16. What would I need to fill my factories with in order to maximize the production in my commercial buildings?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Is there a chart like this for the set-up mentioned in the post above?

    ReplyDelete
  18. OK, this is good. You have the right idea. However, your analysis doesn't look at the full picture. You are looking at the craft production time only, not the raw material production time of the materials that go into each craft. To get a full picture on the amount of "work" you would need to do to make a $, you should go all the way back to the production time of the raw materials.

    For example, for Cream, you correctly use the 75 minutes craft production time and the market price for the cream of $440 (of course Simelons not dollars). However, you have to use animal feed which takes a whopping 6 hours to produce. So the full time needed to produce the Cream is really 6:75 if you factor in the raw materials. Of course this gets much more complicated when you get to more complex items. When you use the cream along with flour to produce bread rolls, you have to factor in the total work needed to produce the cream as well as the total work needed to produce the flour, including the production of the textiles and seeds. The coders of this game really put a great degree of complexity into it.

    We are all dorking out to this quite a bit for a game, but I guess the game really draws you in and makes you want to succeed. I still remember when the first sim city came out - the graphics, the excitement of people moving into your town and watching it grow. Cool stuff.

    Thanks for sharing - all your tables have been very helpful. Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As mentioned in the 2nd paragraph I previously did a total time calculation. You can find that here: http://www.simcityplanningguide.com/2015/01/BuildItTradeEfficiency.html The more I played, I got to the point that I didn't really care about the raw goods as much which is why I redid it (as seen on this page).

      Delete
  19. I see - I jumped to your table and did not read your text in detail. It seems your approach of assuming that all raw materials are essentially unlimited means that you would have to have a very big city storage or inherently stock the items in bulk that you need to produce the crafts that you want. However, for me, I can't possibly stock enough raw items in my 110 item storage to be able to start crafting something instantaneously, especially if I want to shift from specializing in one item to another. For you, I assume you have a huge city storage, thus your analysis above indeed works very well. However, for many of us who are early in the game (and limited by not wanting to pump dollars of cash into it), we will have small city storage and will have to start with producing raw items if we want to make a valuable craft. I was making bread rolls for a while and the time to produce the raw items was quite significant and definitely slowing me down. Anyway, quite interesting and there are certainly many ways to look at this complex game.

    Thanks for your inputs. Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed. That's why I like to sell things not only in stacks of five. There are those who have limited storage available and/or limited funds. If you need one ice cream sandwich and you either can't afford or have the space to buy five ... people only selling stacks of five isn't helpful. Cheap, basic items like plastic is a different matter. They can usually be afforded, so there you just need the space.

      Delete
  20. And you've to consider the market and which products the people needs but only few cities are producing, like Cement, Glue, Bricks... sometimes you can sell chairs really fast, or fruits... This chart is very helpful, but you have to analyze other factors as well as costs.

    ReplyDelete
  21. It looks like you've left out Corn (available in the Farmer's Market) and asserted that the F.M. can make Beef, which isn't the case in my version of the game, don't think it ever was for as long as I've played it -
    I take it there has been at least one game update since this article had one?

    If so, would you kindly tell whether Veg or Corn work better when mass produced, please?
    I have a whole lot of seeds and minerals I need to shift but I want to maximise my profit

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Corn comes in at $4.67/min which makes it dead last for the farmers market. It got added in a later update. Given a choice between veggies and corn, go with veggies. It's a quick turnaround and is super easy to mass produce. There's also an achievement you can unlock for making veggies, so that's an (eventual) bonus to making veggies. Beef is made in the farmers market. When I was unlocking things, it was the last one to unlock in the farmers market (level 27).

      Delete
    2. Cool, thanks for getting back to me.

      Beef no longer appears to be in the game;
      The top two items at the F.M. appear to be Corn followed by Cheese.
      If you're still playing enough to want to update the above info, you'll need to remove Beef, add Corn,
      and double check that the Cheese stats are still accurate.

      Thanks again for your help, looks like I'm going to focus on Vegetables, Flour Bags and Bricks going forward :)

      Delete
    3. Meat is still used in my version: Needed for hamburgers, pizza, and of course Mayor's contests. :)
      Wife2Doc (Granny-Ville in the game)

      Delete
    4. Meat is definitely still there. It might take a bit of time to produce, but at least it goes for an OK price and people are quick to buy it.

      Delete
    5. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  22. I think you forgot to account for assembly time of tree sapling for fruit & berries. It plummets the $/min value and affects everything else that requires fruit & berries

    ReplyDelete
  23. you should introduce a complete cycle for beneficial production.

    because in order to attain greater production we have to put all workshops to work at the same time and the goal is the cumulative gaining... sometimes you have free watermelon so you gotta go buy a couple vegetables from market and produce smoothie...

    but in general you said the good hint :
    Chair , Donuts are cooler in mass production.

    but reaching a good sale is cumulative work all things must work together and if one of your shops is not working you gotta go and buy the pre-needs to make it work so you can have the extra income.

    you didnt explain one thing and that is all workshops must work first then income matters. and the critical resources make great conflict. even timing them... but i believe there is one perfect cycle in this that we hadnt figured it out and it needs a lot of calculations

    ReplyDelete
  24. It's also important to consider the utilisation rate. Consider producing FLOUR, NAILS and HAMMERS. This will take a total of 19 (actually 18.29) factory slots for a profit of $2,486 per hour. That gives us $135.93 per hour per factory slot.

    I take it that factory slots for production are divisible, because we can always alternate production of raw materials.

    The setup:

    FLOUR: 2 units per hour (the maximum), for a profit of $1,140 per hour
    - Produce 4 x Seeds per hour (1.33 slots)
    - Produce 12 x Textiles per hour (12 slots)

    NAILS: 12 units per hour (the maximum), for a profit of $960 per hour
    - Produce 24 x Metal per hour (0.4 slots)

    HAMMERS: 4.30 units per hour (the maximum), for a profit of $386 per hour
    - Produce 5 x Metal per hour (0.083 slots)
    - Produce 5 x Wood per hour (0.25 slots)

    Note that this setup only uses the Farmer's Market, Building Supplies Store, Hardware Store, and Donut Shop. I have yet to unlock the Home Appliances Store, and so there could be other more productive setups. But you get the idea: we need to consider utilisation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is EXACTLY what I was talking about - thanks for the analysis. :) For me, it's factory slots that are at a premium. For example, to simply "turn flour bags into donuts" (you could only turn 2/3rds of them) would need a sugar and spices every 45 minutes = another 5.33 factory slots on top of the 12 to make the flour bags = my entire capacity. :) I currently only have 16 factory slots, so a rhythm I do is hammers+nails+vegetables = ~$1800/hour, which isn't bad for ~2.75 total factory slots (2 for seeds for vegetables). :) That's over $650/hr/factory slots if I did this math correctly, but of course, the pipelines are maxed out at 3 slots. What do I do with all that spare capacity? I prepare for overnight, where I switch over to the highest absolute prices I can make - in my case, I make cement, shovels, and vegetables while I sleep - about $7500 overnight.

      Delete
    2. Also, having free factory slots enables you to actually play a little of the game while madly saving up simoleans. :) I can't wait until I can make flour, but what level do you need to reach before you can have > ~24 factory slots to make this scale feasible? Thanks. :). (Wouldn't it be great if you could buy request/order hoppers for the factories, so while you sleep, you could switch from one item producing to another? You'd also need them so go right to storage.)

      Delete
    3. OMG, nothing makes this type of analysis more stark then this: If, when I reach level 17, I switch production from vegetables to flour bags, I could gain $660/hour - for me that's a 28% increase in income. But I would effectively lose 11.333 factory slots! (More than 2/3rds for me.) That would utterly cripple me. So I will not be switching from vegetables to flour, except at night, where I could make enough Textiles overnight to sell 5-6 of them first thing in the morning, which would net me a once a day $1500 benefit, at the cost of squeezing in Chemical production during the day.

      Delete
  25. This is useful information, but by ignoring the raw materials costs, I think you are omitting critical information. There can be substantial differences in time needed to produce raw materials (3 hours for chemicals vs. 1 minute for steel). You really need to factor in all costs to optimize your decision.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As I mentioned in the 2nd paragraph, I did calculations using the raw goods times as well. http://www.simcityplanningguide.com/2015/01/BuildItTradeEfficiency.html

      Delete
    2. How about Paint and Cupboards?

      Delete
  26. this list needs to be updated, textile needs 3 hrs to produce. then add the time to make flour bag. donuts and flour bags should be lower simoleans/min

    ReplyDelete
  27. I love this so much! It's exactly how I would evaluate the worth of items if I had the time and energy, lol. I came across a couple high value items (donuts and TVs) just going after city achievements. I think they're trying to steer you towards useful items. I'm surprised I don't see more donuts for sale in the trade center.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Will you add Sporting Goods Store items to this list?

    ReplyDelete
  29. This is a great analysis! But it also assumes you have infinite factory capacity. I'm at level 15 and have 16 slots, which makes a lot of this impossible. Here's an example: Flour bags can be produced every 30 minutes, but take 2 textiles, which take 6 hours of factory slots. That means I have to have 12 factory slots making textiles 24/7 to produce flour, which for me is 3/4s of my production capacity! Also, this is more trivial, but you'd use a different overnight strategy - there, $/min doesn't matter - total value of 11 slots is what matters. Plus, I fill up the factories with whatever takes the longest.

    ReplyDelete
  30. hey - what do you think have the MOST profit regardless of time ? - burgers? color windos?

    ReplyDelete
  31. Excellent post! I was gonna do it myself and I found it while searching for items' prices. Congrats!

    What about the Ladder? I don't see it anywhere in this analysis.

    ReplyDelete