What order should you buy dinos in?
A tier list tells you which dino is strongest. It cannot tell you what to buy next, because that depends on your Cash and what you already own. This upgrade order planner reads both and hands you the exact buy sequence that grows your park income fastest.
- Enter your Cash and tick the dinos you already own.
- The planner buys the fastest-payback dino first, then reinvests into the next one, six steps deep.
- Cheap Commons come first to build a base income, T-Rex comes last because it repays the slowest.
- Want just the single next egg instead of the whole order? Use the Egg ROI Calculator.
Your upgrade order, step by step
Tick what you own, type your Cash, and read the plan top to bottom. Each row is the next dino to buy and roughly how long to save for it at the income you have by that point.
Wait times assume your income keeps flowing while you save and ignore offline gaps, so treat them as a rough guide, not a stopwatch. Cost and income figures are the same community-sourced dataset as the Dino Database, still being verified in-game. Last checked 2026-07-09.
How the planner picks the order
Every dino has a payback time, which is its egg cost divided by its income per minute. The planner looks at every dino you do not own yet, picks the one with the shortest payback, and buys it, waiting to save up first if you cannot afford it. Then it does the same again from your new, higher income. Fastest payback first is not a gut call, it is the choice that compounds your earning rate soonest.
One quirk falls out of this: the cheap Commons usually get bought before the flashy Epics, because a $500 dino that repays itself in ten minutes grows your income faster per Cash spent than a $50,000 one that takes twenty. That is why a full park of Commons beats an empty park holding out for T-Rex.
Three parks, three first moves
Not sure the plan is worth trusting? Here is what it recommends for three common situations. Tap any card to load it into the planner above and see the full sequence.
Which buying strategy fits you
The planner follows the fastest-payback route because it suits most players most of the time. It is not the only way to play, so here is when each approach earns its keep.
| Strategy | What it does | Best for | Not ideal for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fastest payback first | Buys the quickest-repaying dino, reinvests, repeats. This planner. | Players who want income climbing every few minutes. | Anyone chasing one specific dino for looks, not income. |
| Fill every slot cheap | Buys only Commons and Uncommons until the park is full. | Brand-new parks with empty land and almost no income. | Late game, where a Common barely moves your total. |
| Bank for the top earner | Skips mid-tiers and saves straight for T-Rex or Spinosaurus. | Near-endgame parks with a stable, high income already. | Early players, who stall their whole park while saving. |