Treadmill, Trail or Pickaxe: What to Buy Next

Steps

1. 1. Name the symptom before you buy

   Write down what is actually failing: reaching the zone, breaking the egg, escaping with it, or holding what you have earned. Each symptom has one correct answer.

2. 2. Buy treadmill levels while Speed is the blocker

   Treadmill levels are the only purchase that directly raises the Speed gate you are failing. They are also the purchase that makes a trail more valuable.

3. 3. Buy a trail as soon as one is affordable

   A trail multiplies training Speed gain, so its value grows with every treadmill level you buy afterwards. Buying it early compounds; buying it late wastes the levels in between.

4. 4. Buy pickaxe Power when breaking time is the problem

   A stronger pickaxe shortens the break window, which reduces how much guardian reaction you have to outrun. Buy it when you are losing animals inside zones you have already unlocked.

5. 5. Buy pen upgrades when capacity or offline income is the problem

   Pen upgrades raise how many animals you keep and how much they earn, including while you are logged out. They pay back on a different clock from the other three.

The four spending lines, and the problem each one solves

Treadmill levels raise the Speed you gain per step. They are the only purchase that opens new zones. Nothing else in the game moves the gate number.

Trails multiply the Speed you gain while training. They do not open a zone by themselves, but they make every treadmill level you buy afterwards worth more, which is a different kind of return from an additive upgrade.

Pickaxes raise Power, which shortens how long a break takes. That is an escape stat disguised as a convenience stat: less time spent breaking means less guardian reaction to outrun inside a zone you already have access to.

Pen capacity and upgrades raise how many animals you can hold and how much they earn. Because animals keep earning while you are offline, pen upgrades are the only line that keeps working while you are not playing.

Treadmill versus trail: the ordering question

These two are frequently treated as competitors, and the framing is wrong. The treadmill is additive and the trail is multiplicative, so they are complements, and the question is only which comes first.

The answer is: get a trail as early as you can afford one, then keep buying treadmill levels. A trail bought late multiplies fewer treadmill levels; a trail bought early multiplies all of them. Since the cheapest trail is still a trail, the entry-level purchase is the one that starts the compounding.

The counter-argument is that treadmill levels are individually cheaper and immediately useful, which is true, and it is why the practical guidance is to keep treadmill levels running continuously while you save toward the first trail rather than pausing one to fund the other.

When to stop buying Speed

There is a point where more Speed does not fix your problem, and recognising it saves a lot of Cash. If you are comfortably above a zone's gate and still not banking animals, Speed is not your bottleneck.

The tell is specifically about the escape. If the break completes quickly and you still get caught on the way home, more Speed will help less than you expect, because the guardian is reacting to a steal that already happened. In that situation the better purchases are pickaxe Power, which shortens the window that triggers the reaction, and route discipline, which costs nothing.

This is also where the exponential shape of the higher zone gates matters. Past a certain point, treadmill levels alone cannot keep up with gates that multiply, and the multiplier becomes the only purchase that moves the number meaningfully.

Pen upgrades and the offline case

Pen upgrades are the easiest line to postpone and the one that quietly determines your long-term rate. You start with room for eight animals, and pen upgrades raise that capacity along with income.

The reason capacity matters is the offline rule: animals keep generating Cash while you are logged out, and you collect the pending income on your next login. A larger pen means a longer break produces more income, which converts downtime into progress in a way no other upgrade does.

If you play in short sessions, or if you regularly log in to a full pen, pen upgrades are competitive with Speed purchases rather than a late-game luxury.

A default order that holds up for most accounts

For a new account, the safe sequence is treadmill levels until you clear the early gates, then the cheapest available trail, then treadmill levels again while saving for a better trail, and pickaxe Power only once you are losing animals inside zones you can already enter.

Pen upgrades slot in whenever your pen is persistently full or your sessions are short. They are the one line where a late purchase costs you accumulated offline income rather than wasted potential.

This order is deliberately conservative, because the specific prices and multipliers change with updates and, for this game, the published figures come from third-party sources rather than a developer table. Re-read the shops in your own client and adjust the order to the prices you actually see.

Tips

• Keep treadmill levels running continuously while you save for a trail rather than pausing one to fund the other.
• Use the next zone's published Speed gate as the target for a treadmill push, so you stop levelling with no goal.
• Treat pickaxes as an escape upgrade, not a Speed upgrade.
• If your pen is always full, buy capacity before buying another Speed tier.
• Re-read the Trails Shop after every treadmill level, since the relative value of a multiplier rises as your base rate rises.
• Convert any figure you read into the price shown in your own client before spending Robux.

Common mistakes

• Buying a pickaxe to solve a zone-access problem that only Speed can fix.
• Waiting for the best trail instead of buying a cheap one and starting the multiplier early.
• Levelling the treadmill past a gate you already cleared without noticing.
• Ignoring pen upgrades entirely and losing offline income for weeks.
• Comparing treadmill and trail as alternatives when they multiply and add respectively.

Related resources