Parcel Upgrade Analysis

This article is for people who are curious about upgrading their parcels.

Select a topic, below.

What Is Parcel Upgrade?
How Do I Upgrade Parcels?
Hidden Benefit: View Rarities
Assumptions
Sub-150 and 2X Tier
150 -> 220 Parcels
220 -> 290 Parcels
150 -> 2X level
Upgrades and Boost Tier Jumps
Can I Sell Upgraded Parcels?
Should I Upgrade?

What Is Parcel Upgrade?

You pay a fixed 2,500 AB cost to upgrade any parcel to a limited edition Legendary parcel that has the same rent as a regular Legendary. The following are available for purchasing:

Bear in mind that the additional rent to upgrade doesn’t apply until you use the upgrade on a parcel. Also each upgrade type is limited edition.

While some of you will buy for the aesthetics, others want to know if it’s mathematically feasible to upgrade. The rest of this post focuses on the steps to upgrade a parcel the math to show its feasibility.

How Do I Upgrade Parcels?

Open the “Shop” tab.
Purchase one of the limited edition upgrade packages.
Open the “upgrades” tab.
Select the purchased upgrade.
Select a parcel on the map.
Confirm selection.

Hidden Benefit: View Rarities

One of the hidden benefits of owning a parcel upgrade is to view parcel rarities anywhere you are! Bear in mind that you’ll only view your parcels, not anyone else’s.

See screenshot, below, from Coyt:

Assumptions

I assumed 24-hour boosting, 64 hours Super Rent boost at 50X per month, and average distribution. Badges don’t make a difference in terms of ratios, so I excluded them. I’m also using numbers in the United States. If you are International, feel free to follow along. However, understand that the numbers are more staggering for you than your USA counterparts.

Sub-150 and 2X Tier

Mathematically speaking, upgrading isn’t worth it for people under 150 parcels or 2X booster tier. You have more to gain by purchasing a random parcel than upgrading an existing one. Also, 2X tier folks are likely focused on obtaining and maintaining their VIP titles.

150 -> 220 Parcels

To figure this out, I used Matt’s calculator on https://atlasearthcalculator.com/ to pull some initial numbers. I needed to know how much a single Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary is making at the 30X boost level with the assumptions I made. Per month, at the 30X level, you are getting:

Common: $0.0922

Rare: $0.1340

Epic: $0.1841

Legendary: $0.3678

Also, you should gain ~90 cents or so per month if you buy average parcels from 150 to 220. This will cost you 7000 AB.

If you compare the value of Common to Legendary, you’ll gain $0.2756 by upgrading a Common to Legendary. If you divide the upgrade gain by the tier gain and multiply by tier cost, that should tell you how much the Common cost should be, which is (0.2756/0.90) * 7000, or 2,143 AB.

What does this mean? If you upgrade a Common to Legendary at 150 parcels, you’ll gain slightly less rent for the same amount of AB as you would if you had saved up to move up tier. If you pick something other than Common, you’ll gain less rent for the same fixed cost.

220 -> 290 Parcels

To pull these numbers, I used Matt’s calculator again by getting the rent boost for 220 of each rarity and dividing it by the number of parcels. This gives us:

Common: $0.0658

Rare: $0.0955

Epic: $0.1312

Legendary: $0.2621

You’ll notice that the gain to upgrade is now lower at this level. You’ll only gain $0.1963 by upgrading a legendary. However, you’ll gain $1.08 if you move up tier. At this level, the cost to upgrade a Common to Legendary should be ~1,300 AB using the same ratio math as before.

Notice the pattern? As you move up tier, the amount of money gained per parcel is lower. Of course it is! Because the boost multiplier is lower! Thus, as you move up in booster tier, it makes less and less mathematical sense to upgrade parcels.

150 -> 2X level

I was curious to see how many average parcels I’d need to equal the same amount of rent as 150 legendary. Turns out, it’s ~2,150 parcels! That is going to cost a whopping 200,000 AB to get there.

Assuming average distribution (we’ll assume you have 8 Legendaries at 150 parcels), it will cost you 2,500 * 142, or 355,000 AB to gain the same benefit as 2,150 average parcels.

Upgrades and Boost Tier Jumps

Premium costs aside, another problem with upgrading is that it has an inverse negative effect on booster tier jumping.

Let’s suppose you upgrade all 150 of your parcels to Legendary. Great! Now how do you progress from here? Well you can buy badges of course, but let’s say you are maxed out. Where do you go? Your only option is to try and reach 220 parcels.

What happens to your rent if you buy 70 random parcels with 150 Legendary?

Again, Matt’s calculator to the rescue!

At 150 Legendary, rent is $55.1739 given my assumptions. However, 220 parcels (150 Legendary + 70 average) is fairly straightforward to do. Just add 70 Rares! That’s slightly above average.

Rent is….wait, $46!? That’s right! Your rent drops HARD when you go from 150 Legendary to 220 with random parcels. Ok great! That means you’ll have to upgrade them!

How much AB is that going to cost? You need 7,000 AB to buy the 70 parcels plus a ton more AB to upgrade them. Let’s suppose you get 2 Legendary out of it. At a fixed cost of 2,500 AB per parcel upgrade, That’s going to be an additional 68 X 2,500, or 170,000 AB just to move up tier! 224,000 AB total to get from 150 -> 220 Legendary.

How much money do you gain from this? According to Matt’s calculator, you’ll get $57.669 per month in rent. That’s a $2.67 gain from 224,000 AB.

You’ll have to go through something like this at EVERY tier level to progress further if you decide to upgrade!

PLUS, if you had used all that upgrade AB to progress the tier chart, you’d have 2,150 parcels and live within the 2X level, which I said earlier that it’s not worth upgrading at that level.

Does that sound like it’s worth progressing after you upgrade?

Can I Sell Upgraded Parcels?

You can sell upgraded Legendary parcels the same way as a regular parcel. Atlas Reality will still charge you 20% of the proceeds for a successful sale. You’ll want to set a minimum price of 3,125 AB to break even on your purchase.

Should I Upgrade?

Given these numbers, you might think it might not be worth upgrading. HOWEVER, I think that upgrading MIGHT be worth it for someone who:

Wants to view parcel rarities where they are located, possibly to buy from other players.
Wants limited edition Legendary parcels. Some people are interested in that sort of thing. This is the primary audience that parcel upgrades are geared towards.
Thinks they can make AB by investing in limited edition Legendaries and sell them for profit. Bear in mind that you’ll need to place your Legendary upgrade somewhere that will gain high foot traffic to maximize your chances at selling them.
Wants an endgame. Specifically, someone who wants 150 Legendary (or however many Legendary at your current tier), maybe 11/31 badges (possibly 61/101 if that’s doable), and to collect rent each month by spending a few minutes a day boosting without collecting any more AB. However, the further up you are in the booster tier chat, the less it’s worth the effort.
Can’t leave their house for one reason or another. A sick person. A disabled person. Yet, someone who can still run ads or otherwise collect AB. Upgrading becomes your only method to grow rent. Even then, you’ll have to decide if it’s worth pursuing.
Seeks the feeling of instant gratification that you’re progressing. It might be mathematically better to boost tier jump as opposed to upgrading, but man does it feel good when every AB you spend is making you more money, without the hassle of figuring out when to break into each tier, the loss of rent by breaking a tier too early, and especially if you have a clear goal in mind that seems more attainable: 150 Legendary as opposed to breaking into the 2X tier. Even though it will cost less overall AB to break into 2X tier, it FEELS like the 150 Legendary path is easier, and that might be the rush that people need to stop tier jumping and start upgrading.

Finally, you should figure out what your goals are with this app before you think about upgrading. What are you hoping to get out of it? Are you planning to stop grinding at a certain point? These are the kinds of questions you need to answer for yourself. Once you do, this should help you gain a clearer picture in terms of upgrading.

Updates: