Coin Hoarding and Price Breakdowns for Casual and Not so Casual Players

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Pokémon Go always seems to be plagued by a struggle for getting coins, whether they are to buy pokeballs, incubators, bag and box upgrades, or those sweet, sweet event boxes (when they are good that is). Some players simply buy the coins through microtransactions within the game, with real-world currency, but for others, they rely on the in-game methods of getting Pokecoins. The only way to get coins currently is to place a Pokémon in a gym and hold it for an amount of time.

As many know, you will receive one coin for every ten minutes your Pokémon stays in a gym, so to receive the max daily coins of fifty coins, you need to hold a gym for 8 hours and 20 minutes, or a few gyms at a time that will give you those coins over the course of a day. You receive coins when Pokémon are sent back from the gym so simply holding a gym is not enough to get you coins everyday.

So how long does it take to save up coins for some of the various features in Pokémon Go? Well we are here to help you figure that out and give you an idea of just how much you need to hoard to reach the things you want if you do not want to spend a lot, or any, real world money on the game.

Let’s start with a simple chart, how many coins you would get in 2 weeks if you got 50 coins every day, or for the more casual people, 50 coins every 2 days. With the system we have, you can be sent back with anything between 0-50 coins every day, including obscure numbers like 36 or 14 (or 49 *shakes fist*), so these are just basic numbers without including all the different variation you could see.

Days Coins
14 days, 50 coins every day 700
14 days, 50 coins every other day 350

As you can see, even in two weeks, that is not a whole lot of coins, especially considering the price of most event boxes. It would take you a month to get close to buying an event box… so let’s look at that next.

Event boxes usually come in three forms, a Special Box, a Great Box and an Ultra Box. These boxes can run pretty expensive, so let’s take a look at how long you need to spend time in a gym to get these boxes.

Box Price Days Defended
Special Box 480 9 days and 5 hours
Great Box 780 15 days and 5 hours
Ultra Box 1480 29 days and 5 hours

And that is of course, assuming 50 coins every single day, and it would take you a month just to save up enough for a single Ultra Box! The grind is real, but it can be done if you are dedicated enough. Boxes are dropped at random times, and though not all are good, some are definitely worth the investment as these boxes will get you a lot farther than if you bought individual raid passes or lucky eggs, not to mention they sometimes feature unbuyable items such as super incubators and star pieces.

But I think I know what you all are saying, it’s what most people spend their coins on, and many players do not have these features maxed, especially those of you who are reading because you do not wish to spend money on the game. I hear you, I do, which is why now we are going to talk about pokebox and bag upgrades.

Now this is a lot of coins, and probably a slow, steady investment (though it gets in the way of our box hoarding–)

As you know, all players start out with 300 bag space, and 300 Pokémon storage. Haha, Niantic, that is not enough space! And they know this, so they implemented an in-game shop item where you can purchase upgrades, at 200 pokecoins a piece, to expand your bag or box storage by 50. The max storage you can get is 1500 for pokebox and 2000 for bag, meaning you would have to buy 24-34 of these bag upgrades. But let’s quit talking about it and let the tables do the talking.

# of Upgrades Storage Price Days Defending
10 300+500= 800 Storage 2000 coins 40 days
20 300+1000= 1300 Storage 4000 coins 80 days
24 300+1200= 1500 Storage 4800 coins 96 days
34 300+1500= 2000 Storage 6800 coins 136 days

…rekt.

Ahem, I mean, wow, that is a lot of coins to grind. That’s just, insane, and also still assuming you are getting 50 coins every single day. And not to burst your bubble, and mine, more than it has, that’s only for one of the two storages. To max out both pokebox AND bag storage, you would need to do it twice, 9600 coins to get max 1500 in each and twice plus 2000 coins to get 1500 in Pokemon and 2000 in bag. That would cost 11600 And in case you wanted to know, 11600 coins would take you 232 days to get (9600 would take 192 days).

LUCKILY for us, however, almost no one has 300 storage anymore, we have gotten some kind of head start, though some players are farther along than others, depending how much of a priority expanding your box and bag were. If we had to guess, most casual players have around 600 in each storage, meaning you will only have to buy about 18-28 more storage to get to max, which will cost about 3600-5600 each.

Helpful Tips and Equations

  • To find out how many coins you are going to get from a gym, multiply the number of hours by 60, then add the number of minutes you have been in the gym, and divide it by 10, the answer rounded down and capped at 50 is how many coins you will receive.
  • To find out how many more upgrades you need to do to max out your item or Pokémon storage, subtract how much storage you have from 1500, then divide by 50! Multiply that number by 200 to see how many coins you need to spend.
  • To find out how long it will take you to get a set number of coins, take the amount of coins you want (preferably in intervals of 50) and divide by 50. That will give you the number of days it will take at 50 coins per day to reach your goal (start small, trust me).
  • To find out how many coins you would get after x amount of days, simply multiply the number of days by 50!

  • To maximize your coin gains, put more than one Pokémon in a gym per day, odds are one will get sent back before the turn of midnight, and maybe another will stay over and get sent back the next day! This can also help if you get busy during the week. The number of Pokémon you can have out at gyms at the same time caps at 20, if you really want to go on a rampage/gym spree.
  • If you put a lot of Pokémon in gyms, you will not have to worry about keeping an eye on your gyms to berry them, but if you need to check your gym every so often to make sure it is not being taken down prematurely, keep golden razz on hand.

And there we have it Trainers! A few little tips and tricks on coin gathering and hoarding. Coins sure are a lot of work, and some of us don’t have the time to get coins every day, but if you hoard slowly and surely, you can find yourself with a nice bounty at some point! So good luck coin hunting everyone!

Be sure to take a look at our Gym Dos and Don’ts and this neat guide on ordering gym defenders (with an bonus list of good gym defenders) and get going!

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Kristy
Kristy
Age 21, Nursing Student in the USA. Long time Pokemon Fan, I just love helping the community! I read comments because otherwise I won't know what typos I made :p

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