Idle Startup

Idle Startup is an incremental game about growing a tech company from a one-person garage startup into a corporate office. You choose a skill to work on, earning progress, XP and money as its bar fills. Spend money to level up and unlock more skills and departments across four company tiers.

Skills and upgrades

The game has six skills, each with its own upgrade tree gated by level and cost. A company-wide store and an R&D lab support your upgrades. Each skill grants permanent company-wide bonuses at levels 25, 50, 75 and 99; after reaching its maximum level, it continues earning Mastery, a bonus that grows over time.

There are 66 skill and company upgrades, along with a Founder Store. You can also accept contracts for bonus goals.

Prestige and automation

Cash out your company for Founder Points, then spend them on permanent upgrades that carry across runs. These include extra parallel skill slots, compounding growth, seed capital and a veteran team. Each run resets your progress so you can build up faster and reach higher.

Six toggleable auto-managers can handle hiring, training, investing, research, accepting contracts and refounding. You can let the company run while you watch its numbers grow or leave it idle and return later.

Progress and competition

The game continues earning while closed. When you return, a Welcome Back recap shows what you earned and the levels you gained, and a free Coffee Break speed boost is available a few times a day. Saves sync through Steam Cloud.

Compare results on global and friends leaderboards, or compete on speedrun boards that track how long it takes to reach level 99 in a skill. The game also includes over 50 Steam achievements, from First Day to Trillionaire.

Themes and boosts

Choose between interface themes such as Midnight IDE and Poolside FM, with seasonal themes including a Star-Spangled July 4th theme and its full-length lo-fi music playlist.

Optional purchases offer a 2× speed boost for four hours with an Energy Drink, a 2× speed boost for 24 hours with a Coffee Pot, or a permanent 2× speed boost and unlimited offline earnings with the one-time Productivity Suite. These boosts are not required to play or complete the game.