How to make money in Alchemy Factory 1.1

Two rules hold sales back in 1.0, and Shop Recognition fixes both.

• Authorization. The in-game manual says some goods can only be sold after you obtain the matching license or Recognition, and customers ignore unauthorized goods even when they sit on a shelf. Such a shelf warns that you are “not yet authorized to sell” the item.
• Reputation. The manual also says a higher Recognition raises your Shop Reputation and brings more customers, and the tutorial adds that a growing reputation draws buyers with more money to spend. Every level of the five shop tracks adds 8 Shop Reputation. Serving customers no longer changes it: the 1.0 patch notes say “Customer feedback when making purchases no longer affects Reputation.”

Players say you apply to the NPC standing in the middle of the shop where you buy materials (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)). The 1.0.4950 hotfix made that NPC easier to spot, and 1.0.4962 added the application to the new-player tutorial. The Recognition panel lists each level's requirements, its fee and the goods it makes available.

Players confirm the fix: waiting relics sold the same day a Recognition was bought (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)), and Saturn relics and Diamonds that stopped selling with the 1.0 update sold again once every available Recognition was bought (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)).

If an item still doesn't sell, check two more things from the manual: customers only browse shelves they can reach (a blocked shelf shows a warning icon), and special goods such as potions only sell from their own kind of shelf.

Only Merchants, Monks and Nobles buy jewelry and relics, and they are the customer types that wait for reputation. The game lists five customer types, the Alchemy Level each starts visiting from, and how each splits its interest between shelf types:

The game gives Citizens and Warriors a positive starting visit weight and Merchants, Monks and Nobles a negative one, each with its own multiplier for Shop Reputation, and the in-game customer info shows a Required Reputation. How much each type needs isn't confirmed, so this guide doesn't guess thresholds. What players do report: at zero reputation, relics and other high-priced goods don't sell (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)).

Beverages need no reputation at all: only Citizens and Warriors buy them. Remedies are on every customer's list. Monks give relics a weight of 70, Merchants 10, and no other customer type buys them; an in-game tip says ordinary customers other than Monks ignore relics.

Five shop tracks, one per shelf type; every level adds 8 Shop Reputation and raises that shelf's profit. Each level asks you to sell a set number of one item, then pay a fee. The first level of each:

Each level's profit buff grows from +10% at level I to +22% at level V on every track; the game doesn't say how the levels combine (profit buffs by level). All 25 levels together give 200 Shop Reputation; every fee is on the tech tree page.

The game doesn't list which goods each level authorizes, but the requirements hint at it: a level can only ask you to sell goods you are already allowed to sell, so each item in the last column should sell once you hold the level before it. By the same logic, Turquoise and Jupiter should sell before you hold any level of their track (one player confirms Turquoise on a fresh 1.0 save, Steam thread (opens in a new tab)). Their shelves come from the Workbench once you research Turquoise and Jupiter, but their buyers still need reputation, so take the cheap levels of the other tracks first. For anything else, such as Diamonds, check Available Goods in the in-game Recognition panel.

Three more license tracks add no reputation. Licensed Alchemist (Level V) asks you to produce 500 Soap and adds Grand Portal Traffic Rate (+30% at the first level, up to +50%) and Shop Profit (+10% per level); Licensed Supplier starts the contract ladder; the Copper Coin Mint License (Level VI) unlocks coin minting.

Old advice to max out a sales upgrade is out of date: the 1.0 notes say “Reworked shop sales upgrades and removed purchase contract upgrades.” Sales Ability in the upgrade tree now adds Customer Purchase Increase (+25% per level for 12 levels, then +10% per repeatable level).

Transformation Potion adds the most value per machine among goods available by Level V; Whispering Fields leads by Level IV. Value added is what one machine's output sells for minus what its ingredients are worth (their Purchasing Portal price, or their own base value when you make them), at base speed and base prices, the same numbers as the profit table.

Whispering Fields is also what Tavern Recognition I asks you to sell, and only Citizens and Warriors buy beverages, so a Brew Barrel line sells without waiting for reputation and opens a track at the same time. Five of these six count toward a Recognition, so the same line earns coins and progress. If one shows the “not yet authorized” warning, the level before the one it counts toward should unlock it.

For later levels, set the profit table's tier filter to your Alchemy Level (Tier IV is Level IV). Relics are left out here: the game stores them in portions, and whether the shop pays per relic or per portion isn't confirmed.

Contracts sell in bulk below shop price, but they don't need customers. Once you reach Level IV, a Sample Request quest asks for 50 Bandage and pays 1212 silver. It unlocks the Dispatch Portal and the Bandage contract. The in-game manual says contracts pay below market price and that each buyer only takes so much a day.

Where the shop also takes the item, a contract pays 65%–69% of its base shop price. Gloom Spores and Fertile Catalyst can't go on a shelf at all, so contracts are how you sell them.

Why bother? Players have pointed out since early access that the shop can only serve so many customers, so a contract line adds income on top of it (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)). The game lists a daily limit of 16 for Bandage, fewer than the 50 in one contract, so it most likely counts contracts: 800 Bandages and up to 1921 gold 92 silver a day before Supplier bonuses. Players reported dispatching 800 a day before 1.0 too (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)).

The Supplier track takes it from there. Licensed Supplier (Level V) asks you to deliver 2,000 Bandage by contract and costs 2020 silver; it unlocks the Gloom Spores contract. Each level unlocks the next contract in the table and adds Purchase Contract Amount Bonus (+60% per level) and Purchase Contract Reward Bonus (+8% at the first level, up to +16%).

Random requests pay more than base shop prices. The game shows each reward as a share of the market price:

• Random Quest (from Level II): 130% of the market price, 2 days to finish.
• Bulk Order (from Level III): 160% of the market price, 4 days to finish.
• Urgent Request (from Level III): 200% of the market price, due before midnight.

Only main quests raise your Alchemy Level, so requests are pure income. Before 1.0, one player advised always choosing a request over the shop, since even the lowest pays 30% over the market price (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)). In 1.0 Shop Recognitions raise shop profit too, and the game doesn't say whether a request's market price includes that. Customer Management in the upgrade tree adds Quest Rewards (+6% at level 1, up to +20% per level later) and one more Daily Random Quest at levels 4, 8 and 12; the game starts you at 1.

Players who go broke after automating purchases usually find their money sitting in portals, machines and belts. What they recommend:

• Buy where you use it. Put each Purchasing Portal right next to the machine it feeds and send coins along the belt, not ore (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)). Expensive raws on long belts tie up a lot of money (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)).
• Feed portals small amounts. A portal spends the coins you give it. Players keep a cash reserve in storage and send coins out a few at a time through a Bank Portal (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)), which the game describes as converting between two coin types with a set output amount.
• Block spare slots. A portal buys ahead to fill the machine it feeds, so players put Gelatinous Gridlock (100100 copper, Level I) in the machine's spare input slots and fewer bought items wait there (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)). An in-game tip notes it can't ride a belt, which is why it stays put as a blocker.
• Keep coin belts away from machine inputs. A machine whose input touches a coin belt can take the coins (Reddit thread (opens in a new tab)).
• Budget for fuel and fertilizer. Before 1.0, one player found them to be most of the running cost (Steam thread (opens in a new tab)); the heat & fuel guide covers the cheapest heat.

From the manual: the Purchasing Portal accepts any coin type and exchanges it as needed, and the Automatic Cashier (Level IV) stops when it is full, so empty it by hand or run a belt from it. Raw prices rise steeply as you level; the priciest new raw good at each:

A Stone Crusher turns one Quartz Ore (4444 silver, Level VII) into 80 Crude Shards, and 7 Refiner steps take 128 shards down to one Diamond. That is 1.6 ore, or 7040070 silver 400 copper, for a Diamond that sells for 11 gold: +29600+29 silver 600 copper each before Recognition bonuses. One Diamond takes 127 refining crafts, so plan the machines before you buy ore, and make sure your Recognitions cover Diamonds (see the Saturn and Diamond report above).

The Relic Shelf's in-game description says its size is adjustable, and players found that a Venus needs a larger form: press T while placing it (Steam thread from before 1.0 (opens in a new tab), Reddit thread (opens in a new tab) from 1.0). Relics have a second use: since 1.0 the Knowledge Altar breaks down any item for experience and relics give extra (1.0 notes), so each relic is a choice between coins and experience.

The Grand Portal (Workbench, Level V) brings in customers from distant cities (1.0 notes), and its in-game description says a second one won't add more. The Alchemist track raises its Grand Portal Traffic Rate (+30% at the first level, up to +50%) and adds Shop Profit (+10% per level).