What the Buck shifts and Prestige Points

What the Buck Prestige Points (PP) are earned by destroying money during a shift, and you spend them only after you end the shift, which costs a fixed money price. confirmed The first shift costs $100K to end, the second $10M, the third $1B, and every shift after that costs 100 times the one before. Since patch 1.0.1 the price stops rising at 1 sextillion from shift 9 on. confirmed

What the Buck end shift cost, shift by shift

Shift	Price to end it	Source
1	$100K	developer reply
2	$10M	developer reply
3	$1B	developer reply
4	$100B	×100 rule
5	$10T	×100 rule
6	$1Qa (quadrillion)	×100 rule
7	$100Qa	×100 rule
8	$10Qi (quintillion)	×100 rule
9 and later	$1Sx (sextillion), less with Market Maker	patch 1.0.1

The developer set these fixed prices in October 2026; before that, the price grew ×2.75 with every shift. confirmed Prices drop with the prestige-tree price reducer (−20% per level on release day), which is why the release-day player needed only $800 million for the third shift. confirmed

Ending a shift costs all your cash, not only the price. Mr. Buck says so when you first can afford it: “Bad news, it costs all of it.” confirmed

How Prestige Points are earned

• Destroying bills and coins releases glowing orbs that fill the prestige bar under your funds. Each full bar is one PP. confirmed
• The more PP you have ever earned, the harder the next one gets. Spending PP does not make the next point easier; your balance can drop to zero but the total never goes down. confirmed
• Prestige coins and the many ”+% prestige progress” nodes in both trees speed this up. confirmed

On release day the first shift took about 15 and a half minutes, destroyed $229K and gave about 20 PP. confirmed The end-of-shift screen lists time worked, money destroyed, bills shredded and your biggest payout. confirmed

When to end a shift

End the shift when two things are true:

1. You can pay the price, and
2. The next affordable skill-tree node would take several minutes of income.

The pre-release player held back early because he worried the price might jump too far, then found that fixed prices make it safe to end as soon as progress slows. confirmed With the price list above, you always know how far the next target is.

A useful habit from release-day play: just before ending, buy one more round of prestige-progress nodes, then end. confirmed

What carries over between shifts

Kept	Reset
Prestige Points (earned total and unspent balance)	Cash (all of it)
Prestige tree nodes	Breaker panel (unless kept, 15 PP)
Achievements and stats	Withdrawal panel (unless kept, 10 PP)
Bills you unlocked through kept nodes	Skill tree (unless kept, 40 PP)

Starting cash comes from Petty Cash (+$2K each) and the node that starts you with a share of the money you had left. confirmed

The 1.0.1 postgame fix

Before 1.0.1, the ×100 rule kept going after the ending. A player who was 99% done faced a 50 sextillion price for one more shift, 50 times what it costs to beat the game. reported The developer answered the same day with patch 1.0.1: from shift 9 on, every shift costs 1 sextillion, or less with Market Maker, and the new price shows on your current shift as soon as Steam downloads the update. confirmed

Shift achievements

First Shift Ended, Three Shifts Ended and Five Shifts Ended track shifts; 100 Prestige Points and 700 Prestige Points track your total PP. confirmed See achievements.