How to make money in Planet Zoo 2

Where the money comes from

The game has two currencies: Cash for building, wages and bills, and Conservation Credits (CC), mainly for adopting animals. Do not mix them up.

Start with Management → Finances. It shows income and expenses for the current and previous season. Management → Facilities shows the profit of every facility: move a loss-making shop to a busier spot or remove it.

Donation Bins: the best start

A guest drops a donation for an animal they have just watched. According to Frontier, the better the view, the higher the chance and the amount, and animals with high appeal that are Thriving bring in more.

• You will find the bin under Facilities → Services → Donation Bin. The Essentials filter in the build menu shows bins and shops, among other things.
• Insider Gaming recommends 3–4 bins per habitat or exhibit, close to that animal's education materials. A bin costs little and has no running costs.
• Place a Habitat Education Board next to it and give each board a different topic. Two boards on the same topic do not count twice, and better educated guests give more.
• FewCandy shows that you can hide the bin and the board behind scenery and they still work.
• Guests donate more readily to animals on their Wish List (up to 5 species).

If average donations jumped oddly after the season changed, that was a bug fixed in update 1.0.4.

Ticket price: how to set it

You change the price in Management or by clicking the Zoo Entrance gate, separately for adults and children. Frontier gives no default price and no recommended range, and the official guide only describes setting prices manually.

The rule from the guide: guests will pay more for a better zoo, but if they think they are overpaying, they will not come in at all. A price that is too low is lost money. You can see what guests think about the price in Management → Guests (Guest Thoughts).

1. Set a price, wait a few in-game days and check Guest Thoughts and your guest count.
2. Raise the price in small steps as you add species, baby animals and reputation. FewCandy: "more species and baby animals allow you to raise prices".
3. Lower it when complaints about the price grow and fewer guests come in.

A player in the Reddit thread "Losing Money Constantly" lost guests after a price rise; others advised adding shops, ATMs and education boards instead. Remember that very unhappy guests demand a ticket refund, and refunds come out of your zoo's Cash.

Shops, ATMs and attractions

• Guests carry a limited amount of cash. Once it is spent, they buy nothing and donate nothing. An ATM (on a path, with power) solves this; keep the withdrawal fee moderate.
• Synchronize prices changes prices in all shops of one type at once. Extras on food let you raise the price with a smaller drop in happiness (FewCandy).
• FewCandy calls a Nature's Keeper selling adoption packs next to favourite animals a "lucrative" source. Vending machines are cheaper at the start and need no Vendor wage.
• Every new shop hires a Vendor automatically. It is easy to end up with too many.

Costs: where the money goes

Cash pays for building, adoption and hiring, and constantly for wages, power and upkeep.

You can switch off buildings and shops to save money.

Loans: how they work

You will find loans under Management → Finances → Loans.

• The game shows up to 3 offers at once, each with a different amount and interest rate. You can only have one loan per provider.
• After Take Loan the Cash arrives immediately. You see your total debt, yearly repayments and interest paid.
• You repay every season, and you choose the repayment level: High, Medium or Low. Interest is charged on the amount still owed, so faster repayment means less interest. Pay off Loan clears it at any time.
• Update 1.0.4 on October 14, 2026 reduced the interest rates on low level loans. Frontier did not give numbers.

Frontier does not publish amounts or rates. PawsBuild (a launch day video, before update 1.0.4) saw the providers Nest Egg, Timber Tender and Quack Cash: the smaller the amount, the higher the rate, and choosing Low repayments raised the Nest Egg rate from 5% to 6%.

On Reddit, a loan for 2–3 habitats set some players up for good, while others took one for running costs and only dug a deeper hole. Use it for investment, not for wages and bills.

Selling animals: Cash or CC

From Animal Storage you have three quick options: Quick Trade for Cash, Quick Release for CC and Rehome for a fee. You can only trade healthy adult animals (not Juvenile, Gestating, Elderly, Sick or Injured), and you need a Trade Centre.

Insider Gaming sees selling bred young animals as one of the fastest ways to earn. Players recommend Red Deer, Wild Boar and Warthog. Quick Trade can return less than you paid: TmarTn2 got about $1,000 for an aardvark bought for about $1,300. More in our guide to animal breeding.

In Franchise you can buy animals from Frontier Zoos for Cash, and updates 1.0.4 and 1.0.5 increased the number of these offers. Selling to other players only earns CC: we cover that currency in the guide to accreditation and conservation credits.

Career, Franchise and Sandbox: the economy

CC from Franchise does not carry over to the offline modes, and vice versa.

Tips from videos and players

1. Minimal start (Reddit): one building for each staff type, a food shop, a drinks shop, a toilet, an info booth, two small exhibits with cheap animals, education and Donation Bins. Then let time run and only expand once you have a few thousand in the bank. Full starting plan: beginner's guide.
2. Exhibit animals first (Reddit): they are cheap to keep, need no quarantine or vet, and still bring donations. Adamup (October 15, 2026) starts Franchise with three exhibits: scorpions, a centipede and an anaconda.
3. Pause while you build (FewCandy, October 13, 2026): wages and bills keep running while you think.
4. Breeding saves the budget (TmarTn2, October 14, 2026): breeding aardvarks pulled his zoo back from $4,200 in the bank and a negative balance.

Common mistakes: how to go bankrupt early

• Spending all your starting Cash before the zoo has any income. One player spent close to $80,000 on construction and scenery with no income at all.
• An elephant or another huge animal first. FewCandy: "you will go bankrupt from the food costs alone". The same goes for large groups of predators, such as hyenas or African wild dogs.
• Too few Donation Bins and one education board instead of several topics.
• Raising the ticket price too fast, and taking a loan for running costs.
• No ATMs and shops: guests spend their pocket money and leave.
• Spending CC on small things when you will soon need it for a reserve.