Comparison

Café Tycoon vs Ship It

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Café Tycoon

Build a coffee empire from a single counter to a national chain. Hire managers, unlock new stations, and franchise across cities. Enjoy seasonal content and earn rewards even while offline.

Highlights
  • Build and upgrade coffee stations
  • Hire managers for passive income
  • Franchise across 26 US cities
  • Monthly limited-time seasonal content
  • Earn rewards offline
  • Deep prestige system
Features
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Pour your first espresso, hire your crew, and grow a single counter into a coast-to-coast coffee empire. Café Tycoon is a cozy idle tycoon game built for long-term play. Every station you level, every manager you hire, and every café you open keeps working for you even while you sleep. BUILD YOUR CAFÉ • 8 stations to unlock and level — from the humble Espresso Bar to the legendary Gelato Cart • Hit level milestones to double a station's output, again and again • Hire managers to double station income until your next franchise • Coin upgrades reset when you franchise; gem and prestige upgrades are permanent. GO NATIONAL • Franchise your café into 26 US cities on a living map • Every location you open earns passively for the rest of the game • Earn Golden Beans with each franchise and spend them on permanent upgrades A NEW SEASON EVERY MONTH • A limited-time seasonal station with its own recipe — Pumpkin Spice, Peppermint Mocha, Cherry Blossom and more • A 30-tier season track: free rewards for everyone, a premium track with the Season Pass • Earn season points from quests, daily rewards, golden customers and franchises ALWAYS SOMETHING TO DO • Golden customers, tap frenzies, and rush-hour boosts reward active play • Rotating quests and a 7-day daily streak • Deep prestige tree: income, offline earnings, tap power, luck • Game Center leaderboards and achievements EARN WHILE YOU'RE AWAY • Your café serves customers offline and welcomes you back with a bonus • Upgrade your offline cap and rate to wake up rich • Progress syncs with iCloud across your devices No forced ads. No account required. Play offline anywhere. Optional in-app purchases can speed up your empire — every price is shown before you buy, and permanent perks restore free on any of your devices. VIP Club is an optional monthly subscription: it renews automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the period, and you can manage it in your Apple Account settings. Play in English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Turkish or Simplified Chinese. The game starts in your device's language, and you can switch any time in Settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Ship It

Build a virtual app development empire from a small studio to a large business. Manage tech debt, handle app store reviews, and hire advisors to optimize your growth. Make strategic exits to gain permanent benefits for future runs.

Highlights
  • Build and improve apps
  • Manage tech debt
  • Handle app store reviews and incidents
  • Hire and upgrade advisors
  • Automated builds and idle earnings
  • Make strategic studio exits
  • Unlock permanent legacy benefits
Features
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Turn taps into apps. Turn a tiny studio into your pocket empire. SHIP IT! is an incremental game about building apps, growing a studio, and making your next big exit. Start small, ship new versions, improve your apps, and put your earnings back into the business. BUILD SOMETHING BIGGER Write code, launch apps, and choose upgrades that move your studio forward. Build a portfolio a buyer wants, unlock automation, and keep shipping new versions. MIND YOUR TECH DEBT New features make an app earn more. Most also add tech debt, which slows its next builds. The Features screen shows exactly how much before you buy. When the debt piles up, refactor: pay a quarter of what those features cost, clear the debt, and keep every feature. THINGS BREAK From your second studio, App Review checks every 25th version. Ship a release with too much debt and it's rejected. The app goes off sale until the fix ships. Design Polish raises the limit, and each app warns you before a release would fail. Incidents keep you on your toes: servers go down, payments wobble, a Friday deploy goes wrong. Spend cash to fix it, send an adviser, or wait it out. Nothing random happens while you're idle or away, and your versions never go down. LEAVE WITH A PLAN Create a Build plan with app-version targets and let your automated builds get to work. Your studio keeps building and earning for up to 8 hours while you're away, and Night Shift stretches that to 24. Stay away longer and the overflow bank keeps earning at a quarter of the rate, for up to the same time again. MEET YOUR UNFAIR EDGE Discover 68 satirical advisers with different abilities. Choose a Power for a timely boost and seat a passive adviser at your Studio desk for an ongoing perk. Every card shows its effect at a glance, and you can swipe through your collection. Find combinations that suit your run, and collect duplicates to improve them. Rotate your team: lean on one adviser too often and they need a longer rest. A COLLECTION THAT GROWS WITH YOU Unlock CI to choose a free first passive adviser. Earn extra expansion cards as you recruit. For dedicated collectors, reaching Rank V with every adviser unlocks the road to Master VI. MAKE YOUR BIG EXIT Sell your studio and carry permanent benefits into the next run. Later, take on optional Exit Goal quests with distinct rules and rewards. Late in the game, their targets grow with your studio, so they stay a real challenge. Complete a quest to retire it from the board, or keep building a normal studio at your own pace. PLAY THE LONG GAME After 18 exits, each of your next 17 Legacy sales adds 13% code speed, compounding, so the late game keeps its pace. Old apps become classics: from v1000, an app earns ×1.5 for every newer app you've launched. Chase 8 badges and 23 tiers in the Hall of Fame, and keep every tier after every sale. Earn Feature Complete to unlock Max out, which buys every feature level you can afford on an app in one tap. Then see how your all-time revenue ranks on the Fortune leaderboard in Game Center. MAKE IT YOUR STUDIO Enjoy a lively pixel-art workspace with an original soundtrack that grows with your career, and big moments that land with stamps, bursts, and count-ups. Dress the studio with neon signs, window views, desk toys and pets, with a new drop every Monday, and fill a trophy cabinet with every exit. Watch your seated adviser join the crew. Play without an account or an internet connection. Optional purchases are available. One more version. One more upgrade. One more big idea. Ship it. Game Center wallet backup is optional. Optional in-app purchases and Founder Club subscriptions are available. All cash and earnings shown in the game are fictional in-game currency. Privacy: https://www.cleardays.co/ship-it/privacy/ Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Café Tycoon4 screens
Ship It4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Ship It at daily against Café Tycoon's every 2 weeks. Ship It also leads on ratings volume (6 vs 2). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Café Tycoon sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Ship It sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Café Tycoon against 5.0 for Ship It. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 6 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Café Tycoon ships an update every 2 weeks, Ship It daily. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Café Tycoon versus Ship It: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCafé TycoonShip It
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings)5.0 (6 ratings)
Number of ratings26 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksDaily — better
AdsYesYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS16.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size16 MB190 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperThe Revolution of Technology LLCHendrik Haandrikman

Customer experience

Café Tycoon

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Ship It

All ratings6 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Café Tycoon

Subscriptions1
  • VIP Club$4.991 Month
One-time9
  • Pouch of Gems$0.99
  • Piggy Bank$1.99
  • Season Pass$4.99
Show 6 more
  • Café Pass$4.99
  • Jar of Gems$4.99
  • VIP Club$7.99
  • Vault of Gems$9.99
  • Treasury of Gems$19.99
  • Empire Chest$49.99
4 purchases

Ship It

Subscriptions1
  • Founder Club$4.991 Month
One-time3
  • Pocket Chips — 30 Chips$0.99
  • Stack of Chips — 160 Chips$4.99
  • Crate of Chips — 350 Chips$9.99

Questions

Is Café Tycoon free?
Café Tycoon is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Ship It free?
Ship It is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Café Tycoon or Ship It?
Café Tycoon and Ship It are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 2 and 6 ratings respectively.
Do Café Tycoon or Ship It have ads?
Both Café Tycoon and Ship It show ads.
Which is updated more often, Café Tycoon or Ship It?
Café Tycoon ships an update every 2 weeks, and Ship It daily. Most recently, Café Tycoon was updated on October 31, 2026 and Ship It on November 10, 2026.

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