What it gives and what it takes
Selling the company costs you your money, your buildings and your level. In return you keep prestige points, scaled to the value of what you sold, and those points permanently raise production and prices in the next run. Points accumulate, so each prestige builds on the last.
The gain has diminishing returns. Doubling your company value does not double your points. That is intentional: without it, "wait a bit longer, it compounds" becomes an infinite loop. The total multiplier is capped as well.
When it makes sense
If at least two of these three are true, the moment has arrived:
- Nothing left to spend on. The balance grows but there is nothing meaningful to buy; upgrades are either at maximum or their return is negligible.
- Upgrades have flattened. If the next factory level raises output by one or two percent, that money has stopped working.
- The layout is cramped. You know you would place the site better if you started again.
Conversely, if every upgrade still makes a visible difference, it is too early. Your progress at that stage is already fast.
The first run after a prestige is different
You start the new game with permanent multipliers, so the early hours go noticeably faster than they did. You do not have to sit through the tutorial again; the game skips it automatically on a save that has already progressed.
A practical suggestion: plan the site properly on the second run. Deliberately choosing where storage and drop points go is the most valuable thing you learned the first time around.
Why it is not unlimited
Prestige points are earned from company value, and the multiplier they grant increases production. That closes a loop: money → prestige → more production → more money. A loop like that, left unchecked, pushes the numbers into meaningless territory within hours and makes every decision in the game irrelevant.
So there are two brakes: the gain has diminishing returns, and the total multiplier has a ceiling. The ceiling sits just above the peak an honest player can reach, which means you do not run into it while playing, but the loop cannot run away either.
On the day we added that brake, a player had described the loop in the chat: "if you do the company sale you will have trillions in about 15 to 20 minutes." They were right, and it was fixed the same day. The full story, including why no automated test could have caught it, is in the devlog.
Do not confuse it with specialisation
Prestige and specialisation are separate systems. Specialisation is chosen once at level 5, Volume, Boutique or Contract, and it cannot be undone; it defines your playing style. Prestige is repeatable and does not change your branch.