What it costs to take an AFK Arena hero to Lv.240
53.6 million gold, 134.7 million hero EXP and 118,100 Hero's Essence for one hero. The last 40 levels are 41% of the gold, and the essence, not the EXP, is what makes you wait.
Taking one AFK Arena hero from Lv.1 to Lv.240 costs 53.6 million gold, 134.7 million hero EXP and 118,100 Hero's Essence. Almost none of it is spent early. The first 100 levels cost only 4% of the gold. The last 40 levels cost 41%.
The bill, cap by cap
A hero's level cap is set by their ascension tier, so the climb splits cleanly into bands. Each row below is the cost of levelling through one band, from the previous cap up to the next one, with the tiers that hold that cap:
Past Lv.100, every band costs more than the one before it, and the last band is the largest by a wide margin. Reaching Ascended opens 40 levels in one step. Those levels alone cost 21.8 million gold and 76.5 million hero EXP, which is 57% of all the hero EXP in the whole climb.
The first 100 levels cost about 2 million gold. The last 40 cost 21.8 million.
The ascension tiers after Ascended do not appear as separate bands, because they do not raise the cap. Every star from Ascended onward shares the same Lv.240 ceiling. The ascension page lists the cap and rank for every tier.
Hero's Essence comes due in 12 lumps
Gold and EXP are paid level by level. Hero's Essence is not. It is charged only at rank-ups, 12 of them, and they are very uneven. The first costs 10. The largest, at Lv.220, costs 40,000. The three rank-ups at Lv.180, Lv.200 and Lv.220 together cost 95,000 essence, which is 80% of the whole essence bill.
This matters because a rank-up blocks levelling. A hero can have plenty of gold and EXP available and still stop at Lv.220 until the essence arrives. Every rank-up level and its exact price is listed on the Level Costs page.
Which resource makes you wait
The last campaign stage, 84-60, pays 37,800 gold, 4,902,840 hero EXP and 48.3 Hero's Essence per hour of idle time. Divide the Lv.240 bill by those rates and the three resources are nowhere near each other:
| Resource | Bill for one hero | Idle hours at 84-60 |
|---|---|---|
| Hero EXP | 134.7 million | 27 |
| Gold | 53.6 million | 1,419 (about 59 days) |
| Hero's Essence | 118,100 | 2,445 (about 102 days) |
Hero EXP, the largest number on the bill, is covered in 27 hours. Essence takes the longest by far. These are idle hours only, and other sources add to all three resources. On idle income, though, the order is clear: at the top of the campaign, Hero's Essence is the bottleneck. Gold comes second, and EXP is almost never what stops a hero levelling.
The Idle Rewards page gives the same hourly rates for every stage. Use it to see how much sooner a stage you have already cleared would pay off.
What this means for planning
Two things follow. First, levelling a new hero to Lv.100 is cheap enough to do freely: 4% of the gold and only 900 essence. Second, the expensive decision is the jump to Ascended. The Ascended band takes 59% of all the essence a hero will ever need. Because essence is the slowest resource, pushing a second hero into that band delays the first hero's next rank-up. It is worth deciding which hero gets it before you start.
All figures are for one hero and update with every patch.