Cookie Clicker Kittens and Milk Guide: All 15 Kitten Upgrades

Kittens are the reason late-game Cookie Clicker numbers explode. Every achievement you earn raises your milk, and every kitten upgrade turns that milk into a CpS multiplier. The kittens also multiply each other rather than adding up. A player with 350 achievements and all 15 store kittens is running at roughly 27 million times the CpS they would have without them. This guide explains how milk is calculated, when each of the 15 kittens unlocks, what each costs and adds, and the two heavenly kittens most players forget. Every number below is read from the v2.058 game code running on this site.

How milk works

Your milk is simply achievements ÷ 25. Every 25 achievements adds 100% milk and a new milk flavor rises in the bottom of the cookie panel: Plain milk at the start, Chocolate at 25 achievements, Raspberry at 50, Orange at 75, Caramel at 100, and so on up to Hazelnut milk. The flavor is cosmetic. The percentage is what counts. With the Milk selector heavenly upgrade you can display whichever flavor you like without changing the bonus.

Two details trip people up:

• Shadow achievements do not count. Only normal achievements raise milk. Hunting Cheated cookies taste awful or Third-party does nothing for your kittens.
• Achievements survive ascension, so your milk carries into every new run. Kittens do not: they are regular upgrades and must be bought again after each ascension.

The kitten formula

Each kitten multiplies your whole CpS by 1 + milk × its factor, where milk is the number above (4.0 at 100 achievements, 12.0 at 300). Kitten helpers have a factor of 0.1, so at 300 achievements they alone multiply CpS by 1 + 12 × 0.1 = 2.2×. Kitten managers (0.2) give 3.4× at the same milk. Because every kitten is a separate multiplier, stacking them compounds fast:

That is why, from the mid game on, a new kitten is almost always the best purchase in the store, even when its price looks absurd next to your buildings.

Every kitten upgrade: unlock and cost

The 15 store kittens unlock purely from milk, meaning a number of achievements, with no cookie requirement:

Unlocking is not the same as affording. After an ascension your milk is already high, so kittens up to your achievement count appear in the store at once. Buy them in order as the bank allows. Their prices climb about 1,000× per tier, roughly in step with how your production grows.

The extra kittens: Kitten angels, Kitten wages and Fortune #103

• Kitten angels — a heavenly upgrade for 9,000 heavenly chips (after Dominions in the tree). It is a permanent kitten with factor 0.1 that never needs rebuying, which makes it one of the best early prestige purchases. At 300 achievements it alone is worth 2.2×.
• Kitten wages — 9 billion heavenly chips, after Kitten angels. It makes every kitten upgrade 10% cheaper. It matters most for the last tiers, where 10% is a lot of time.
• Fortune #103 — factor 0.05. It is not sold in the store. With the heavenly upgrade Fortune cookies, fortunes occasionally scroll through the news ticker. Clicking one unlocks a fortune upgrade, and #103 is the kitten one.

Making milk stronger

Four things multiply the milk value before the kittens use it, so every kitten benefits at once:

• Santa’s milk and cookies — +5% milk. It is one of Santa’s gifts at Christmas (see the seasons guide).
• Breath of Milk dragon aura — +5% milk. It is the strongest second aura for idle play once your kitten stack is big. The dragon guide pairs it with Radiant Appetite.
• Mokalsium, Mother Spirit in the Pantheon — +10% milk in the diamond slot, +5% ruby, +3% jade. The trade-off is fewer golden cookies (−15% / −10% / −5%), so it belongs in idle setups. See the Pantheon guide.
• Milkhelp® lactose intolerance relief tablets — not a milk multiplier, but grandmas get +5% CpS per 100% milk.

How to raise your milk faster

Since milk is achievements, the question becomes which achievements are cheap. In rough order of effort:

1. Building count achievements. Every building except the Cursor has achievements at 1, 50, 100 and every 50 after that. Buying 50 of each new building type after an ascension picks up a batch quickly.
2. Cookies baked in one ascension and total cookies baked. These come automatically as production grows.
3. Seasonal sets — all 7 hearts, all 7 Christmas cookies, all 7 Halloween cookies, 1 / 7 / 14 / 20 eggs, Santa levels and reindeer counts. A single run through the seasons is worth a dozen achievements.
4. Minigame achievements — the Garden, Stock Market and Grimoire each have a set. See the garden guide for the seed-collection ones.
5. Building level (sugar lump) achievements — level each building to 1, then 10. The sugar lumps guide covers the spending order.

For the full list, grouped by how to get each one, see Cookie Clicker achievements.

Kittens and milk FAQ

How many achievements do I need for each milk?

25 per flavor: Chocolate milk at 25, Raspberry at 50, Orange at 75, Caramel at 100, and so on. Each step is +100% milk.

Do kitten upgrades reset when I ascend?

Yes, the 15 store kittens reset like every other upgrade. Your milk does not, because achievements are permanent. Kitten angels, being a heavenly upgrade, also stays.

Which is better, a kitten or a building upgrade?

Past about 100 achievements a new kitten almost always wins, because it multiplies all production at once. Early on, compare the price with your CpS. A kitten costing under an hour of production is an instant buy.

Do shadow achievements give milk?

No. Only normal achievements count toward milk.

Want to watch your milk climb? Play Cookie Clicker free in your browser, and check the upgrades guide for what to buy between kittens.