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+--- Thread: Ride Pricing (/thread-25642.html)
Ride Pricing - CoasterBrian - Nov 5, 2025
This is kindof a test message as it is my first one. I got to wondering how various people set the prices on the rides. I suppose there are 4 basic strategies:
Leave the rides at the default price the game sets it at. This is fine for “flat rides” and is what I currently do but would make very unprofitable roller coasters if the wasn’t entirely killed by the operating cost.
Set each ride to something like $5.00, which works decently, at least on the easier scenarios.
Record the EIN statistics and use the absolute highest amount you can charge for a ride based on its age based on the online price calculator referrred to by Marcel Vos (I assume that many people on this list know who that is). This would probably absolutely maximize the profit the a ride can make, but to me it is a bit too much micromanagement.
Set the price based on a simple formula such as truncating the excitement rating to the nearest integer and doubling it (6.00 to 6.99 gets truncated to 6 and doubled to 12). This is what I am doing now, and has worked well, except for one of the prebuilt Virginia Reels (Texas Tubs I think) and that formula made it too expensive for most people to ride.
On the current scenario I am playing, Botany Breakers, my plan was to make rides going around the island then develop the interior of the island, but using the “truncate and double” strategy described above got me to the $10,000 per month goal of when I got about halfway around the island.
I suppose I can do one of 3 things now: finish developing the island making an “informal personal goal” of $20,000 per month or something like that, use the openrct2 cheats to make the scenario a “no money – have fun” scenario, or move on the next scenario and see how my “truncate and double” strategy works on it.
Brian Christiansen