How many days does the Gold Pass really save?

What the planner assumes about the pass

The Builder and Research Boost are not handed out when you buy the pass. They are rewards on the season track and arrive as season points add up. ClashClock's planner uses the April 2026 season track (the sources are in How ClashClock works) and a pace of 2,500 points over a 30-day season, about 83 a day. Nobody can read a player's real points, so that pace is an assumption. A boost takes the same percentage off the time and off the price.

Over the 30 days the builder boost is on average 16.3% (no boost for the first day, 10% for 6.7 days, 15% for 5.0, 20% for 17.3). That is the number to keep in mind for the rest of the post. Two rules decide how much of it a given upgrade gets. The upgrade is priced the moment it starts. And when a new level arrives while it runs, the game cuts it to the new full time only if that is shorter than what is left, so a long upgrade started in week one keeps its week-one price.

The game also rounds a boosted time down, to 10 minutes up to a day and to the hour beyond, which is slightly in your favour. This is what it does to a few lengths, from the planner's own rounding code:

One season of builder work

I started villages at the beginning of the November 2026 season, five builders each, and counted how many upgrade-days of work the builders get through, measured at the printed length of every level. Five builders working all 30 days is 150 builder-days of boosted time.

A full season gives the builders about 22 or 23 extra builder-days, +15%. That is less than the +19.5% that a 16.3% shorter time would give (1 divided by 0.837), because every long upgrade started in the first two weeks is priced at the level of the day it started. From day 13 on, with the 20% level in place, the gain is +25%, which is exactly what 20% off a length is worth (1 divided by 0.8) plus the rounding.

The next Town Hall

In villages at the start of Town Halls 11 to 15, a Strategic rush stands on the next Town Hall in 9 to 16 days, provided the gold is there when each step starts (how the rush compares with Max). How much of that can the pass take off? It depends on when the Town Hall upgrade starts, because that is when it is priced.

The game's demands before a new hall (placing the plots your current hall has opened, raising the Hero Hall) take 1 to 7 days, and a Town Hall that starts then meets the 10% level. The 15% level arrives at day 7.7 and the 20% at day 12.7, but neither shortens a Town Hall that is already running, since a 9-day upgrade at 15% would still be longer than what is left of it. From day 13 on every start is priced at 20%, and the same rush saves 1.7 to 3.3 days. That is no reason to wait for the 20% level: starting the Town Hall on day 1 at 10% still stands on day 8.2, while a plan that only starts on day 13 stands on day 20.3. By hand at Town Hall 14: the upgrade is 8 days, which the rounding turns into 172 hours (7.17 days) at 10%. It starts on day 1.00, so it stands on day 8.17, the planner's figure to the hundredth.

Five builders or six, the dates are identical to the decimal. The Town Hall is one long upgrade that waits for the game's own requirements, and builders beyond the first few do not shorten it.

The whole road to a maxed hall

Each season held buys back about 5.5 days. The sixth builder moves the no-pass date by one day and what the pass saves by less than one. The prices fall with the time: on the Town Hall 14 road the plan spends 3,380 million gold without the pass and 2,915 million with it, a saving of 464 million (13.7%; the totals are rounded separately), and 170 million of 1,008 million Elixir (16.9%). Gold saves less because walls are one big step at the end of each hall, priced on the day it starts, here at the 10% and 15% levels.

Which half of the pass does the work? The laboratory ended last on every one of these roads, with and without the pass. I ran the Town Hall 14 village with each boost at a flat 20% from day 0, one at a time.

The builder boost alone saves 6 days of 484, the research boost 75. At Town Hall 12 the figures are 5.5 and 58.0 days, at Town Hall 15 12.3 and 124.3. The laboratory is the longest road in these villages, so its boost does most of the work. The post on how long each Town Hall takes to max shows why. The real pass saves less than both boosts at a flat 20%, because it averages about 16%, not 20%, and starts at none: 53.0 days against 64.0 at Town Hall 12, 79.4 against 92.0 at Town Hall 14, 105.5 against 129.3 at Town Hall 15. Taking 20% off the date would overshoot: a flat 20% research boost saved 75 of the 484 days, not 97.

What this means for your village

• A pass held for the whole road is worth about 5.5 days of finish date per season and about 23 extra builder-days of work a season, in a village where the laboratory is the longest road. Most of the days come from the Research Boost.
• Your next Town Hall gains under a day if the plan starts at the beginning of a season, and 1.7 to 3.3 days if it starts on day 13. The pass is no reason to delay it.
• At Town Hall 14 a sixth builder moved neither the date with the pass nor what the pass saves by more than a day. The pass and the builder fix different bottlenecks.
• The pass also cuts the bill: on the Town Hall 14 road it takes 13.7% off the gold and 16.9% off the elixir. Gold saves less because the planner puts the walls in one step, priced when it starts. This post does not turn that into money.

Method and limits

These are simulated villages, not yours, and the pass is the planner's idea of the pass, not your points.

• Villages: a Town Hall just reached with everything of the hall before it maxed, five builders (six where stated), sleep from 23:00 to 07:00, no helpers, potions, events or farming. Walls take no time. Start: 1 November 2026, 08:00 UTC, the first moment of the season.
• The season track is the April 2026 track and the pace is 2,500 points in 30 days. Real tracks can change from season to season, and real players are ahead of or behind that pace. The planner lets you enter the levels your game shows. In the game you also have to claim each level; the planner assumes the level is in effect the moment its points are reached.
• "Held every season" means renewed on the first day each month. Each new season starts again at no boost for the first day, which is part of the numbers.
• Resources never stop a start. In the game, a builder waits for gold, and a cheaper upgrade (the pass takes the same percentage off) can start sooner than it would have.
• Without a Lab Assistant, potions or the Hammer Jam, the laboratory is the longest road. With them the Research Boost matters less for the date.
• I checked that the planner applies its rounding rule consistently: 21 of 21 upgrades started after day 13 last exactly what the rounding code gives at 20% for their level. That compares the planner with its own rounding function. That the rule is the game's (1 day at 10% is 21 h 30 min, 4 days at 20% is 76 h) rests on the sources in How ClashClock works.
• The planner is greedy: each time a builder frees up it picks the best-looking step and never goes back (see How ClashClock works). These are results for this planner, not for the best possible plan, and a better order may exist.
• Only Town Halls 12, 14 and 15 were run for the whole road and the builder work. Town Halls 11, 13 and 16 to 18 are not in those tables.