Special thanks to who started compiling some of these numbers, giving me a head start. Let me know if you find any mistakes in my calculations or have a question.
If you do that, you'll get completely different numbers. You can do much better on the $/min calculation by making batches of larger quanitites. Thus if you need nails and planks, I assumed you'd build the metal and wood at the same time and then build nails and planks in succession at the Building Supply Store. I took that into account when calculating the times as well. Occasionally, raw goods are manufactured in the same building so you can only do one at a time. If you want to shorten the overall build time, the critical path item would be a good one to purchase. The "Critical Path" column lists the raw good with the longest build time. For example, if metal and plastic is needed, only the plastic time was carried forward. I assumed that when possible, raw goods would be manufactured at the same time. What item will net you the highest profit per minute in SimCity BuildIt? What item should you purchase instead of waste time waiting for? To discover the answers to this question I calculated the minimum build times for every item in the game. You can see those calculations on the SimCity BuildIt - Fastest Way to Make Money page. I believe this alternate method to be a more realistic way to look at which items you should build. To remove this skew, I've created an alternative set of calculations that only take into consideration the time spent in commercial buildings. Because some of the raw goods take a really long time to build (animal feed, electronic components) these calculations favor items that don't use those long term raw goods. Note: The page below calculates $/minute of total build time, including the time it takes the factories to make the raw goods such as metal, wood and plastic.