Which upgrade should I buy first in Dig & Clean?

The shovel. It is the only hard gate in the game — if your shovel is too weak the dig fails outright with 'You need a stronger shovel to dig this!' and the item is lost unless you pay Robux. Detectors and sprays only make you faster or luckier; a weak shovel stops you finding anything at all.

How much do shovels cost in Dig & Clean?

Stone 1.6K, Yellow 9K, Blue 45K, Purple 190K, Black 1.1M and Gold 5.5M in cash. A Diamond Shovel appears later at 9.2M with Power 40 and +50% walk speed. Shovels are the most expensive tier-for-tier of the three tracks.

Is the 249 Robux item recovery worth it in Dig & Clean?

Almost never. When a dig fails the game offers to recover the lost item for 249 Robux. The Stone Shovel that helps prevent those failures costs 29 Robux — roughly one eighth the price, and it is permanent. If you are being offered recovery often, buy the shovel instead.

What does the detector do in Dig & Clean?

It finds dig spots and indicates their rarity, projecting rings onto the sand. Higher tiers surface better spots — footage of a strong detector showed purple, orange and yellow high-tier spots. There are seven detector tiers, from Silver at 1.1K up to Dark Blue at 14M, the deepest ladder of the three tracks.

Dig & Clean Gear: Every Shovel, Detector and Spray With Prices

Three upgrade tracks, and they do genuinely different jobs. Prices as shown on August 8, 2026 — the game is new and actively updating, so verify in game.

Shovels — digging power

The hard gate. Power decides what you can extract at all.

Shovel	Cash	Notes
Stone	1,600	Power 3, +10% walk speed (also 29 Robux)
Yellow	9,000
Blue	45,000
Purple	190,000
Black	1,100,000
Gold	5,500,000
Diamond	9,200,000	Power 40, +50% walk speed

Detectors — finding and rarity

Seven tiers, the deepest ladder in the game.

Detector	Cash
Silver	1,100
Green	5,600
Yellow	28,000
Blue	140,000
Gold	500,000
Rainbow	2,800,000
Dark Blue	14,000,000

Sprays — cleaning speed

Spray	Cash
Blue Bottle	900
Red Bottle	5,500
Green Bottle	26,000
Yellow Bottle	140,000
Purple Bottle	800,000
Garnet Pressure Washer	5,200,000 (Power 285, Range 44)

The late-game tier stops being a bottle and becomes a pressure washer with its own Power and Range stats, so the cleaning track has more depth than the early shop suggests.

Buy the shovel first — and it isn't close

The three tracks are not equivalent, because only one of them can stop you outright:

Shovel = a hard gate. Try to dig something above your Power and you get "You need a stronger shovel to dig this!" The item is lost.
Detector = quality of what you find. Slower progress, not blocked.
Spray = throughput only. Purely how fast you process what you already dug.

Tier-for-tier the shovel is also the most expensive — 1.6K vs 1.1K vs 900 at tier 1, 1.1M vs 500K vs 800K at tier 5 — which is a reasonable signal of how the game itself weights them.

The 249-Robux trap

When a dig fails on an item too strong for your shovel, the game offers:

"You lost a 1 in ??? [11.7KG] Item — recover it for 249 Robux?"

Note what that offer hides: the rarity is shown as 1 in ???. You are being asked to pay for an item whose value you cannot see, at the exact moment you feel the loss.

For comparison, the Stone Shovel costs 29 Robux — about one eighth of a single recovery, and it keeps working forever.

If you're seeing this prompt regularly, the prompt is not the problem. Your shovel is.

When to stop upgrading

Footage of an experienced player showed them deliberately skipping further tool upgrades to travel to the next island instead. That's consistent with how the areas work: a new island applies a luck multiplier to everything you dig, so at some point relocating beats another tool tier.

See islands for the multipliers and costs.

Item values — what your finds are worth
Museum — where the passive income comes from
Money guide — the full earning loop