How to play
- Pick a summer. Today’s challenge gives everyone the same weather, events and market prices on the same date. Random summer starts a new one with a seed you can pass on. Normal and Hard last 30 days; Endless runs until you retire.
- Read the morning. On Normal the forecast’s kind of day is right about 80%, 65% and 50% of the time (today, tomorrow, the day after), and the temperature lands in its range about 82%, 71% and 67% of the time. News warns of a street fair, road works, a rival or a food critic.
- Buy supplies. Lemons, sugar, ice and cups come in three pack sizes; the bigger two are 10% and 20% cheaper per unit. Lemons last 3 days, ice melts by the evening (a cooler keeps half), sugar and cups keep. Any pack can be undone before you open.
- Set the recipe and price. Lemons and sugar go in each pitcher of 12 cups; ice goes in each cup. The price slider shows what a cup costs you at today’s prices.
- Open the stand and watch: people walk by, some stop, a line forms and everyone says what they think. Play it at 2× or 4×, or skip to closing time.
- Read the report: sales, every cost, profit, waste and why people walked away. Then plan the next morning.
Out of stock after day 1, you can also stay closed: sometimes the right call in a storm.
What makes people buy
- Weather and temperature. The hotter it is, the more of the people passing are thirsty and the more they will pay. Rain halves the number of people out walking; a thunderstorm keeps most of them indoors. Weekends are busier.
- Price against budget. Every customer has a budget. It rises with the heat and with your reputation. Price above it and they say “too pricey” and walk on, so the best price is rarely the highest one.
- Taste. Most people like about 6 lemons a pitcher. On hot days they want more ice and a little less sugar; on cool days less ice and a little sweeter. Their reactions (“too sour!”, “needs ice!”) tell you which way to adjust.
- The line. People won’t join a line longer than they’re willing to wait, and they wait less in the heat and the rain. A helper serves twice as fast.
- Selling out. Customers who find an empty pitcher leave and dent your reputation, so running out early on a hot day costs more than the missed sales.
Upgrades
- Chalkboard sign $12.00
- 6% more passers-by notice the stand.
- Wooden stand $30.00
- A proper stand with an awning: 7% more people notice it.
- Cooler $25.00
- Ice melts 4× slower during the day, and half of it keeps overnight.
- Juicer $40.00
- Squeezes 30% more juice: fewer lemons for the same taste.
- Helper $20.00
- Serves twice as fast, so the line stays short. $6 a day in wages.
- Deluxe stand $90.00
- Striped awning and lights: 7% more notice it and people pay 5% more.
- Park kiosk $120.00
- A second stand in the park with its own staff, sharing your stock. $8 a day. Available from day 8.
Flyers ($4.00) are a one-day boost for a day you expect to be good.
Strategy tips
- Buy lemons for two days at most and ice for today only (unless you have the cooler): a big bag is cheaper per unit, but whatever goes bad costs its whole price.
- Watch the “too pricey” count. If more people walk away over the price than buy, lower it; if you sell out early with nobody complaining, raise it.
- The street fair brings more than twice the usual crowd: stock up, and think about a helper before it.
Scoring and ranks
The game ends after day 30, when you retire, or when you run out of money and stock. Your score is your total assets: cash, plus sugar and cups at what they cost, plus half of what you paid for equipment. On Normal and Endless the ranks are:
- Corner kid: under $150
- Sidewalk seller: $150 or more
- Street vendor: $400 or more
- Neighbourhood favourite: $900 or more
- Local legend: $1,600 or more
- Lemonade tycoon: $2,500 or more
Hard has dearer supplies, smaller budgets, worse forecasts, more storms and a fading reputation, so each threshold is 40% of Normal’s: tycoon takes $1,000. In our test runs a computer player that plans each day from the forecast became a tycoon in 3 of 10 summers on Normal and 2 of 10 on Hard.
A bit of history
Lemonade Stand is one of the oldest business games. Bob Jamison wrote the first version in 1973 for time-shared mainframe computers, and Charlie Kellner ported it to the Apple II in 1979; Apple then included it free with its computers through the 1980s (Wikipedia, as of September 2026). In that version you chose how many glasses to make, how many advertising signs to buy and the price per glass, from a daily weather report, over 12 days. This game adds a recipe, stock that spoils, customers you can watch, events and upgrades.
More games to play in your browser: slide tiles in 2048, clear the board in Minesweeper, or play a round of Golf.