What Is StockPets? A Cozy Pet and Farm Game Grown on Real Stock Market History

Updated: October 12, 2026 · StockPets team

What is StockPets, in plain terms?

StockPets is available now for free on iOS and Android. You start in January 1996 with a small farm, a brand-new pet companion and 10,000 virtual coins. The seeds in the seed shop are named after real US companies, and each crop grows or shrinks along with that company’s historical stock price, one month per turn. The tagline sums up the mood: “A second life, one seed at a time.”

The twist is that you vaguely remember the future. You know the broad shape of what happened later — the late-1990s internet boom, the bust that followed, the 2008 crisis, the long recovery — but the actual charts stay hidden until each month arrives. So it feels like a second chance, just without a cheat sheet. If that idea hooks you, what it’s like to go back to 1996 digs into why it’s still harder than it sounds.

StockPets at a glance

The story: waking up in 1996

You open your eyes in a small room in January 1996. There’s a pet waiting for you, a few empty plots outside and a modest pile of coins. Over the months, the room quietly changes with the times: first the radio years, then the computer years, then the smartphone years. Little things happen every month — a pigeon or a magpie at the window, the first snow, petals in spring, a pumpkin from a neighbor, the baker sharing a warm roll.

Real-world milestones show up too, but only once the game date reaches them. The Hubble launch and the Web being put in the public domain are already known when you begin; later you’ll see things like the Mars Pathfinder landing and the launch of the euro arrive in their own months. These are general tech, space and world events, not stock tips, and the game never invents news about a specific real company.

What do you actually do in StockPets?

Every month comes down to three simple actions. You can do all three in a few taps or take your time and look around.

• Care — Feed, Play and Clean your pet. Basic care is always free and is enough for your pet to grow. It keeps track of fullness and mood.
• Plant — Pick seeds in the Shop and plant by coin budget rather than by whole units. Fractional seeds are allowed, and any coins you don’t spend simply stay in your pocket.
• Harvest — Harvest any whole percentage of a crop, from 1% to 100%, at the current month’s price. Coins you gain above what you paid become harvest profit, which you can spend on treats and gifts for your pet.

Coins from harvests also pay for expanding the farm (from 3 plots up to 11), improving the house and building a greenhouse. Those upgrades are decoration: they make the place cozier but never change historical returns. The step-by-step version is in how to play StockPets.

What are the screens in StockPets?

How does a month pass in StockPets?

One turn equals one month, and time only moves when you choose to move it. Nothing decays while you’re away: the farm doesn’t lose value just because you closed the app.

During your first 12 months you can advance as fast as you like. After that, the game settles into a gentler rhythm: one “calendar page” (one month) refills every 8 hours, and you can hold up to 3. You can turn one month or three months at once, and free basic care can be included automatically when you turn several months. Advancing stops early if your pet grows up or if a company on your farm is delisted, so you never miss a big moment.

Each month brings a small life event, and when the average move of all your crops goes beyond ±3.5%, you also get a line of market weather: a bumper month, clear skies, a cloudy month or a storm. A memory of the room, pet and farm is saved to your Album every month.

How does your pet grow?

You choose from eight species — cat, dog, rabbit, hamster, squirrel, turtle, owl and bear — and give your pet a name of up to 12 characters. It starts as a baby, becomes a young companion at 12 months and a grown companion at 36 months (game months, not real ones).

The grown appearance “remembers” how your crops did across that generation and how much time you spent together. Each species has five grown looks — Cozy, Explorer, Sparkle, Scruffy and Raincoat — for 40 appearances to collect. Losses can lead to the Scruffy or Raincoat look, but market losses never kill your pet. After it grows up, you can welcome the next generation, which inherits one family trait. The full picture is in how your pet grows.

What StockPets deliberately doesn’t do

A lot of the design is about what’s left out. StockPets is meant to be a calm place, not another app that wants your attention, your data or your wallet.

• No real money: coins are virtual and can’t be deposited, withdrawn or exchanged for money or prizes.
• No real trading and no investment advice.
• No gambling: there’s no real money and nothing to win.
• You can start your farm for free.
• No sign-in, no analytics and no network service. Everything runs on your device.
• No made-up news about specific real companies.

Because progress lives on your device only, there’s no cloud sync. If you want a copy of your history, Settings has “Export my records.” And when you share a memory, the “Share image” card includes only your pet, room and game date; your coin amounts stay private.

Is StockPets a way to learn investing?

Not in the “here’s how to get rich” sense, and it never claims past returns predict the future. What it offers is experience. Living through decades of real price history one month at a time, you get a feel for patience, for spreading crops across several plots, for long drawdowns and slow recoveries, and for the fact that companies can disappear. Prices use monthly closes, adjusted for stock splits but not dividends, with each company’s first recorded month set to 100 coins. We cover the takeaways in what a game can teach you about market history.

Who is StockPets for?

• People who love cozy, slow games and virtual pet games and want something with a bit more story behind it.
• Anyone curious about how the market actually moved over the last few decades, without risking a single real dollar.
• Players with a soft spot for the late ’90s, radio-era rooms and pixel art.
• People who want to care for a farm and pet at their own pace.

When is StockPets coming out?

StockPets is available for free on iPhone and Android. Download it from the App Store or Google Play. English, Spanish, Korean and French are supported.

StockPets is a game that uses virtual coins only. Nothing on this page is investment advice, and past price changes do not predict future results.