Leveling, repairs and gems without guesswork

A STEPN sneaker is never finished. You level it to raise your daily cap and unlock sockets, you repair it after every few runs, you restore its HP, and you may fit gems to push its attributes. Every one of those actions burns GST, and some burn GMT too. This guide covers the STEPN level up cost, repairs, HP, gems, sockets and Mystery Boxes in one place, so you can plan your spending instead of reacting to it.

A quick warning on numbers. FSL publishes the rules but not every cost table. Where we use figures from community sheets, we say so. Costs can change in the app at any time, so treat these as a planning guide and confirm the price on the confirmation screen before you tap.

How does leveling a STEPN sneaker work?

Leveling burns GST and takes time. Each level has a fixed waiting period, which you can shorten by burning extra GST, a feature called boosting ^[source] . At five milestone levels, 5, 10, 20, 29 and 30, you also pay GMT. That GMT requirement is one reason many casual players stop at level 4 or level 9 for a long time.

Why level at all? Three reasons. Each level gives attribute points (4 per level for Common, up to 12 for Legendary). Higher levels raise your daily GST cap, which starts at only 5 GST per day at level 0 and peaks at 300 through leveling ^[source] . And certain levels unlock new features.

STEPN level up cost: the community table

FSL does not publish per-level amounts. Community sheets agree on a simple pattern: level n normally costs n GST and takes n hours, with extra costs at milestones ^[source] .

Add it all up and the community total from level 0 to 30 comes to about 600 GST plus 229 GMT, and about 19 days and 9 hours of waiting time if you never boost. Boosting costs roughly 6 GST per level number, so boosting every level from 1 to 30 would burn around 2,790 GST on top. These numbers swing in value with the GST and GMT price, so the real cost in dollars is very different now from what it was in 2022. The level-up calculator at the top of this page lets you plug in today’s prices, and our live GST price page shows what each realm’s token is worth right now.

Milestones worth knowing

• Level 5: opens the first gem socket and makes the sneaker eligible as a minting parent.
• Levels 10, 15 and 20: open sockets 2, 3 and 4.
• Level 24 to 25: this step gives a free full HP refill, a nice bonus if your HP is low.
• Level 30: unlocks GMT earning, with a toggle to choose GST or GMT before each run.

The level-5 milestone is where most new players stop and think. If you plan to mint, level 5 is the minimum for both parents; see our STEPN mint cost page for the rest of that maths.

When is boosting worth it?

Boosting turns time into GST. It makes sense when the waiting time costs you more than the boost, for example if your daily cap is binding and every day at the lower level means GST left on the table. It rarely makes sense at low levels, where the waits are a few hours. Many players boost only around milestones, or not at all. Run your cap and earnings through the GST earning calculator to see whether a faster level actually raises your daily GST.

How do repair and Durability work?

Every run lowers your sneaker’s Durability. Durability is not just cosmetic: at 50/100, your earning efficiency drops to 90%. At 20/100 it falls to 10% ^[source] . Repairing restores Durability by burning GST. The cost per point rises with sneaker level and quality, and higher Resilience slows the decay so you repair less often.

Early STEPN guides printed a per-point repair cost table by quality and level. We could not verify a current version, and FSL does not publish one in the whitepaper today. So the practical approach is to check the repair screen in your app: it shows the exact GST cost before you confirm.

A good habit is to repair before Durability drops to 50. Small, frequent repairs keep your earning efficiency at 100% and avoid the cliff at 20. Minting also requires full Durability on both parents, so repair before you mint.

How does HP work, and how do you restore it?

HP is a separate, slower health bar. It falls as you use the sneaker, and Comfort slows how quickly it drops. The HP rules have real teeth ^[source] :

HP below 100% blocks listing and transferring the sneaker. Below 20%, the sneaker gives no Energy, which can silently shrink your daily minutes; our STEPN Energy guide covers that side. At 0 HP the sneaker becomes unusable. New sneakers get a 48-hour grace period before HP starts to matter.

To restore HP, you burn GST together with Comfort Gems (red). Community sheets list Comfort Gem Lv1 to Lv4 combined with 10, 30, 100 or 300 GST, with the restored percentage depending on sneaker quality. Higher-level gems restore more. Rainbow sneakers are the exception: their HP cannot be restored at all.

How do STEPN gems and upgrades work?

Gems add attribute boosts when placed in sockets. There are four types, one for each attribute:

Gems drop from Mystery Boxes, and you can also combine lower gems into higher ones. To upgrade, you combine three gems of the same type and level and burn GST. From Lv4 upward, upgrades also require GMT. The catch is the success rate ^[source] :

A 35% chance at Lv1 means you fail about two times out of three. You lose three gems and the GST each time. Some players avoid the risk by only upgrading gems they have spare, and keeping their best gems socketed. FSL also offers permanent success-rate boosts that cost GMT, which is one more GMT sink described on our GST tokenomics page. Whichever route you take, work out the expected cost: at 35%, you need on average almost three attempts, which means close to nine Lv1 gems plus the GST, for one Lv2 gem.

Sockets: where gems go

Sockets open at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20, so a level-20 sneaker can hold four gems. Unlocking a socket burns GST; community figures put it at 10, 20, 50, 100 or 200 GST depending on quality. The socket quality depends on the sneaker quality, so a higher-quality sneaker usually gets more value from the same gem. Fill sockets with gems that match the sneaker’s job: Efficiency for a GST earner, Luck for a box hunter, Comfort for a future GMT earner.

How do Mystery Boxes work?

While you move, you may find Mystery Boxes. There are 10 box qualities and 4 box slots, shared across realms ^[source] . Drops depend on your sneaker’s Luck and on how much Energy you spend in a session. Opening a box costs GST, more for higher qualities, and each box has a timer before it can be opened.

Inside you may find GST, Minting Scrolls and gems from Lv1 to Lv4. Community sheets put opening costs from about 5 GST for a Lv1 “Damaged” box up to about 2,699 GST for a Lv10 “Satoshi” box, with timers between 2 and 18 days. GST that comes out of a box does not push you past your daily GST cap.

One rule causes more tears than any other: moving a sneaker from Spending to Wallet purges all Mystery Boxes in that realm. If you have a high-level box waiting, open it before you transfer anything.

Boxes are a luck play. Some players build high-Luck sneakers to farm Minting Scrolls and gems. It can work, but returns are uneven and the GST spent on Luck points is GST not spent on Efficiency. Our earning strategies page covers that trade-off.

How should you spend attribute points as you level?

Each new level hands you a batch of attribute points: 4 for a Common, 6 for an Uncommon, 8 for a Rare, 10 for an Epic and 12 for a Legendary. Those points are where leveling really pays off, so decide the sneaker’s job before you start clicking.

A pure GST earner puts most points into Efficiency, because Efficiency drives GST per Energy. The usual compromise is to add some Resilience, since every point there makes future repairs a little cheaper. Over a few hundred sessions, that saving is real. A box hunter leans into Luck instead and accepts lower GST per session. A sneaker you plan to take to level 30 for GMT earning needs Comfort, which also slows HP decay.

Mistakes here are not free to fix. Redistributing attribute points burns GMT, so a wrong build costs you twice: once in lost earnings, once to reset. If you are unsure, test a small split for a week, check your GST per session in the app, and compare it with what the GST earning calculator predicts. Then commit the rest of the points.

Leveling and gems work together. A Yellow gem in a socket boosts Efficiency, and a higher-quality sneaker has higher-quality sockets. That is why the order matters: level first to open sockets and build base points, then add gems to boost what you built.

Where should your GST go first?

With limited GST, prioritise in this order. First, repairs: low Durability cuts every future session, so it comes before anything else. Second, HP: keep every sneaker above 20% so it still gives Energy, and at 100% if you might sell. Third, leveling while your daily cap is the thing holding you back. Fourth, sockets and gems, once the sneaker is at level 5 or more and earning steadily. Mystery Boxes sit alongside, opened when you can afford them and before any Wallet transfer.

Everything on this page burns GST, which is the game’s main way of removing tokens from circulation. All GST spent in the app is burned daily from the Spending account ^[source] . So your upkeep is also part of the supply story told on our tokenomics page. If you need the background on sneaker qualities and attributes, see the STEPN sneakers guide.