Buy the seconds you can see

A universal best upgrade is difficult to defend when the game can change costs, batch sizes, and route geometry. Bulk Pickup is attractive when you spend many seconds interacting with the quarry. Bulk Place is attractive when the pyramid interaction is the slow segment. Placement Range can help when you are walking between placements, but it is only valuable if that repositioning is visible in your test.

The practical order is therefore conditional: identify the largest repeatable time bucket, model the effect with the calculator, and then confirm the live cost. If two upgrades produce similar rate gains, prefer the one you can verify easily and that leaves your route less sensitive to lag or crowding.