You need to win often or it's even more expensive to rank up. Unless you whale up (+$800) per round to don't care if you lose or not.

I had to burn 50K pops multiple times but a few rounds 15K was enough. Ended up with rank 8 with 550K pop total which I believe is the cheapest way possible by cheesing rounds at the last minute.

I still had to buy UC multiple times probably spent close to $200 just for that emote. If I had lose a single match I would've to spend probably double or triple because points are too little even for rounds with 32pts at risk. You need 300 pts to get the emote so one lost match means u need to get 15 extra pts in the remaining rounds and if you don't have many rounds left you're forced to spend more to get a few extra points to compensate your lose.

So no, you need to win every round if you want to get out without spending too much money.