How to Make Money in GTA Online

Making money in GTA Online is the primary goal for most players, but it can also be notoriously difficult, especially for beginners.

However, there are numerous legitimate ways to fill up your virtual bank account at a steady pace. This guide will walk you through the most effective methods to make money in GTA Online, whether you prefer playing solo, with friends, or engaging in various game modes like heists, businesses, and freemode activities.

From optimizing heist payouts and maximizing profits from CEO/VIP work to leveraging passive income from properties and taking advantage of weekly bonus events, we’ll cover a wide range of strategies suitable for players of all levels. By diversifying your approach and incorporating multiple money-making techniques into your gameplay, you’ll be able to earn a substantial income without falling into the trap of repetitive grinding.

$500K an Hour in GTA Online

In the video below we show you, step by step, how to earn GTA$500,000 in under an hour in GTA Online, which is very fast. It involves a mix of different CEO missions, including Import/Export and there are very few requirements. A written guide to this method can also be found on GTABOOM here.

Heists

If you happen to ask players on any GTA related community forum how to make money quick, 99% of replies will tell you to grind heists, specifically the Pacific Standard Job. The final of the five heists, Pac Stan as the community has dubbed it, has the biggest and best payout. The Pacific Standard Job once benefitted from the famous and popular Kuruma glitch, however unfortunately this was patched in late January, 2017. Nonetheless, the finale can still be completed with near-maximum payouts without the glitch, though it will be difficult with randoms due to a lack of communication.

Basically, after passing the checkpoint for the bikes, the scripting will cause police to not shoot at you unless you shoot at them first. Only the helicopers will take shots, but those are easy to avoid. Basically, you just need to get your best driver to grab a four-seater car of any kind, and drive the team to the dinghy without anyone firing at the police. This way you can also avoid damage, and therefore not lose cash from the final payout.

While heisting with randoms has become something of a dreaded activity, it is hardly as bad as most people say. In fact, a recent study shows that heists done with random players have an extremely high success rate. Even so, having to rely on any odd player does have its difficulties, which is why we compiled a comprehensive “how to heist with randoms” guide some time ago.

Heists also include the option for the host to set the payout percentages for every participant. Since we’re all here to make money, you should make sure you’re not being screwed over. However, you should also check your expectations and avoid asking for more than you deserve. We’ve put together a rough guideline for how payouts should be distributed in each heist.

While heists are the most complex and lucrative jobs in GTA Online, even they can get boring after a long grinding streak. There are plenty of other options out there and we suggest you diversify – grinding will quickly lead to boredom.

Heists Round Two – Set Ups

Don’t have the time for a heist finale? Luckily, the game gives players the option to only join in on heist set-up missions, so you don’t necessarily have to invest the time of going through all the set-up missions and the finale. If you’re on a schedule, you can hop in for just one or two of the set-ups – they pay well and usually there is a very high success rate, even more so than with the finales. You’ll be making good money in relatively little time, so it is definitely a method to consider.

Trafficking Illegal Goods

The recently released Further Adventures in Finance and Felony has added an all new way of gaining money to GTA Online – however this method requires some up-front investment and as such is recommended for players who already have themselves set up with a decent amount of cash, but want to rise up to the level of being extremely rich. You can’t even start doing this unless you have a spare $GTA ~1.5 million kicking around.

You’ll also need to prepare yourself mentally for the fact that this won’t turn an instant profit. In fact, it could be days before you make back your initial investment, depending on frivolous you were. However, once the business gets rolling, you’ll be making more than you can spend.

Well, almost, anyway.

You’ll firstly need to buy yourself a corporate office which will work as a HQ for your criminal enterprise. There are four of these new property types, starting at $GTA 1 million for the cheapest with no bonuses (though you’ll definitely want that weapon locker). Then, you’ll need a warehouse – no need to buy a large one right off the bat. Finally, you’ll need some goods, so initiate a buy mission. You might want to do this in an otherwise empty public session, or you’ll soon be attacked by ravenous 12 year old squeakers piloting Hydras.

So, now you have an office, a warehouse, and some goods to fill the shelves. Time to make some money, right?

As time goes by, you’ll be able to upgrade to larger warehouses, buy and therefore sell more goods, afford better protection and when the business gets rolling you’ll soon find that those sweet yachts are actually pretty affordable.

VIP Missions

When the Executives and Other Criminals DLC was released last December, the all new VIP and bodyguard system introduced new ways of acquiring cash that rivaled heists – when done right.

VIP mission have pretty great payouts across the board, so if you’re not too stingy with efficiency, just get together with some mates as your bodyguards and have at them in whatever order you please. While gaining cash might be the immediate goal here, don’t forget to actually have fun while playing.

If you’re really hurting for some green, however, there is an efficient but somewhat grindy technique which can get you a much better time to reward ratio than heists.

Basically, there are two missions situated near one another that you need to grind. For this method, you’ll do best to give your bodyguards a day off, as going solo will be the fastest approach. The two missions you’ll be alternating between will be “Sightseer” and “Hostile Takeover LSIA”.

Sightseer will take around 5 minutes to finish and pay you a base reward GTA $20,000, with a bonus ranging from GTA$ 500 to 2,500. The payment is also based on the amount of time it takes to complete the mission. If you cross the 5 minute mark, you’ll get an additional $500 every 30 seconds up to a maximum total reward of GTA$ 25,000 at around 10 minutes. The most ideal technique here is to opt for a quick and light bike to speed through the mission with.

Hostile Takeover LSIA will be accessible 5 minutes after Sightseer. In that time, hop on over to your nearest garage and pick up an Armored Kuruma. Once the cooldown is over, drive to the airport and start the mission.

This one will reward you with GTA $16,000-19,000 and take another five minutes. You really just need to ram through anything that gets between you and the package, race back out and you’re golden.

This method will net you GTA $160,000-164,000 per hour in total. Then again, you could omit Hostile Takeover altogether and grind Sightseer for a higher pay-per-hour rate, but that would get very boring very quickly.

On the same page, the whole VIP setup can be beneficial to all involved if done right. As a VIP, you take a cut from any cash acquired by your bodyguards while they’re on the clock, unless it comes from VIP Challenges. These challenges are for bodyguards only and have pretty sweet payouts.

During regular play, your bodyguards will end up diverting a lot of cash into your pockets. You should reward them with plenty of VIP challenges so they too turn a profit during their employment.

Speaking of…

Become a Bodyguard

There are plenty of aspiring VIPs out there in need of protection. Whenever you are a bodyguard hired by an active VIP, you will get paid $GTA 5K every 15 minutes in addition to any winnings made from VIP jobs or challenges on top of a 100 RP bonus per minute. While other sources of income will benefit the VIP, not you, this fixed wage on top of the pretty lucrative VIP work will get you loaded in no time.

Daily Objectives

You’d be surprised how many people disregard these. They usually take minimal effort and completing all three per day will net you a bonus $GTA 30,000 and 5,000 RP. Doing this for 7 days straight will boost that bonus to $GTA 150,000 and 20,000 RP (once every 7 days), while doing it for 28 days will get you the monthly bonus of $GTA 750,000 and 50,000 RP. Seeing as these really are simple to complete, doing them will help the cash add up. Even if you won’t be too strict on yourself with achieving the monthly bonus, those daily $25,000s can make a huge difference in the long run.

There is also another running cumulative bonus that you get when you complete your 10th, 20th, 50th and 100th activity. These have payouts of as many thousand in cash as the number of activities you’ve achieved.

Daily objectives really do much to boost your cash. In one month, the maximum payout from daily objectives is $1,580,000 plus the additional rewards you get for the objectives themselves (meaning the payout for a job, etc). When you’re building up cash over a period of time, that bonus certainly comes in handy – it’s the price of a fully customized lowrider, after all.

Plus, see our tips under “Lend Yourself A Hand” below to learn how to double or even triple the daily objective bonuses!

Contact Missions

GTA Online has a number of contacts – major characters in the story – who will provide the player with more substantial missions with an equally higher payout. Some of these can be pretty long and even challenging, however they have a pretty good effort-to-reward ratio. You could gang up with a few buddies and cycle through a few of these. Of course, picking the right missions is crucial. The table below should help you in this regard.

Lamar Davis

Gerald

Simeon Yetarian

Ron Jakowski

Trevor Philips

Lester Crest

Martin Madrazo

Freemode Co-Op Missions

If you string up a good list of missions and you work together well with your mates, you’ll find yourself racking up around a hundred thousand GTA $ every hour or so and the missions are varied enough to make the experience a fun and interesting one, instead of grinding endlessly.

Cause Mayhem in Jobs

The thing about GTA Online is that many missions require multiple players to be present in order to either be successful or just efficient. However, some jobs only task you with destroying stuff or killing people, which is incredibly easy if you have a Buzzard on hand. While it may not be the most destructive aerial vehicle, it does get the job done quick while also helping you with flight practice.

Jobs like Trash Talk, Lost MC RIP, Blow Up and Defender all fit this bill. They can be completed quickly and have pretty solid payouts across the board. Some players also suggest running these same jobs with a Savage instead, which yields similar results.

Take Your Time

You might think that the emphasis in this guide is on the “quick” part of getting rich quick, but you should not give up a chance of nailing the first two words even if it takes some more time.

Certain missions are known to be pretty lengthy, however their payouts are real nice and definitely worth the effort. Missions such as Teaser Trailer, Stocks and Scares and The Los Santos Connection, plus many others won’t be done in five minutes, however you’ll be walking away with a little over $GTA 26K from them if you pay attention to the various pickups along the way.

Enter The Used Car Business

While many of the rides you’ll often encounter around Los Santos in GTA Online will have the sell price of a snickers bar, there are a few that are worth driving to the neared dealership for.

Cars you should keep on the lookout for include the Sentinel, Felon GT, Baller, Modded Sandking and the Dubsta. Keep in mind that the last two are particularly hard to come by – and lucky for you we’ve put together a handy guide on how to increase your chances of finding them. Other friendly GTA Online players who own said vehicles might also sometimes offer their “services” of spawning the cars for players who have yet to acquire them.  These cars fetch upward of $GTA 7,000 easily, while some of them can go up to over GTA $20,000 depending on variant and mods.

Keep The Change

A few hundred bucks don’t count for anything in the world of GTA Online these days. However, a few hundred here, an odd thousand there, another few hundred here… if you keep your eye out for the pocket change while grinding for the big money, you’ll find that the number in your bank account will go up much quicker.

Here are a few things to keep in mind while playing around in freemode: Whenever you accidentally happen to pass by a store on your way to do whatever, rob it. It doesn’t take longer than a minute, sometimes less and its not like losing the heat is difficult. When you’re robbing a store, always shoot the cash register for some bonus cash. Considering there are tons of stores to rob across the map, you’ll be tripping up in them even when you’re not actively looking.

You should also always make sure to deposit your cash into your bank account. In GTA Online, you have two places to keep your money – some is “held”, while the rest is in your bank account. Whenever you die, you will drop some of the held money, however if all of your cash is banked, there will be a much smaller penalty for death.

These sums don’t account for much on their own, however in the long run, banking your money will save you a lot of lost green.

Risk Premium Races

Now, fair warning: only do this if you’re really, really good at racing. If you’re not, you’ll lose more than you’ll gain.

Basically, with the Cunning Stunts DLC, Rockstar added a new feature called Premium Races. These races are only ever available for short amounts of time and are periodically cycled. All of these races have an entry fee of 20K that all participants must pay.

These races differ from regular races in two very notable ways – all players to compete gain three times the regular amount of RP and only first place gets a money reward. Now you understand why we only recommend this for pro racers.

But why is this even in this guide? Simple – while only the first place gets a money reward at the end of the race, they get one hell of a money reward. Now, don’t think anything around a million, more like a bit over 100K, however if you consider how short these races are, that is some really solid cash-to-time profit there.

Again, we can’t stress this enough: this is only viable for pro racers. If you’re second or worse, you lose 20K.

Lend Yourself A Hand

GTA Online’s money system works in a way that links your money to your Social Club account, not to your in-game character. This means that if you start a second character in GTA Online, both your characters will share the same money.

While this will incur some measure of investment on your part, starting a second character will pay off in multiple ways. Ranking up in GTA Online isn’t a difficult affair, so that should not be an issue.

Having a second character will allow you to bag the rewards for daily objectives twice a day. If you’re vigilant and try to keep up the streak for both characters, your stacking bonuses will also double, leaving you with a massive payout at the end of the month. You’ll soon make back all of the cash you’ve invested in getting your second character up to speed.

Another bonus is getting past car selling cooldowns. In GTA Online, one in-game day lasts 48 minutes. You can only sell one car in every in-game day, however this limit is imposed on character, not account. Of course, you’ll need to find a car to sell on your second account, so this won’t exactly be a game changer, but everything counts when you’re gunning for the top 1%.

Juggle Crates and Businesses

The newest and possibly best method for farming cash in GTA Online was made possible by the Bikers update. The DLC added new businesses to the game, which passively generate income only requiring players to bring Stock (either bought or stolen) to the business, wait for the production, and then sell the product. You can read our complete Bikers DLC money making guides here and here.

Now, the way this works offers a great opportunity to double down on two of the best money-making methods in the game. A great aspect of Bikers is that jumping in and out of “MC mode” is extremely easy. The method goes like so:

Steal enough Stock to kick off production in your business – stealing is easier on the wallet than buying it up – and begin the process. Quit being in an MC, sign up as a CEO, and run crates with the solo public lobby method as long as the Business timer runs. Once the timer is down, rejoin a live lobby, rejoin your MC (or start a new one), access your business and initiate the sell mission. While you were reaping the benefits of crate missions, cash practically grew on its own in your business.

Master Import/Export

Import/Export brought an all-new way to make cash in GTA Online, however if not done right, it’s also an easy way to lose cash. Importing and exporting stolen vehicles can turn into an even better source of income than running crates if you’re paying attention to what you’re doing.

There are a few things to look out for when running these jobs. While having a mate or two along is useful in any situation, it’s crucial here as it allows you to sell multiple vehicles in one go, greatly improving efficiency. Import/Export puts both importing vehicles and selling them on a time after each one you complete, however with multiple players along for the ride, you can sell several cars within the same cooldown cycle, saving you a lot of time.

You also need to make sure to censor what you spend time on what you won’t bother with. Whenever you source a car, it’s a coin toss as to whether it will be high-value, or some cheap crap selling for pocket change. Generally, abandoning a mission for a cheap car might not seem logical, since you’ll just be put on cooldown with nothing to show for it, however there is a way to get around this.

This method was discovered soon after the update launched.  If you roll a cheap car for your sourcing, you can just search for a new session. Once you’ve loaded in again, you’ll be able to source a new car without waiting for the cooldown. Do this repeatedly until you roll a high-value car. This way you’ll be filling up your vehicle warehouse exclusively with valuable cargo, without wasting effort on the cheap models.

An alternative way to boost efficiency is to ensure that vehicle damage remains low when you deliver to your warehouse, thus cutting losses caused by having to repair the bloody thing. You’d think lagging out to your own lobby would help, since there are no griefers around, but the AI in the game has been tweaked to make NPCs more violent and unpredictable when you’re driving a sourced car.

Your best bet is to grab a cargobob and airlift the car to safety. In this case, hostile NPC aircraft may spawn to chase you, in which case your best bet is flying low and fast to avoid most of the damage to your cargo, saving on repair costs.

Many players seem to forget about, or ignore, the collections feature of the update. These are shopping-lists of specific cars which, when delivered together to the same buyer, grant a sizeable cash bonus. Session-hopping is a great method in this case as well, as it allows you to specifically grab just the cars needed to complete the collection in significantly less time than is required when doing it manually and waiting out the cooldown.

Another thing to remember is that saving money is almost as good as making money, so remember to do the missions for the special vehicles whenever they are unlocked. Not only do these shave off large sums from the prices of these rides, but some of them – like the job associated with the amphibious technical – actually pay out well in spite of being pretty short. While farming these won’t make you rich quickly, it is a great and profitable way to pass the time between two selling cooldowns.

Incorporate Gunrunning and Smuggler’s Run

Additional DLCs bringing more gameplay opportunities based on the same basic business-oriented gameplay loop have joined CEO work and Import/Export over the months. Through raw number crunching, you’ll see that these just aren’t as efficient as the time-tested crates+businesses+vehicle exports on their own.

However, if you incorporate either or even both into your established money-making routine, switching out one of the existing methods every now and then the losses will be negligible and the added variety will make the whole effort seem like less of a grind. If you keep an eye on weekly GTA Online events you’ll see occasional double payouts on these activities when doing them is outright more profitable. If you build them into your technique by default you’ll have enough practice to make the most of the double reward promotions.

Of the two, Gunrunning is minimally more profitable and gives you access to MKII weapons upgrades. These make any activity that requires combat markedly easier so investing time and money into those upgrades will have a positive effect on your in-game wallet in the long run.

Since these businesses work on the same basic principle as CEO work and Import/Export – namely acquiring the product, storing it in a warehouse, then going on a sell mission – veteran players who spent a lot of time with those two will feel right at home.

Passive Income Through The Nightclub

Nightclubs owned by the player generate income on their own, depending on upgrade state and popularity. You don’t need to interact with it, complete activities or do anything, and it will make money on its own. To offset the utter convenience of that, it doesn’t make a lot at all. However, over time, it adds up.

A fully upgraded nightclub at maximum popularity will generate GTA$ 10,000 every 48 minutes (real-time). Keeping popularity high is easy as the missions to do so are quick and simple. You can fit one or two in while you wait for cooldowns and the like.

Utilize Nightclub Warehouse And Technicians

Your nightclub can be of use beyond generating meager passive income. By the time After Hours was released, GTA Online was so full of various business types that keep track of them all was a challenge in and of itself. For enterprising GTA Online players who set up several businesses, the nightclub is a godsend.

Basically, from your nightclub warehouse, you can manage all businesses, store all types of product and even generate product for free. This is a massive game changer for several reasons. Firstly, the nightclub warehouse isn’t just a united platform to manage your warehouses, but a separate warehouse in and of itself. This means you can conduct business as usual while adding the capacity of the nightclub warehouse to it all.

Beyond this, the technicians you hire can generate any kind of product for free which means you only need to worry about the sell missions, saving you a lot of time and money. Using the nightclub warehouse to its full extent will earn you a massive increase in profits. With the best possible configuration, the nightclub warehouse can earn you GTA$ 60,000 an hour with barely any effort on your part.

Save The World

With The Doomsday Heist, Rockstar brought the first new heists to GTA Online since… well, the OG Heists. More difficult but also significantly more rewarding, if you replace regular heists with The Doomsday Heist on your schedule, you’ll end up earning a lot more GTA$ with the same time investment. The requirements and recommendation for joining such a heist are much the same as with regular ones – don’t even think of it without body armor – but you need to be prepared for harder fights.

MKII weapons wouldn’t go amiss, however a recent DLC added two weapons that make the heist significantly easier. The two space-ranger laser weapons do extreme damage, have a high rate of fire and do not require reloading, so if you pack those bad boys the heist will become a breeze.

The Best Method

The absolute best, fastest money making method in GTA Online right now comes from a synthesis of Import/Export and the hybrid crates+businesses method discovered in Bikers, supported by passive income from the nightclub and the occasional Doomsday Heist run. It will take a bit of calculation, but if you line up your cooldowns and selling missions, alternating between vehicle imports, vehicles exports, stocking your businesses, selling products, buying cargo and selling cargo, your empire will run like a well-oiled machine and you’ll never have a monetary worry in GTA Online again.

If you follow this guide so far and made good use of the nightclub warehouse then you can either 1) cease to worry about stocking your businesses and relying solely on that, significantly cutting back the time required or 2) add it to your loop, meaning more activities but also significantly more profit.

These are the best money making methods that will fill up your GTA Online bank account the fastest. As you can see, there are plenty of techniques beyond simply grinding Pac Stan, so there is no need for getting rich in GTA Online to turn into a boring chore. We’re sure there are some other techniques out there, so feel free to share your preferred method of acquiring cash in game!

Frequently Asked Questions