What You'll Need
- Story mode: just the base game — Lester unlocks the assassinations after the first one (The Hotel Assassination).
- Kosatka submarine ($2,200,000 from Warstock): required to start the Cayo Perico Heist — the single best earner in Online.
- Arcade ($1.235M–$2.535M): unlocks the Diamond Casino Heist. Pick the cheapest one — the interior is identical for heist purposes.
- Nightclub ($1M–$1.7M) + at least 3 other businesses (Bunker, MC, etc.) — the Nightclub passively generates goods from anything you own.
- Acid Lab (~$750k after the Last Dose missions, or free if you finish them): the best passive earner per real-world hour in the game.
- Prime Gaming link: free $200k/week deposited into your Maze Bank account just for linking your Rockstar Social Club to Amazon Prime.
Step-by-Step Walkthrough
Story Mode: The Big Score, Then the Assassinations
In story mode, the assassination missions Lester gives you are the money play. Each one tanks or pumps a specific stock — if you buy heavy on the right one before pulling the trigger and sell at the peak, you can turn $20–40 million into well over a billion per character. The catch: do The Big Score heist first, take the Subtle approach for ~$41.7M each, and only then do the assassinations. Saving them for the post-game is the whole trick.
The order that maximises returns:
- The Hotel Assassination → buy Betta Pharmaceuticals (BET) on BAWSAQ before the mission. Sell when it peaks (~80% gain), usually 2–3 in-game days later.
- The Multi Target Assassination → buy Debonaire (DEB) on LCN before, sell at peak (~80%), then immediately buy Redwood Cigarettes (RWC) and sell when it peaks (~300%).
- The Vice Assassination → short Facade in real life and buy Fruit Computers (FRT) on BAWSAQ before, sell at ~50%.
- The Bus Assassination → buy Vapid (VAP) on BAWSAQ before, sell at ~100%.
- The Construction Assassination → buy Gold Coast Development (GCD) on LCN before, sell at ~80%.
Switch characters and sleep (tap up on the d-pad > sleep) to fast-forward time until the stock peaks. Do this with all three characters and you can comfortably end the campaign with $1.5B+ each.
Pro tip: BAWSAQ updates via Rockstar's servers, so you need to be online for those stocks to actually move. LCN updates locally with in-game time.
GTA Online: The Cayo Perico Heist
Cayo Perico is the highest, most reliable hourly earner in the game and the entire heist is soloable. Buy the Kosatka from Warstock ($2.2M), start the heist from the planning screen inside it, and you're looking at roughly $1.6M–$1.85M per run on Hard difficulty. The setup takes ~45 minutes the first time and the finale itself is 15–25 minutes once you know the route.
Make every run count:
- Scope out the Pink Diamond as your primary target — it's the highest-value option ($1.3M on Hard). If you don't see it, replay the scope-out mission until it shows.
- Grab every secondary loot type: gold > cash > weed > cocaine > painting. Gold weighs the most but pays the most — empty your loot bag on weapons before grabbing the primary.
- Solo route: drainage tunnel infiltration → north dock approach → compound via the side wall with the bolt cutters. Use suppressed sniper for guards near the primary.
- Cooldown is 2h 24m from the moment you finish, or roughly 2.5 Cayos per real hour if you run back-to-back with a second player.
Pro tip: Don't replay the same heist immediately — wait the cooldown once, then alternate with a friend hosting theirs. You can earn from another player's Cayo with no cooldown of your own.
The Diamond Casino Heist (Big Con)
The Casino Heist on the Big Con approach with Hard difficulty pays roughly $2.1M–$2.35M if you grab diamonds (only available during certain in-game events) or $1.4M–$1.6M for gold on a normal week — and it can be done solo. The trick is the Elite Challenge: finish the finale in under 5 min 30s, with everyone alive and under 20% damage, for an extra $50,000 bonus per run.
- Big Con — Gruppe Sechs disguise: walks you straight to the vault. Fastest, cleanest, requires the least skill.
- Buy the cheapest support crew: Karl Abolaji (driver), Patrick McReary (gunman if you didn't kill him in story), Avi Schwartzman costs more but isn't needed for Big Con.
- Fingerprint hack timing: when a node lights up, hold it down for ~1 second after it turns blue — releasing too early or too late wastes the attempt.
- Cooldown is shorter than Cayo (~1h 25m solo) but the payout per hour is lower because you can't replay it back-to-back via a partner the same way.
Pro tip: Switch the heist target every time the casino's "high-value vault content" changes. Check the in-game calendar — diamonds appear during specific events and limited windows.
Passive Income: Nightclub + Acid Lab
These two run in the background while you do heists or contracts. Set them up once, top up supplies occasionally, and they're printing money the whole time you're online.
The Nightclub (preferably the Vespucci Canals or LSIA location for the shortest sell vehicle drives) lets you assign up to 5 warehouse technicians — each accrues stock from a different business you own (Bunker, MC, Hangar, etc.). You don't need to actually source from those businesses — just own them. Sell once the safe is full and the warehouse has at least 80% capacity for around $1.7M every ~24 real-time hours of playtime.
The Acid Lab (Freakshop) is dirt cheap to run. Equip the MTL Brickade 6x6, do one quick supply mission, and it produces continuously. A full lab sells for around $335k in public lobby with the maxed equipment upgrade — and unlike most businesses, the sell missions are single-vehicle, low-effort.
Pro tip: Equipment upgrades for the Nightclub and Acid Lab are not optional. The $1.4M nightclub equipment upgrade pays itself back in roughly 3 sells. Don't sell anything until those are installed.
Auto Shop, Bunker & MC Cocaine
These are your secondary earners — solid, but slower than Cayo and Casino. Pick one and run it alongside passive income while you wait on heist cooldowns.
- Auto Shop Contracts: $200k–$300k per contract, ~20–30 min each. The Union Depository Contract is the highest payer (~$280k base + bonuses for skipping setups via the Agency).
- Bunker (Gunrunning): a full upgraded bunker (Equipment + Staff) generates ~$1.05M of stock from a full supply buy ($75k cost), sold solo in a public lobby. Roughly 2h 24m sourcing time → ~$1M / 2.5 hours.
- MC Cocaine Lockup: ~$420k per full sell, takes about 2 real-time hours with upgrades. Pair it with the Bunker so they fill in parallel.
- Agency Security Contracts: $20k–$80k each, takes 5–15 minutes. After 200 completed contracts, you unlock Dr. Dre's "The Contract" finale, which pays $1M.
Pro tip: Sell businesses in a solo public session (Task Manager network trick on PC, or MTU method on console) to avoid griefers. Selling in invite-only used to be possible but Rockstar restricts most sales to public lobbies now.
Daily Bonuses That Stack Up
None of these are headline numbers on their own, but they're free money you should be collecting every single session:
- Daily Objectives: 3 quick tasks for $30,000 + 5,000 RP. Hit them 7 days in a row for $150,000, and 28 days in a row for an extra $500,000. Don't break the streak.
- Lucky Wheel at the Casino: free daily spin. Prizes range from $2.5k chips up to the podium vehicle (worth ~$1M+ if you sell it). Save your spin until you can spam it (slow the wheel by tapping down at the right moment — the "land on car" trick is well documented).
- Time Trials: $101,250 + 50,000 RP for beating the par time. Two run weekly (one regular, one RC Bandito). Most are doable in 1–2 minutes once you know the route.
- Hao's Special Works races: $50k+ each, doable in <3 min with an upgraded HSW car.
- Prime Gaming bonus: $200k/week deposited into your Maze Bank account just for having Amazon Prime linked, plus rotating free properties (often Agency or Nightclub locations — claim them and resell for the trade-in value).
Pro tip: Log in once a day even when you're not playing. Just collect Daily Objective rewards, claim the Prime drop, spin the wheel. That's roughly $3M+ a month for ten minutes of effort.
Tips & Tricks
- Buy properties in this order: Kosatka → Nightclub → Acid Lab → Arcade → Auto Shop. Anything else can wait.
- Always run Cayo on Hard. The payout boost is ~10% for almost zero extra effort. The "guards on alert" change is barely noticeable on the solo stealth route.
- Stack double-money weeks. Rockstar runs them constantly. Schedule your Cayo and Casino runs to land on whichever heist is 2x — that can mean an extra $1.6M per run.
- Never spend on Shark Cards. Anything they sell can be earned in a few hours of focused Cayo runs.
- Use the LSIA Hangar trick for trade prices. Buying a Hangar unlocks discounted ("trade price") versions of several Pegasus aircraft if you do the source missions — saves hundreds of thousands long-term.
- Park valuable cars in the Auto Shop or Arcade. Free storage and no risk of NPC traffic destroying them — unlike the impound.
- Set a "spawn point" property near LS Customs. Saves a few minutes every session when you need to upgrade or sell vehicles.
Money Glitches & Exploits — Read Before You Try
Over a decade of GTA Online has produced hundreds of money glitches: the casino chip dupe, the apartment garage car dupe, the Cluckin' Bell payphone replay trick, the Acid Lab supply glitch, the Auto Shop contract reset. Most get patched within a few weeks of going public. Some are still floating around in patched-but-unpatched states between updates.
Be honest about the tradeoff:
- Solo glitches (car duping, business sell timer resets, "save trick" finale exploits) usually don't get you banned — but Rockstar has wiped accounts down to $0 after major content updates, with no warning, for accounts flagged with statistically impossible cash totals.
- Modded money drops (joining a public lobby where a modder shoots you with cash bags) are the fastest route to a permanent ban. Rockstar's anti-cheat flags unnatural cash spikes. Even a $200k drop from a single modder can trigger it — and the temporary 30-day ban turns permanent if it happens twice.
- Cheat Engine / external trainers on GTA Online: instant ban, no exceptions. There is no "stealth" version. Stand alone, Menyoo, etc. are for story mode only — using any modification of your money in Online ends the account.
- If you're going to try a glitch: do it on a mule character first, never your main, and never go above a few hundred thousand in a single session. Slow drips are invisible; $50M spikes are not.
Honest take: a clean Cayo + Casino cycle plus passive income earns ~$3M per real hour. That's already faster than most glitches once you factor in the setup, the patching, and the ban risk. The glitches that aren't worth doing are the ones that pay less than a single heist run.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Doing Lester's assassinations before The Big Score. The story locks you out of replaying them in some versions, and even where it doesn't, the multiplier effect on your billionaire endgame is destroyed.
- Buying every property at once. Each one comes with operating costs (mechanic, MC fees, etc.). Buy them in the order above; don't impulse-buy a Hangar before a Nightclub.
- Sourcing Nightclub goods manually. You don't need to. The technicians work whether or not you've ever touched the actual MC / Bunker / Hangar businesses.
- Selling MC and Bunker stock in big lobbies. Use the solo-public trick (MTU on console, friend whitelist on PC) — griefers blowing up your sell vehicle costs more than the heist payout.
- Skipping daily logins. $30k a day looks small. Compounded across a year with the streak bonuses, it's over $14M for genuinely zero effort.
- Buying Shark Cards mid-grind. Cayo solo on Hard pays ~$650k/hour reliably. A $20 Shark Card is $1.25M — under 2 hours of normal play. Just run another heist.