Every GTA Online business compared: cost, payout, effort and build order

Ten business lines, one honest comparison. Every figure on this page is cross-checked against the live game and tracked community values as of early August 2026, and every business named here has a full step-by-step guide on this desk. This is the page for the real questions: what to buy first, what each one genuinely pays, and how much of your evening each one wants in return.

The quick verdicts

• Best first buy in the game: the Acid Lab, GTA$750,000 effective cost and it pays for itself in six or seven sells
• Best passive income: the Nightclub, GTA$1.93 million gross per full warehouse for one delivery mission
• Best weekly appointment: the Salvage Yard, three robberies at up to GTA$405,000 each
• Best all-rounder: the Agency, four income streams, zero running costs, everything solo
• Best bonus-week bank: Special Cargo, where a full large warehouse hits GTA$6.66 million on a 3x week
• Best pure multipliers: the Money Fronts, 35% on cash, 35% on weed, 10% on air cargo, for ever

What they cost to start

• Acid Lab: effectively GTA$750,000, since the unlock missions pay you and the lorry is free
• Hands On Car Wash: GTA$1,000,000, gating Smoke on the Water at GTA$850,000 and Higgins Helitours at GTA$900,000
• CEO Office: GTA$1,000,000 at Maze Bank West, the gateway to Special Cargo, Vehicle Cargo and the Nightclub Cargo technician
• Bunker: from GTA$1,165,000, plus GTA$1,753,500 in the two essential upgrades
• Hangar: from GTA$1,200,000 at LSIA
• MC route: a GTA$200,000 Clubhouse plus the Cocaine Lockup at GTA$975,000, with roughly GTA$1.3 million of upgrades on top
• Salvage Yard: from GTA$1,620,000
• Auto Shop: from GTA$1,670,000
• Agency: from GTA$2,010,000
• Nightclub: GTA$1 million to GTA$1.7 million for the club itself, and the honest cost is the feeder businesses underneath it

What they pay, like for like

• Acid Lab: GTA$335,200 per full batch, over GTA$100,000 an hour self-supplied, the reliable floor
• Nightclub: GTA$1,931,500 gross per full warehouse cycle plus up to GTA$50,000 a day from the popularity safe
• Bunker: around GTA$1,050,000 a full upgraded sale, toward GTA$1.5 million with high-demand bonuses
• MC Cocaine: GTA$525,000 a full remote sale, GTA$67,000 to 74,000 an hour, the best of the five biker lines
• Special Cargo: GTA$2,220,000 for a full large warehouse, GTA$4.44 million at 2x and GTA$6.66 million at 3x
• Vehicle Cargo: GTA$100,000 per top-range export, settling around GTA$250,000 to 300,000 an hour driven clean
• Hangar: GTA$2,550,000 for fifty crates of one top-tier type, toward GTA$3,825,000 in a busy session
• Agency: GTA$31,000 to 70,000 per Security Contract, GTA$85,000 payphone hits, a GTA$20,000 daily safe cap and the GTA$1,000,000 Dre contract
• Auto Shop: GTA$300,000 to 500,000 an hour on the contract board, with the Union Depository at GTA$300,000 solo and Exotic Exports adding GTA$300,000 a day
• Salvage Yard: GTA$250,000 to 405,000 per robbery, three a week, roughly GTA$500,000 to 700,000 an hour for the time actually spent

How much attention each one wants

• Earns while you ignore it: the Nightclub warehouse, every property safe, and warehouse staff sourcing crates
• Background businesses you visit to resupply and sell: Acid Lab, Bunker, the MC chain
• On-demand active income, no supplies ever: the Agency, the Auto Shop, Vehicle Cargo
• Weekly appointment: the Salvage Yard, three robberies and done
• Stockpile-and-wait: Special Cargo and the Hangar, filled slowly and sold only on multiplier weeks
• Multipliers with a small chore attached: the Money Fronts, one legal job whenever the Heat icon appears

The build order that works

• First: the Acid Lab, because nothing else turns GTA$750,000 into a permanent income floor this fast
• Second: the Kosatka for Cayo, because heists remain the spikes every business sits under
• Third: the Agency or the Auto Shop, on-demand income with zero running costs while everything else produces
• Fourth: the Bunker and the MC core three, coke, meth and cash, which earn on their own and unlock the Nightclub that matters
• Fifth: the Nightclub, the layer that makes everything before it pay twice
• Sixth: the stockpilers, a large Special Cargo warehouse and a Hangar, filled patiently for bonus weeks
• Seventh: the Money Fronts, matched to the businesses you actually run, and the Salvage Yard whenever the budget allows, it fits anywhere
• The one consistent skip: Document Forgery, and anything else this desk has already told you the truth about

How it all fits together

The 2026 economy has a clear shape once you see it. Heists are the spikes: Kortz, Cayo and the Thursday circuit our heists comparison lays out. Businesses are the floor underneath them: the Acid Lab paying wages between runs, the Nightclub compounding while you play anything at all, the stockpile warehouses waiting for their multiplier weeks, and the appointment businesses turning up once a week with wages in hand. Players who earn the most are not grinding one thing harder, they are letting six things pay at once, and this page plus the heists hub is the whole map. Every business here links to its full guide on the desk.

One desk, all of it

Every business on this page has a complete step-by-step guide at sixcentral.co.uk/online, on the site and in the SixCentral app, filterable by Heists, Business and Comparisons. Figures move when Rockstar moves them, and when they do, the guides move within days, because that is the entire point of this desk.

Acid first, Kosatka second, stack from there, and never sell a stockpile on an ordinary week. That is ten businesses in one sentence.