[Guide] GTA Online Best Ways To Make Money Solo (Top 5 Ways)

Money making methods for solo players in GTA Online

Updated:

23 Jan 2023

Who needs friends when you can earn money on your own

As a novice in GTA Online, you don’t have the luxury to rely on friends with higher ranks who will be spoon-feeding and helping you step-by-step throughout your journey of acquiring illicit wealth, provided you don’t have any friends to play with in the first place. At least your friends won’t be always there for you to help you with your missions and businesses.

You will have to, sooner or later, rely on strategies to earn money that doesn’t require anyone else besides yourself to execute. There are plenty of activities and missions in GTA Online that can be done solo and give you profitable returns. As a beginner, these activities and missions are what you should start off your unlawful vocation with.

By far, the best solo money-making method in the game is by carrying out The Cayo Perico Heist. Even for beginners, it won’t take too long to start playing The Cayo Perico Heist as long as they follow the solo money-making methods in this guide.

5. One-time quests

Quests

Once you enter GTA Online for the first time, there are three different quests you can do to earn money pretty easily. They are Bounty Hunting, Los Santos Slasher, and Treasure Hunt. All three missions reward you with a weapon, with which you need to complete a challenge to receive a hefty bonus. With all three missions fully completed, you’ll receive an accumulated amount of GTA$ 825,000.

You might say: how is it easy to earn money through missions that make you travel all over the map? Well, the best thing is you can easily find the locations with a guide or a labeled map.

The three missions are completed as follows:

Bounty Hunting: Capture and deliver all five people with bounties to Maude. You’ll unlock the location of a stone hatchet. Collect the hatchet and kill 25 people to receive a total of GTA$ 250,000 from this mission.
Los Santos Slasher: Collect the five clues scattered across the map. Use this map. Once you collect the clues, a slasher will text you and appear in Blaine County between 7 pm and 5 am. Kill the slasher and you’ll receive a Navy Revolver. Get 50 kills with the revolver and you’ll receive a total of GTA$ 275,000 from this mission.
Treasure Hunt: Once you receive an email from vanderlinde@eyefind.com, you can start looking for a total of four clues across the map. Use this map. Once you collect all the clues, you’ll receive a Double-Action Revolver at the final location. Get 50 headshots with the revolver and receive a total of GTA$ 250,000.
To complete the weapon challenges, it’s suggested you start the mission “Pier Pressure” and take out NPCs at Vespucci Beach. The cops won’t chase you.

4. Contact Missions

Great objective-based missions

In GTA Online, Contact Missions are basically missions you do for various characters from the story mode, and a few new characters exclusive to GTA Online, in exchange for healthy sums of money. This is Rockstar’s way of keeping the story mode characters somewhat relevant in GTA Online. Plus, they’re a great way to make money solo.

For beginners, it’s a praiseworthy way of making a decent income and keeping up with the shenanigans of the person you do the missions for. As you rank up, you’ll unlock more missions.

The payouts for these missions have multiple variables. You can expect to earn GTA$ 20,000+ on average if the missions are completed within a set timeframe. A general rule of thumb is: the longer you spend time doing the mission, the higher the payout percentages will go.

To do a Contact Mission:

You can either phone the relevant NPC to request a job, wait for their text message for a mission, go to the initial letter of their name marked on the map, or simply start one of the missions in the missions list through the pause menu.
Once you start the mission, make sure to set the difficulty to “Hard” in order to receive maximum payouts.
Follow whatever instructions are given and complete the mission successfully.
Keep an eye out for Bonus Weeks in the game, as sometimes Contact Missions will have boosted payouts.

3. VIP Work

Big Boss business

As a VIP of an organization, you can start VIP Work and complete simple and straight-to-the-point missions to earn decent money. There are a total of 17 VIP Work missions you can do, mostly solo, but a few that require a friend to start.

To become a VIP, you will need to have at least a million dollars in your Maze bank account. With the methods to earn money discussed earlier, making your first million shouldn’t take too long.

Depending on the mission, you can earn anywhere from GTA$ 10,000 up to GTA$ 35,000.

To work as a VIP:

Start an organization by registering as a VIP through the interaction menu. Select SecuroServ and register as a VIP. Keep in mind that you can register as a VIP for 4 hours only.
Scroll down and select VIP Work.
Start your desired mission.

There’s a cooldown time for each mission. In the meantime, you can continue playing other VIP Work missions. “Sightseer” and “Headhunter” are the best to be played back-to-back, as they have just a 10-minute cooldown time and pay GTA$ 20,000+ each.

2. Events and activities paying bonus money

Events to keep a look out for

Every week in GTA Online, there are selected events, races, missions, etc. that pay you double or triple the normal amount. Getting tied up in doing these missions and activities is a lucrative way of experiencing the game. Not only will you be enjoying what you’re doing, but you will also be earning a lot of money.

The best part is that most of these events are fun to play. On some days, adversary modes will be paying you triple the money, and once you start playing these, you just get sucked into it. By the time you get tired, you’ll realize your account balance is loaded too.

To play events and activities with boosted payouts:

Hop on to Rockstar Newswire and find out which events are paying 2x and 3x.
Log in to GTA Online and start playing those events.
Continue playing them back-to-back.
Make sure you don’t just play them for the money but also to have fun as well.

1. The Cayo Perico Heist

The best-paying heist

By the time you save up GTA$ 2.2 mil, you can purchase the Kosatka Submarine from Warstock Cache & Carry and start The Cayo Perico Heist; the most lucrative way of earning millions in GTA Online as a solo player.

Running The Cayo Perico Heist just once is going to give a massive boost in your player’s criminal journey. With the heist, you can expect to earn between GTA$ 1.2 mil to GTA$ 2.3 mil, depending on the primary target and secondary loot.

Once you start doing the heist repeatedly, you’ll be a multi-millionaire in no time.

To do The Cayo Perico Heist:

Head over to the Music Locker at The Diamond Casino & Resort and meet up with Miguel Madrazo. He will brief you about the heist.
To start the heist, purchase the Rune Kosatka from Warstock Cash & Carry for the base price of GTA$ 2,200,000. By the time you have more money, you can spec out the Kosatka even more.
Head over to the heist screen in the planning room of the Kosatka and start the heist.
Complete the requisite setup missions. It’s recommended you do the additional setup missions to make the heist easier to execute.
Perform the heist successfully and receive your first share of the money.
Carry out the heist frequently to witness your bank account balance shoot up.