How to make money in GTA 5 with Lester's stocks, heists and businesses

How to make money in GTA 5 becomes a real question about a third of the way into the game: cars from the in-game websites, the golf club or a cinema cost millions, while missions pay modestly. Each of the three protagonists has his own bank account, and the game does not let you transfer money between them. Keep that in mind for everything below: each character invests separately.

Big money comes from three places: the stock market, heists and businesses. The market pays the most, but only if you wait until the end of the story, when the final job fills everyone's accounts. Until then, the best plan is to avoid unnecessary spending and only buy what helps in missions.

This page covers Story Mode. GTA Online has a separate wallet and different ways to earn. If you are just starting out, read our GTA 5 beginner tips first; the big picture is in the GTA 5 hub.

The game has two stock exchanges, both available on your phone or on the computer in a safehouse. LCN only reacts to events in your own game: missions, assassinations, radio news. Most of the advice below is built around it. BAWSAQ, as GamesRadar explains, depends on the actions of a large number of players, so it behaves less predictably.

Every guide repeats the same routine: save, buy the shares, sleep in a safehouse to pass time and check the price. If it is rising, sleep again. Once it starts to fall, load the save where the price peaked and sell. GamesRadar adds that the market does not move on in-game weekends.

Lester gives you five assassination contracts. Each target is tied to a company whose share price drops or soars after the mission. The table only lists the before/after pairs that match in at least two guides (GTABase, GTABoom, GamesRadar). The percentages are the gains the guide authors saw; yours may differ.

The key step is Redwood after the second hit: according to GTABase, that is where most of the gain comes from. GTABase also warns that in newer versions of the game Betta rises less, by about 21%. Commenters under the guides report lower percentages after updates, so verify every step with saves.

1. Hotel Assassination. It is mandatory and comes up mid-story. Put whatever you have into Betta before it and into Bilkington after. You will not have much money at this point, so do not expect a big profit.
2. Put the rest off. The other four contracts do not expire. Play the story up to the final heist, and each character will have tens of millions.
3. Before each mission, switch to all three characters and spend each one's full balance on the right stock.
4. Use separate save slots. One before buying, one after the mission, then one for every sleep. That way you can roll back to the peak.
5. Sell at the peak, then move to the next pair. GTABoom advises against holding stock for the next mission until you have sold the previous one.
6. Before the final story choice, make a separate save. According to GTABase, the ending decides whether all three characters stay available, and therefore whose money you can still invest.

The full list of Lester's contracts and where they fall in the story is on the GTA 5 missions page.

Heists are the second big source of cash. The payout depends on the approach and the crew: experienced hires take a bigger cut, weak ones can lose part of the take. Crew choice is covered in detail in GTA 5 heists.

• The Merryweather Heist pays nothing: it is a story job.
• The Big Score is the biggest payout in the game; according to GTABase and GTABoom, it is tens of millions for each character. The sources disagree on which approach pays better, so pick the one you find more fun.
• The jewel store job, the Paleto Bay bank and the FIB heist pay less and go toward early purchases.

You can buy businesses after the mission Nervous Ron: the buildings carry a Dynasty 8 sign, and the map shows a house icon with a dollar sign. Income reaches the owner's account once per in-game week. 100% completion only requires 5 businesses. The prices below match in at least two sources (gta.wiki, SegmentNext, Sportskeeda, GTAIntel).

The takeaway is simple. Early on, the cheap businesses with active income are the good deals: Sonar Collections Dock (nuclear waste), Trevor's hangar (arms runs) and Smoke on the Water. The expensive cinemas and the golf club are collector's purchases for after the stock market: they take years of game time to pay off.

• The Epsilon storyline (Michael). At the end you can walk away with $2,100,000. More on the Strangers and Freaks page.
• Maude's bail bonds (Trevor). $10,000 for a live target and $5,000 for a dead one, four targets in total.
• Nuclear waste near Sonar Collections Dock: $23,000 per barrel.
• Towing after buying LSPD Auto Impound: $500 per vehicle.
• Store robberies pay pocket change, but they count toward the miscellaneous list for 100%.

What does not exist: a money cheat. The GTA 5 cheats list has weapons, health and vehicles, but no dollars. The "money glitches" in videos usually concern GTA Online, where they can get you banned.