Want to survive longer in Escape From Tarkov? It’s going to cost you a whole lot of Rubles. Although the game has recently added voice chat, there’s no denying that it’s money that still does most of the talking. From buying monstrously tough armoured rigs to shelling out for higher quality ammo, spending your in-game rubles and dollars gives you tangible benefits that make you much more likely to survive each raid. This translates to more exp, faster quest progress, and even more cash to throw straight back into even better gear.
But spending this cash is easier said than done – it can be hard to make money in Tarkov, especially when you’re a new player that’s still trying to learn the game. Even experienced players can struggle to keep their finances in check, as a particularly poor run of raids can wipe out any savings in a matter of hours.
For anyone wondering how to make more money in Escape From Tarkov, we’ve outlined seven of the best money-making tips to make your time in Tarkov as lucrative as possible.
Use your Scav whenever it’s off cooldown
As long as you’ve got space to store loot, going on a Scav run every time it’s available is perhaps the safest way to make money in Escape From Tarkov. While some players avoid playing Scavs because they don’t grant XP for your main character, they’re one of the best ways to play for anyone looking to shore up their funds on a budget.
Scavs spawn with their own set of gear, meaning that unlike a PMC, there’s no inherrent risk to playing them – you’re not risking any of your own stashed gear or cash when you spawn in as a Scav. This means that you’re free to loot around whichever map you’ve spawned in, and as long as you make it out, you’ll have made money even if you beat a hasty retreat without picking too much up.
However, for pulling in the real rubles, it’s worth taking a bit more of a risk and seeing what you can find as a Scav. Once you’ve loaded in, look around for any loot that’s been overlooked by PMCs. If you’re feeling especially brave, take a look at any high value loot spawns on the map: while it’s unlikely that you’ll find anything incredible if you’ve spawned in later on in the raid, it’s fairly common to find unlooted PMC bodies that are equipped with their own loadouts.
If you’re especially tight for cash, you can also use your Scav loadout to kit up your PMC for free. There’s a lot of perks to using your Scav whenever it’s off cooldown, so it’s always worth using them as much as possible.
Learn which maps are (and aren’t) worth looting
As a new player, it can be tough to work out which maps give you the most incentive to visit. If you’re purely looking to make money, some maps have much more loot to find, but that comes with the risk of being a more attractive venture for more geared players.
As a general rule, Factory isn’t a good place to make money. Combat is too frequent and the map is too small to reliably get in and out safely, so there’s a level of unpredictability that makes venturing into Factory a dangerous affair. On top of that, outside of Tagilla there’s not even that much loot to find.
On the other hand, there are several maps that are nearly bursting at the seams with loot. Reserve and Interchange have lots of high-value spots spread across the map, while locations like Shoreline have much more centralized (and more contested) places filled with loot. As it stands, Lighthouse is one of the best maps for finding loot at the moment – but more on that later.
Learn where to find valuable loot
While the flashiest loot is often found in the most dangerous areas – think Kiba, Resort and the Water Treatment Plant – that doesn’t mean you can’t make plenty of money elsewhere.
There are a series of stashed containers hidden across most maps in Escape From Tarkov, and some seriously valuable goods can be found tucked away in them.
Even better, these stashes are typically much less dangerous than other areas of the map because they’re not always easy to find and lots of players don’t even know they exist. That being said, they can still be dangerous as you’ll not always be the only one running from stash to stash in search of sneaky loot.
For safer Stash runs, learning Woods is a good place to start. This map shows all of the stash locations on Woods, and for the most part they can be very neatly found while traversing the map to your extract. Even better, they’re almost all tucked away from the map’s main areas of foot traffic, so if you pay attention to your surroundings, it’s a fairly safe place to loot.
Sell what’s in your stash
Have you got twenty-odd guns sitting there in your stash? Do you “promise” you’re going to use every single one of them? Don’t worry, nearly everyone in Escape From Tarkov has probably had a bit of gear fear at least once in their lives. If you’re a bit of a weapon hoarder, re-evaluate what’s in your stash – there’s probably plenty of free rubles sitting there, and you’re realistically not getting any value out of them just sitting there.
If a gun’s too expensive for you to feel comfortable using, don’t sit on the fence forever: just sell it. Likewise, do you really need 10 low condition AK’s when you can just buy them from Prapor?
As an added bonus, having more room in your stash means less downtime trying to play Tetris with your loot. For those trying to make rubles as efficiently as possible, that tedious reshuffling could be minutes spent getting back into a raid: liquidate some of those assets, and you’ll find yourself with a bit more cash – and more room in your stash.
Check Flea Market prices before selling items to vendors
Once you’ve unlocked the Flea Market, make sure to check how much an item is worth to other players before you sell it to an NPC vendor.
This is because while vendors may not hold much stock in certain items, they may have much more value to other players. This can be down to them being a scarce hideout upgrade necessity, a crafting requirement for an item that’s worth much more, or a valuable bartering tool. For any one of these reasons, an item can hold vastly more value on the Flea Market, but this holds particularly true for weapons mods and miscellaneous items (E.G. anything you can’t equip, eat or use in-raid).
It doesn’t hurt to right-click things and press ‘Filter By Item’, so to avoid missing out on what could amount to a small fortune, make a habit of checking item prices on the Flea Market before palming it off to Skier.
Go to Lighthouse, get rich off Rogues
With Escape From Tarkov‘s latest update, Battlestate Games added a whole new faction – Rogues. These AI soldiers occupy the Water Treatment Plant on Lighthouse and although they can be very dangerous, they’re also incredibly well geared.
Killing just one Rogue can secure upwards of 200,000 Rubles in loot. Even better, if you nip in as a Scav, you can often find dead Rogues that haven’t been looted, as well as unfortunate PMCs that died before they could grab their goods.
By hitting up the Water Treatment Plant and looting any bodies you can find, you’re given an extra option to consider in regards to using your loot. While vendors will often pay plenty of cash for a Rogue’s gear, much of it is of such high value that it’s banned from the Flea Market. That means if you want to gear up with a premium loadout, one trip to Lighthouse can cover your costs.
If you’re interested in learning the map, check out our six tips to surviving on Lighthouse.
Players are walking loot bags
Remember – you’re not the only PMC looking for some quick cash in Escape From Tarkov. You’re competing with other players to find the most valuable items in each raid, and some of the quicker PMCs might already have looted the most enticing areas of each map.
That being said, work smarter – not harder. Although it can be a bit daunting to fight other players, it can be incredibly lucrative to kill others and take what they’ve spent the raid finding. Not only do you secure anything they’ve found, you’ll also get whatever they brought in with them. Depending on the player you’ve killed, this can mean getting gear that’s better than your own loadout.
In cases like this, you can ditch your insured gear in a bush and spend the rest of the raid using your fancy new upgrade. That way, you significantly cut down on the rubles you’re risking in the raid and still get it all back in a day or two.
If you’re having a tough time killing players, here are 7 tips to help you win more PVP fights in Escape From Tarkov.