Earning money in Starfield is one of the easiest parts of the game. Almost everything you can do has some sort of monetary reward. But if all you do is quest or mission run, you won’t become a rich space kingpin very quickly. Getting more credits is about combining strategies, selling the right items, and engaging with the right systems in the game. Here’s how to make money fast in Starfield.
How to Make Money Fast in Starfield
There are tons of ways to make money fast in Starfield. If you want to be as efficient as possible, you’ll need to multitask. There are also several perks and ship parts you’ll want to pick up if you want to make the biggest possible fortune.
Pick Up and Sell Everything That’s Not Nailed Down
You’ll find thousands of little nic-nacks in your adventures. Many of them have little value, but you should pick up any item you find with a base value of 150 or more. They won’t sell for that at most vendors, but choosing only the most valuable items guarantees at least a few dozen credits when you sell them at a vendor.
This is doubly true for any weapons, space suits, or packs you run across. After taking down an enemy base, pick up any higher-rarity weapons or high-value gear if you have room in your inventory. You can increase your carry weight if you have some skill points available. You’ll want to keep some of these for yourself, but any you don’t plan to use immediately should be sold. They’re worth a few hundred credits at the start of the game, increasing to greater amounts later.
Lastly, head straight to the nearest port whenever you capture a new ship. Not only can you register it for a fee to sell it later, the ship’s cargo hold likely has several dozen pieces of random loot inside. NoIt’s usually not the biggest haul, but it’s nothing to sneeze at, either.
Fight Pirate Ships and Sell Their Contraband
Contraband items are a great way to make money fast in Starfield. They’re the most valuable single items, with default prices that start around 10,000 credits and go up from there.
You’ll need the ability to sell that contraband, a shielded cargo hold, and some ship jammers, but there are few items in the game that go for as much. Better yet, when you fight a pirate ship with contraband, you also get to loot the pirates. Just don’t take their ship. It may not have a shielded cargo hold big enough to get past the authorities’ sensors.
You can also jettison the contraband if you like the ship, take it and everything else in it to the nearest port, and sell the thing wholesale. This option may be more profitable depending on how much contraband was on the ship. If you happen to find contraband randomly in a pirate base on a planet, take it to port whenever you please, so long as you have the means to get it past the scans.
Run Missions and Do Sidequests
Every major port city and most random settlements on planets have a Mission Board in their bar. These missions are great ways to make money fast. They award a few thousand credits on completion, and most are easy enough. They usually ask you to take specific cargo to a particular place or to defeat a certain enemy on some distant planet. The best of these missions have you fighting another ship somewhere, allowing you to not only reap the mission rewards but also loot all the juicy tidbits from the disabled ship.
Many of the side quests in Starfield are more financially rewarding than the main quest. They also give you more opportunities to loot, or explore planets and parts of space you’d not have seen otherwise.
Sell Survey Data to Vladimir
One of the easiest ways to make money fast in Starfield is to complete planetary surveys. Go down to a planet and scan every type of flora, fauna, and resource. When you’re done, you’ll get a Survey Completed note on the planet’s scan menu. Vladimir, the keeper of The Eye for Constellation, will buy any completed survey data you have for double what other vendors will pay.
One trick: gas giants are the easiest surveys to complete in Starfield. You simply jump to the planet, scan it once, and you’re done. It’s the simplest 1,000+ credits you’ll make in the game. I’d check the Lodge before you fly to the Eye, as sometimes Vladimir hangs out planetside.
Invest in the Right Perks
There are three perks in the Social tree you’ll want to put at least a few points into: Commerce, Scavenging, and Theft.
- Commerce is a flat upgrade to how much you can sell items for. At Rank 4, it’s a full 25% buff to merchant sell-to prices.
- Scavenging Rank 1 randomly places extra credits in loot containers. Higher ranks add things like ammo and medicine to the loot pool, but it’s the credits part that’s most important.
- Theft allows you to pickpocket almost any unaware NPC in the game and take whatever’s in their pockets. At Rank 4, you can even take their weapon, and depending on what type of NPC you’re dealing with, that weapon might be worth a pretty penny.
The final step in making easy money in Starfield is to stack the above strategies whenever you can. If you’re mission running and encounter a pirate ship, take it and everything on it. If you’re surveying, explore pirate strongholds and take whatever’s not nailed down. If you have contraband on your ship and encounter a friendly ship in space, take everything they have. Then, you can head to port with an inventory of loot, complete your quests and missions, and reap all the spoils at once.
That’s how to make money fast in Starfield. For more on the many aspects of Bethesda’s space epic, check out our guides on how to cure status ailments, how to get more ship parts, and more in our guides hub for the game.
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