GTA Online’s heists get all the attention, but GTA V’s single-player campaign has six heists of its own — and unlike Online, your crew and approach choices are locked in for the playthrough, with real money on the line. This guide covers the decisions that actually change your take. (If Online money is what you’re after, start with the heist payout planner and the heists ranked hub instead.)
How story heist crews work
Every hired crew member takes a percentage cut, and cheaper crew are worse at their jobs — worse in ways that cost you money, not just style points. Two things soften that:
- Crew members level up. A crew member who survives a heist gets a significant skill boost for the next one while their cut stays the same. Hiring cheap crew early is an investment in The Big Score.
- Two of the best hires are free unlocks. Rescue Packie McReary from a drugstore robbery random event (good gunman, 12%) and save Taliana Martinez after her crash near Mount Chiliad (good driver, only 5%). Grab both before the later heists.
The Prologue in North Yankton is technically the first heist, but it’s a tutorial — nothing carries forward.
The Jewel Store Job
Smart (sleeping gas through the vents) and Loud both max out at about $4.9M gross; Smart is the cleaner run. Around $2.5M goes straight to Martin Madrazo, with the rest split — Michael ends up with roughly $1.2M and Franklin with about $290k on a good run.
Crew is where the classic trick lives: take Rickie Lukens (4%) as your hacker — he’s good enough here, and using him levels him up cheaply for The Big Score. Karim Denz (8%) works as driver, though his dirt bikes make the tunnel escape scrappier than Eddie Toh’s. Skip a cheap gunman if you can: Norm Richards crashes his bike in the Smart escape and drops a chunk of the jewelry (Franklin can double back to recover the bag, but it’s a risk). Packie, if you’ve unlocked him, is the safe pick.
The Merryweather Heist
The one heist that pays $0 — by design. Whether you pick the Freighter or Offshore approach, the crew steals an experimental superweapon that Lester immediately forces Trevor to give back before it triggers an international incident. No crew hires, no take. Play it for the story and pick whichever approach sounds more fun.
The Offshore route has Michael flying a Cargobob to drop Trevor’s submersible onto the target — the heavy-lift chopper’s most memorable single-player moment, and still a heist workhorse in GTA Online today.
The Paleto Score
The most cinematic mid-game score: about $8M gross from the Paleto Bay bank — but the FIB takes a brutal cut off the top, so each protagonist walks away with only around $460k. You lose additional cash during the shootout whenever the character carrying the bags takes hits from behind, so keep moving and keep the armor between you and the sheriffs.
You hire a single gunman. A cheap one (Daryl Johns, 6%) reportedly gets killed during the escape, but his money bag can be recovered and the casualty expense still undercuts a top gunman’s cut. If you’d rather not gamble on grabbing a bag mid-firefight, Chef (12%) is the reliable pick — and either way your gunman gains experience for the finale.
The Bureau Raid
Michael and Franklin hit the FIB building to burn Michael’s file. The Roof Entry approach is the strongly implied canon route and the safer one — no crew member has to die. The take is small either way: Michael takes nothing (the job is about his freedom, not money) and only Franklin gets paid — up to about $240k with a cheap crew. On Covert, a poor gunman dies in the escape; his bag is recoverable, so cheap crew remains the max-money play here too.
The Big Score
The Union Depository. $201.6M in gold, gross, on either approach — the difference is overhead. The Obvious approach is the max-money route: it needs a smaller crew, no $300k bribe, and only one vehicle upgrade instead of three. Run Taliana Martinez (5%) as pilot and Karim Denz (8%) as your second driver — if Karim is still inexperienced he must go in the driver slot two, or he’ll cost you half the gold and his life — plus the cheapest gunmen you’ve got (Daryl Johns 6%, Norm Richards or Hugh Welsh 7%). Done right, each protagonist banks over $41 million.
The Subtle route swaps helicopters for three upgraded Bravado Gauntlets stashed across the city as getaway cars. It’s the stylish option, but the bigger crew and setup costs mean several million less per character.
The real max-money play
The Big Score isn’t the end — it’s the bankroll. Save Lester’s assassination missions (all except the mandatory Hotel Assassination) until after the finale, then run each one with all three characters’ fortunes in the stock market. That turns $41M each into hundreds of millions. Full walkthrough in the Lester assassinations stock guide.
And when the story’s done and the markets are drained, GTA Online’s Cayo Perico heist is where the solo money grind picks up.