Once the Mentor teaches Bargains, you can bargain on regular buy and sell offers, unless you have the Awful Negotiator perk; barter offers cannot be negotiated. Haggling is a trade-off. You can pay less and give up some goodwill with a customer’s faction, or pay more and earn extra reputation with that faction.
Quick answer: Click the speech-bubble button next to the X on the trade window to open the BARGAIN panel, then pick a Demand Discount (-10% to -75%) to pay less or an Offer Markup (+10% to +75%) to earn more reputation.
Where the Bargain button is in Probably Stolen
Bargaining stays locked until the Mentor introduces it. With the Apprentice specialization on Mark Up difficulty, that lesson arrived on Day 8 in our run. The Mentor explains that you can either offer a customer a better price or demand a better one. Demanding earns you less faction reputation. When the customer is the one buying, demanding also lowers what they will spend.
Once enabled, each trade window displays a speech-bubble control in its upper-right corner beside the X. Select it to add a BARGAIN panel along the window’s right edge. It works on wholesale piles too: we haggled further with a Scavenger whose stack is marked “Offering Wholesale 15% Discount”.
BARGAIN panel options: Offer Markup, Demand Discount, Blackmail and Threaten (Aug)
When a customer is selling to you, the panel labels its options “Buying:” because you are the buyer in that deal. There are up to four ways to bargain and one readout.
| Option | Buttons | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Offer Markup | +10%, +25%, +50%, +75% | Pay more, earn extra reputation |
| Demand Discount | -10%, -25%, -50%, -75% | Pay less, lose reputation |
| Blackmail (Criminal) | One 20% bar | Threaten a criminal for better prices |
| Threaten (Aug) | One 20% bar | Accuse the customer of being an Aug for better prices |
| Reputation Multiplier | Readout at the bottom | Shows reputation gain or loss rate |
Each option has a tooltip that spells out the rules:
- Offer Markup: “Pay extra when buying from this customer. Grants additional reputation on each item purchased.”
- Demand Discount: “Demand a discount when buying from this customer. Costs reputation on each item bought if successful. Success depends on your faction reputation.”
- Blackmail (Criminal): “Threaten to report this customer to Security unless they offer better prices when trading. Always fails on non-criminal customers.”
- Threaten (Aug): you accuse the customer of being an Aug and threaten to shoot them unless they give you better prices. On a normal customer it always fails and you lose reputation.
- Reputation Multiplier: “This multiplier determines the rate at which faction reputation is gained or lost when trading with this customer.”
You can only run one bargain at a time. Selecting a button in one option greys out the others.
Threaten (Aug) was not in the panel on Day 8 of our Mark Up run. It was there on Day 12, the morning The Mentor warned us about Augs, sitting under Blackmail (Criminal) with its own 20% bar. Only use it on a customer you are sure is an Aug; how to spot Augs lists the tells.
How to haggle a discount with a selling customer
Consider an actual transaction: a Scavenger has a wholesale stack of 6 Peat, discounted by 15%, priced at 169 altogether.
You can tell the bargain went through when the trade closes at the reduced total rather than the original price.
Bigger demands can work too. On Day 12 a Scavenger accepted a -25% Demand Discount: Galaxy Blend fell from 25 to 19 each and the wholesale total from 277 to 208, while the Reputation Multiplier dropped to “Buying: x-1.50”. The SELLING list names the cut as “Bargain Discount (-25%)”.
Sellers can also refuse. On Day 15 a Scav selling a genuine Food Stamp (120 Credits) for 90 turned down the same -25% demand: the price stayed at 90 and we paid it in full. Whether a demand works depends on your reputation with the customer’s faction, covered below.
Buying stolen goods from a Thief, and why Blackmail failed
Sellers labelled Thief bring stolen goods, and the discount is already built into their prices. On Day 13 of our Mark Up run a Thief offered a Stack of Scratcher Tickets (5) for 80 and an Advanced Water Filter for 193. Under Market and Merchant her rows carried a “Five Finger Discount” line, either “Five Finger Discount III (-20%)” or “Five Finger Discount IV (-25%)”, the IV on the filter. The filter also had “-20%” from that day’s Household Item Surplus.
A Thief sounds like the perfect target for Blackmail (Criminal). Its tooltip reads “Threaten to report this customer to Security unless they offer better prices when trading. Always fails on non-criminal customers.”
It failed. The Thief did not lower her prices and answered that she would make sure folks know what kind of store you run. Being labelled Thief and selling stolen goods did not make her a criminal customer for Blackmail, so keep it for people you have confirmed as criminals, such as those on the Wanted list.
How bargaining affects faction reputation
The Reputation Multiplier sets how quickly you gain or lose standing with the customer’s faction on that trade. A positive value earns reputation. A negative value, like the “Buying: x-0.50 [-0.83]” reading after a -10% demand, means the deal costs you reputation with that faction instead of earning it.
These options differ in direction and outcome. Your faction reputation determines whether a Demand Discount works; if successful, it costs reputation for every item you buy. Offer Markup instead grants reputation for each item purchased. The Diplomatic starting perk increases reputation gained through trading by 33%.
When you cannot bargain in Probably Stolen
- Awful Negotiator perk: This starting perk reads “You cannot bargain with customers, and you suffer a permanent trade penalty of 5%.”
- Barter offers: The Mentor’s Note on barters says “Barter offers cannot be negotiated unlike regular buy and sell offers. They are also not impacted by ongoing events.” One is shown below.
- Blackmail on non-criminals: Blackmail only works on criminal customers. On anyone else it always fails.
What a barter offer looks like
Some customers want an item instead of credits. On Day 13 a Scav Addict opened a BARTER OFFER panel headed “Barter for: Oxymore Injector”. It held three offers to flip through with the arrows (“Choose offer: 1 / 3”): four Wire, three Blood Bags, or two Peat plus a Soda. Accept Offer stays greyed out until you own the item they want, so keep an Oxymore Injector in stock if Scav Addicts keep turning up. Dale, the Upper Level Pharmacist contact from Wild’s Network, supplies them.
Bargaining tips
- Start small. A -10% demand already turned the Reputation Multiplier negative, so every bigger demand trades more faction goodwill for the saving.
- Demand discounts suit factions you do not need; offer a markup to customers whose faction reputation perks you want.
- Stack a demand on top of a wholesale offer: our 15%-off Peat pile went from 169 to 153.
- Sell into events. The same day, during the Nutrifruit Seed Shortage (+33% Food), a Lower Level Citizen offered 37 per Peat, so the bargained Peat (about 25.5 each) sold at a healthy margin. Their Variety restriction meant only one Peat per buyer.
- Skip Awful Negotiator on the Starting Perks screen if you plan to haggle: it removes bargaining for the whole run.
Related guides: how to make money fast, the Wanted list, every Mentor’s Note and the complete Probably Stolen guide.
