Money sits at the center of Arc Raiders’ early game. Coins buy better meds, shields, weapons, and—crucially—looting augments and stash upgrades. The difference between scraping by on 30k and comfortably sitting on hundreds of thousands is less about aim and more about repeatable habits.
This breakdown focuses on safe, efficient ways to earn coins, with specific routes and patterns you can loop without feeling like you’re gambling your entire stash every match.
Prioritize the right loadout for looting
Your income starts in the loadout screen, not in the raid.
- Free loadout: Zero-cost gear, 35 kg carry cap, no safe slots. This is ideal when you are broke or learning maps. If you die, you only lose time.
- Looting Augment Mk I: Increases carry weight to 50 kg.
- Looting Augment Mk II: Up to 60 kg, plus two safe slots and three trinket slots, which is a huge bump in how much value you can extract safely.
Crafting looting augments is straightforward: you use basic parts like Plastic Parts, Rubber Parts, and Magnets you buy underground using seeds. That investment pays for itself quickly once you start bringing out full bags of valuables.
Early on, a strong pattern is:
- Run free loadouts until you can afford or craft your first Looting Augment Mk I.
- Swap to an augment-focused loadout once you’re comfortable extracting reliably, then work toward Mk II.
Tip: When you successfully extract with a free loadout you receive a free loadout augment. At the Traders screen in the hub, the Clinic vendor lets you trade that free augment for better augments that you can either equip or sell for coins.
Use stash upgrades and safe pockets as economic tools
The stash and safe pockets are what protect your long-term economy.
- Stash upgrades are accessed from your inventory in the hub (button in the top left). Costs scale quickly:
- First upgrade: 5,000 coins
- Second upgrade: 50,000 coins
- Later upgrades: Raider Tokens instead of coins
- Safe pockets on augments protect items even if you die in a raid. Anything in those slots returns with you.
Many high-earning players push stash size early, then funnel nearly all coins into augments and utilities like Raider Hatch Keys. More stash space means you can hoard key crafting mats while still selling off surplus stacks for cash.
Sell aggressively, recycle selectively
Most players who feel poor are sitting on stacks of “maybe I’ll need this later.” Arc Raiders rewards the opposite mindset.
- Salvaging (in-raid): Breaks items into parts to reduce weight. Convenient but inefficient.
- Recycling (at base): Done after extraction to turn items into crafting materials with better yields.
If you are short on coins, favor selling:
- Track which materials you actually need for the next bench or quest upgrade.
- Sell everything else, especially duplicate guns, extra stacks of basic mats, and most trinkets.
- Use recycling only when you specifically need materials right now for a craft or upgrade.
Trinkets marked with a small diamond icon are designed to be sold. Outside of a couple of specific chicken upgrades (one bed and three pillows), trinkets are not needed for quests, so they’re safe income.
Know what’s actually valuable
Not all slots are equal. When your bag fills up mid-raid, think in terms of coins per slot.
- Use the value tracker at the top of your inventory in-raid. Move an item in and out of your bag and watch your total value tick up or down to gauge worth.
- Favor items that sell high per slot:
- Arc devices like Fireball Drives, Hornet Drivers, Snitch Scanners: around 2,000 coins per slot.
- Commercial trinkets:
- Snow Globe: ~7,000 coins
- Lance’s Mixtape (epic mixtape): ~10,000 coins
- Music boxes, playing cards: ~5,000 coins
- Watches, albums, vases: ~3,000 coins
- Special valuables:
- Grapple hook: around 14,000 coins
- Queen Parts from large Arc husks: sell for over 30,000 coins
Tip: On the surface, you can’t see exact coin values, but item descriptions and rarity are good clues. Once you’re underground, check prices and build a mental list of your top-value finds.
Low-risk money loop: Buried City plant and apartment route
When you are broke or rebuilding after a bad streak, switch to a low-risk, low-stress coin loop. Buried City is ideal for this.
Method 1: Great Mullein harvest in Buried City
This method can net around 60,000–80,000 coins per hour with almost no gear risk.
Step 1: Queue into Buried City with a free loadout. If the map has a leaf icon (Lush Blooms), it’s an even better time to do this, but the route still works without it.
Step 2: Open your map and look for the building labeled Space Travel with a red outline. Your actual target is the unlabeled building directly next to it.
Step 3: Move to the street between Space Travel and the neighboring building. On the east side you’ll see an entrance with a big “GALLERIA SOLDANELLA” sign.
Step 4: Go inside and head up the first flight of stairs. Clear the small turret if it spawned (grenades or cover fire both work).
Step 5: On the first floor, carefully harvest every Great Mullein plant in the potted planters. They are everywhere—walk the perimeter and interiors and don’t rush.
Step 6: Go up to the top floor and repeat the process. There are even more plants here. Collect everything and grab any valuables along the way.
Step 7: From the roof, note the nearby building with the large JKV sign. You’ll hit that next.
Step 8: Exit Galleria back to the street. JKV is directly in front of you. Climb the scaffolding on its façade to enter.
Step 9: Go up to the sixth floor. Loot the two accessible rooms, then breach the barricaded door between them with your pickaxe to reach two more high-value rooms and a raider bag with grenades and other items.
Step 10: Extract via the nearest Metro Station. Sell most of your Great Mullein and valuables; keep some plants if you want to refine them into Assorted Seeds for underground trading.
Great Mullein alone usually sells for 15,000–20,000 coins per run. Combined with JKV loot, 30,000 coins per raid is normal, and you risk none of your personal stash while doing it.
Medium-risk money loop: Dam Battlegrounds Research & Admin lockers
Once you’re comfortable staying alive and have a basic kit, Dam Battlegrounds offers a medium-risk, high-reward route that fits naturally into the starting map.
Step 1: Load into Dam Battlegrounds with a decent weapon, ammo, three light grenades, and optional Adrenaline Shots.
Step 2: Identify the tall Research & Administration building. It’s the tallest structure on the map; you can also mark it on your map to navigate.
Step 3: Approach from the south. Look for the distinctive blue metal stairs running up the outside of the tower.
Step 4: Midway up, a Sentinel turret may spawn guarding the stairs. Use your grenades (around three) to safely destroy it rather than taking a prolonged gunfight.
Step 5: At the top, enter the office room with desks and drawers, but ignore those drawers at first. Leaving them closed keeps your presence less obvious to other players following your route.
Step 6: Open the door in the right corner to reach a long hallway. A smaller turret can spawn here—use a single grenade or quick burst to clear it.
Step 7: Move to the end of the hallway where you’ll see a row of lockers and two numbered rooms. Focus on rooms 1 and 2, and search every locker inside. These lockers have a very high chance to hold rare valuables and trinkets.
Step 8: Backtrack slightly to the intersection where the corridor opens into a gallery patrolled by Fireballs and Ticks. Deal with them, then loot the next line of lockers and enter room 3 for more high-value lockers.
Step 9: Once you’ve looted those three zones and your bag is heavy with valuables, leave the building and extract. You can push deeper into the complex, but coins per minute usually drop and PvP risk goes up.
This run commonly yields 60,000 coins or more in valuables if you sell everything. Buying and using a Raider Hatch Key near this route is often worth the 6,000–9,000 coin cost for a safe exit when you’re full.
Higher-risk farming: The Blue Gate village and hot spots
The Blue Gate map opens later but can be extremely profitable once you unlock it.
- Village area in The Blue Gate: A “sleeper” zone in the village features many residential and small commercial buildings, few dangerous ARC enemies (mostly basic drones and low-tier rollers), and a surprisingly rich loot pool.
Typical pattern here:
- Spawn, head to the village, and systematically loot houses, corner shops, trash cans, and dirt piles (for fertilizer that sells around 1,000 coins and stacks to five).
- Look for blue and purple valuables in drawers and shelves. Finding several purples per run is common, which pushes run value to 30,000–60,000 coins or more.
- Pay attention to a particular building in the area that can have an interior turret and a breachable door leading to a guaranteed weapon crate and dense loot.
- Use nearby extracts or a Raider Hatch to chain back-to-back money runs.
This route does involve more player contact and some ARCs out in the open, so it’s better once you’re confident in fights and have augments with safe pockets.
Safe, repeatable methods that work on any map
Not every money run has to be tied to a specific building. Several broad patterns are both profitable and relatively safe across all maps.
Method 2: Probe and Raider cache hunting
- Arc Probes emit a beeping sound and appear on your map when close. They contain Arc parts, guns, and other valuables (greens and blues).
- Hidden Raider caches tick like a clock and have a small red sign near them. They often hold raider gear, high-rarity items, and valuables.
Probe and cache runs let you skirt main combat zones, following audio cues rather than chasing players. This is ideal for solo players who want predictable routes and prefer avoiding PvP.
Method 3: Arc component farming
Hunting specific ARC enemies is another stable income source:
- Fireballs, Hornets, and similar machines drop:
- Fireball Drives
- Hornet Drivers
- Snitch Scanners
Each of these devices sells for roughly 2,000 coins per slot, so a small stash of them adds up quickly. They also serve as strong in-raid tools (incendiaries, EMPs, scanners), so you can keep some and sell the rest.
Method 4: Commercial and residential trinket runs
Dense “city” areas are coin fountains if you focus purely on valuables:
- Target commercial areas and residential blocks packed with drawers, cupboards, and shelves.
- Prioritize items with the diamond “valuable” icon: snow globes, mixtapes, music boxes, luxury items, watches, vases.
- On Dam Battlegrounds specifically, the middle section of the main dam building, especially the second-floor lockers, consistently holds multiple rare or higher trinkets.
These routes are simple: fill your bag with diamonds, ignore most crafting junk, and leave.
Method 5: Outskirts loot-and-exit runs
The simplest, safest pattern—especially when learning:
- Spawn on any map, hit the nearest outskirts point of interest (small gas stations, shacks, minor buildings just outside main hotspots).
- Loot everything for 5–7 minutes; don’t get greedy.
- Head to the nearest extract immediately once your bag is full or you’ve hit a time limit you set for yourself.
- Sell the haul, restock if needed, and repeat.
Chaining these “small” runs with a free loadout often yields more coins per hour than one big, risky hero run that you lose at extraction.
Free loadout loops and Scrappy for passive income
Free loadouts are more than a safety net; they’re a money engine when used deliberately.
- Free loadout farm: Enter raids with a free kit, loot aggressively for the first few minutes, then extract. Sell everything, including the free gear, unless it’s significantly better than what you own.
- Free augment trading: Trade free loadout augments at the Clinic for better augments, then either equip them or sell them for more coins.
- Passive Scrappy farming: Some players simply queue with a free loadout and idle while Scrappy gathers materials, then extract and sell those mats later. It’s not engaging, but it demonstrates how abundant loot is once you stop hoarding.
Night raids, Raider Hatch Keys, and risk management
Once you’re stable financially, leaning into higher-risk conditions can accelerate your earnings.
- Night raids have richer loot tables and better chances for rare items but come with tougher enemies and visibility challenges. They’re ideal for key-locked locations or when you know a tight, high-value route.
- Raider Hatch Keys cost 6,000–9,000 coins from the Security trader but act as an emergency escape if elevators are camped. Keeping one in a safe pocket dramatically reduces the chance of losing a high-value run to extract campers or shutdowns.
- Adrenaline Shots are cheap to craft (plastic plus chemicals) and let you sprint in and out quickly, especially at night. Combining Adrenaline with a planned route and a Hatch Key keeps your time exposed on the surface minimal.
Tip: Always weigh the cost of consumables against the expected value of a run. Spending a few thousand coins on Adrenaline and a Hatch Key is trivial if your route reliably yields tens of thousands.
Turn income into long-term power
Once runs start netting 60,000+ coins consistently, the problem flips: where to spend it.
- Max out stash size early so you can store both money-making trinkets and crafting materials without constantly selling under pressure.
- Invest in looting augments and skill nodes that improve speed and stamina. Faster looting and repositioning translate directly into more coins per hour.
- Buy blueprints for core weapons and grenades you actually use so you can craft them rather than relying on trader stock.
- Keep your chicken drone leveled. At level 2 it already returns large stacks of common materials, letting you sell more of what you find on the surface instead of hoarding basics “just in case.”
If you treat coins as a way to buy more safety and more carry capacity, rather than as something to sit on, money stops feeling scarce very quickly. Rotate between low-risk Buried City or outskirts loops, medium-risk Dam locker runs, and higher-yield Blue Gate or night raids, and the economy quietly shifts in your favor.
