The Title Update 1.73 payout reductions on this page are Likely, not Confirmed. They were compiled by GTA Series Videos from community data-mining, after being surfaced by PLTytus on GTA Forums. Rockstar published the weekly bonus system but never published the cuts. Under our labelling criteria that makes these figures Likely — a source with a verified track record on this beat — not Confirmed.
Moves to Confirmed on: Rockstar patch notes or a Newswire statement.Last updated 18 July 2026 · Current patch: Title Update 1.73
The short answer
A fully upgraded Acid Lab sells a full batch for $335,200, rising to $351,840 once you’ve named your product. Unupgraded, the same batch is worth $237,600. The equipment upgrade costs $250,000 and adds $97,600 to every single sale you will ever make, which is why this guide keeps coming back to it.
Total cost to get running properly: $1,000,000. That’s $750,000 to install the lab and $250,000 for the upgrade. The install fee is currently waived for GTA+ members.
Title Update 1.73 cut heist payouts by 10% to 40% and left business income alone. That makes the Acid Lab a better relative investment this month than it was last month.
The numbers, in full
| Unupgraded | Upgraded | Upgraded + named | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full batch value | $237,600 | $335,200 | $351,840 |
| Time to fill | 6 hours | 4 hours | 4 hours |
| Supply usage | 2 units per product | 1 unit per product | 1 unit per product |
A full batch is 160 units. Production only ticks while you’re actually online. Naming your product adds close to 5% and costs nothing. There’s also a chemical table inside the lab that boosts production once per real-world day, bringing a full fill down to roughly three hours.
What it actually nets you
The batch value isn’t profit. Supplies cost money if you buy them from Mutt rather than stealing them. Buying supplies, a full upgraded batch nets in the region of $239,200. Stealing them takes longer but the whole batch value is yours.
That works out to roughly $60,000 an hour while you’re online doing something else, if you’re buying supplies — production only ticks while you’re in a session, so it is not passive in the idle-game sense. You’ll see $100,000 and even $119,000 per hour quoted elsewhere. Those figures are gross, or assume free supplies, or assume an event week. The honest number for a player buying supplies is around $60,000 an hour, and it’s still one of the best returns per dollar invested in the game.
The $500,000 batch, explained
You will see a $502,800 figure attached to the Acid Lab. It’s real, but it isn’t the base rate and it isn’t a public-lobby thing.
$502,800 is $335,200 with a 1.5x event week multiplier applied. Rockstar runs bonus weeks on Acid Lab sell missions several times a year. During one, an upgraded batch pays $502,800 and an unupgraded batch pays $356,400.
Separately, selling in a public session earns a High Demand Bonus that scales with lobby population, reported by community trackers at 2.5% per player up to a cap of 20 players. That’s on top of the base value. It also means selling in a lobby full of people who would rather blow up your delivery bike, which is why most players don’t.
If someone tells you the Acid Lab makes half a million a batch as standard, they’ve merged those two things together.
How to unlock it
The lab comes from the First Dose mission chain. There’s no purchase required to start.
- Find Ron at Liquor Ace in Sandy Shores and begin Welcome to the Troupe.
- Complete the six First Dose missions for Dax. This unlocks the Freakshop, at the north end of the Mirror Park Railyard in East Los Santos.
- Steal the Brickade 6×6 during Off the Rails. It’s stored at the Freakshop afterwards.
- Recover the lab equipment from a warehouse and deliver it back.
- Pay Mutt $750,000 to install the lab. Free for GTA+ members.
You can skip most of this by buying the Brickade 6×6 outright from Warstock Cache & Carry, but the mission route costs nothing.
The upgrade
You need 10 Fooligan Jobs completed before you can buy it, and Fooligan Jobs have a 48-minute real-time cooldown between successful runs. Budget a few sessions.
The upgrade costs $250,000, though it’s often displayed around $237,500 in-game once you’ve done the jobs. It does three things: batch value rises from $237,600 to $335,200, fill time drops from six hours to four, and supply consumption halves. There’s no scenario where a player who intends to use the lab is better off skipping it.
Running it well
- Access it through Interaction Menu, Services, Acid Lab.
- Name your product. Free, permanent, adds about 5%.
- Use the daily production boost at the chemical table whenever you’re settling in for a session.
- Sell full batches only. Solo players always get a single Manchez Scout C for the sell mission, even on a full batch, so a full sale is the same amount of work as a partial one.
- Sell in invite-only unless a bonus week makes the risk worth it.
- It can’t be raided. Unlike most GTA Online businesses, nobody can attack your Acid Lab stock. It’s the safest passive income in the game.
Acid Lab versus the alternatives
The Nightclub earns more at the ceiling and generates while you’re barely playing, but the property alone runs over $1,000,000 before the upgrades it needs to earn properly, and it only pays well if you already own the businesses that feed it.
At around $1,000,000 all-in for the Acid Lab, the value per dollar invested is better, the setup is simpler, and nothing can be stolen from you. Buy it first, buy the Nightclub with what it earns you.
Title Update 1.73 note
1.73 didn’t change Acid Lab economics. It did fix the Unlock all custom acid names Career Progress Challenge, which had been impossible to complete. If you gave up on that one, try again.
Sources: Rockstar Support, GTAV Title Update 1.73 notes. Batch values, production times and supply mechanics corroborated across GTA Boss, Sportskeeda, Console Pulse (citing GTA Wiki), gta-zone and Timesaver. High Demand Bonus rate via community tracking (Tez2).
PlayTheory has no affiliate or sponsor relationship in this article.
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Image: Rockstar Games, official press kit.