Fallout 4: 16 Pro Tips For Making Caps Fast (2024)

There are a lot of traders for you to barter with in Fallout 4 around the Commonwealth. Sometimes, you'll need a quick way to make a bunch of caps if they are running low on this wasteland currency. There are so many different things to buy using caps, such as rare and powerful weapons, armor, ammo, and many other important items.

Luckily, the following entries will detail some of the best ways to get caps in Fallout 4 at a swift rate, allowing you to buy all the goodies that the wasteland vendors have to offer. These methods are tried and true if you're looking for easy and quick caps.

Updated May 4, 2024, by Zackary Wiggs: Fallout 4 is a post-apocalyptic lesson in economics, and whether you're well-versed in the cap-exchange rate or this is your first time in The Commonwealth's wasteland, you'll need caps to get where you're going. Greasing wheels, bribing raiders, or just buying that shiny new gauss rifle, caps are the way to accomplish any of these things. While there's plenty of hard work to be done for a handful here and there, sometimes you need a tried and true way to get caps fast, that's where these entries come in. With any luck, you'll have a nice piggy bank full of them to help find your son, stay alive, and everything in between.

16 Sell Vendors Their Own Goods

Become The Sneak-Thief

While stealing can definitely be too morally reprehensible for some to imagine, the Fallout 4 vendors really do not care. In fact, if you are sneaky enough to nab an item on display or hidden in the store's back area, vendors will happily buy them back from you; how kind of them.

Don't bother trying to pickpocket vendors; they rarely even have anything on them of value anyway. Instead, focus on stealing items on shelves, particularly ones that are far out of a store owner's view, and even better if you're on a different floor. Try not to make too much noise, or they will hear you stealing, and you'll be in some very hot water.

15 Grow Vegetables And Sell Them To A Merchant

It Ain't Much, But It's Honest Work

There are several varieties of crops that can be grown in one of your settlements scattered throughout the world. Some of these vegetables include mutfruit, tatos, and carrots, each of which can be used for trade or as part of food recipes, which also sell for a pretty cap.

All of these ingredients are very profitable, and are all relatively light in weight as well, which means that you can easily carry them to a vendor to sell. Overall, growing and selling vegetables is one of the best ways to make caps in Fallout 4, since you can grow a virtually endless supply of them once you've gathered a few.

14 Stock Up On Pre-War Money

A Time Long Past

Sure, it may be from an economy that's no longer around, but pre-war money can still be quite useful to those who know how to use it. There are plenty of different junk items that have inherent value to traders, but pre-war money has been a consistent one throughout the Fallout games.

Pre-war money in Fallout 4 is a junk item that gives off cloth if scrapped, which means it's great when you need to build beds, couches, flags, and other furniture. But, you should avoid letting it be the thing that gets sacrificed for a nice new sofa.

It has a carry weight of zero, which means no matter how much you have, it'll never work towards over-encumbering you. In addition, most traders will buy it from you at around eight caps per bundle. Which isn't much, but at low levels it can be a game changer. Especially when seeking out old banks or shops which will have plenty of it.

13 Unlock The Scrounger Perk And Sell The Extra Ammo

Who Needs Railroad Spikes Anyway?

The Scrounger perk increases the amount of ammo you find in containers while adventuring in Fallout 4. This effect is most useful while looting containers, particularly ammo boxes, since they tend to have the most ammo inside of them.

While you are looting ammo, you may realize that you don't need certain ammo types, and you can sell this extra ammo to merchants for a profit. Unlocking every tier of the Scrounger perk gives you a lot of ammo from each container, and ammo is quite lucrative to sell, especially when you have no other use for it.

12 Loot Every Body And Container Around The World

You'll Need A Strong Back

Although it's feasible to speed run many adventures with ease, you will want to take it easy and smell the corpses. Keep an eye out for bodies that may have valuable items hidden on them or a pile of caps in a hidden container just waiting for you to pick them up.

Sometimes it's important to slow down, and if you hope to obtain lots of caps quickly, looting everything in your vicinity while exploring is one of the best ways to do so. Keep an eye out for heavy items though, as they frequently cause more inventory trouble than they're worth.

11 Complete Faction Radiant Quests

Pick Your Side

Radiant quests are great for farming caps because they are extremely quick to complete. Some of them also award large sums of caps upon completion in addition to the XP. For example, the settlement quests that Preston Garvey gives to clear out a Super Mutant camp or similar threats are over quickly and give you the chance to collect a stack of caps.

Completing a bunch of these radiant quests all at once will surely make you rich quickly. Unfortunately, these quests become exceedingly repetitive, and they rarely have any form of a story beyond a few basic lines of dialogue.

10 Sell Unused Weapons And Armor

A Gun For Every Problem

While you may hoard your items for companions or niche situations, many of them are simply useless once you find your preferred option. A lot of the time, these weapons and armor could be sold for a bunch of caps, and it is better to do so than hoarding them in a container somewhere or within your inventory to use later.

If you're having trouble organizing your gear after collecting a bunch, you should strip yourself of everything to start. Once you have all your gear together, go through and equip your must-have items and put about five to seven more weapon and armor pieces to the side. Aside from these, you should be fine to sell the rest of your inventory.

9 Take The Fortune Finder Perk

Hidden Stockpiles Everywhere

The Fortune Finder perk can be unlocked very early on because it only requires Luck 1 to obtain the first rank. There are four stages to this amazing perk in total, and you will have to get to level 40 to take the final level of the Fortune Finder perk.

This perk allows you to find more bottle caps in containers and corpses, which is very useful and is especially helpful if you are looting everything around you like a good wastelander. No matter where you go, just make sure to check every container for a hidden supply of caps that may have been hidden away from prying eyes.

8 Build Some Shops At A Settlement

Become An Entrepreneur

Building shops in a settlement will supply you with a cash flow of caps that will keep you supplied for quite a while. To build a shop, it will require an initial investment of a certain sum of caps; however, the few thousand caps are completely worth it for the eventual payoff.

You can build a bunch of these shops and set up supply lines in multiple different settlements, then constantly collect a lot of caps over time. This settlement method is, without a doubt, one of the best ways to earn lots of caps with minimal effort in Fallout 4.

7 Upgrade The Charisma S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Stat

A Silver Tongue Never Hurts

The Charisma stat is essential if you are trying to earn caps quickly because it will be helpful when bartering with quest-givers through dialogue. If you enjoy talking through your problems, then this stat will come in handy for that as well.

You can invoke the Charisma stat during dialogue to get more money out of NPCs that give out quests, and sometimes this dialogue option will allow you to gain almost a thousand more caps from a single quest.

6 Complete The 'Diamond City Blues' Quest

Help Your Neighbor Out

Completing the Diamond City Blues quest won't net you many caps at first; however, what it will do is supply you with a bunch of materials that you can use to make Chems. As a rule, most Chems sell for a ton of caps each, with rare ones valued in the hundreds.

You can craft over 50 Jet with the materials you find upon completing the side quest, and it is one of the best ways to make money, especially early on in a playthrough. This method also helps gain level-ups as crafting earns experience. This quest can be started by entering the Colonial Taphouse in Diamond City.

5 Become A Raider In Nuka-World

The Root Of All Evil

The Nuka-World DLC added a bunch of fun new mechanics to Fallout 4, which helped to diversify the gameplay. One of these new mechanics allowed you to become a raider and start your own raider camps. These camps, like settlement shops, earn you caps over time.

Heading to Nuka-World and completing the Raider quest line will allow you to send out Raiders and set up camps at different settlements around the Commonwealth. This will create a constant cash flow of caps that you will find within their workbench regularly.

4 Scavenging Runs

One Man's Trash...

This one takes some time, and a little bravery too. Once you've found a settlement where you can store your stuff, you can start going on scavenging runs at your leisure. This works at any level, but mid-level works best.

The idea is to drop everything you're carrying at a safe location except for the armor on your back, your favorite weapon, and maybe a stimpack or two. From there, head off into The Commonwealth and scavenge from locations. Your goal is to grab anything and everything that isn't nailed down that could be sold for caps.

Doing this allows for the maximum amount of weight that you can carry to be far more than carrying your usual gear. From there, just hop back and forth from scavenging locations to merchants, selling as much as you can.

3 Take The Cap Collector Perk

You'll Find Them Everywhere

The Cap Collector perk is similar to the Fortune Finder perk as it will earn you many more caps. This perk, however, will be a bit different because, instead of finding more caps, you will save more while bartering with traders.

While you may not see the savings visually, they'll help to keep your stash full in the long run. Upgrading the Charisma stat will also allow for cheaper purchases and net you more caps when selling items. If you plan on trading with NPCs, this is a must-have perk.

2 Build A Bunch Of Water Purifiers

Project Purity 2.0

This method is renowned as one of the most popular and efficient ways to make a lot of caps quickly in Fallout 4. Building water purifiers in a settlement will cause purified water to spawn in the workbench regularly, which sells for quite a bit, especially when combined with the proper perks, such as the Cap Collector perk.

It is very beneficial to use this method and create a bunch of water purifiers in either Sanctuary Hills or Spectacle Island, as these locations have the most water out of the settlements in Fallout 4. You can then haul your purified water to Diamond City or another major settlement within the game to sell this commodity in bulk for a ton of caps.

1 Farm Legendaries

A Tough Task Ahead

There are few weapons that are better to sell for a large supply of caps than legendary weapons. Dropped by bosses, or mutated enemies, these weapons usually have at least one legendary effect that alters how the weapon functions.

What merchant wouldn't want a minigun with explosive bullets, or a plasma pistol with an endless magazine? For this easy way into caps, you'll want to stock up on your favorite boss-fight armor and weapons because you're in for a tough time.

There are certain places that spawn mutated enemies consistently. They are often found in The Glowing Sea, Croup Manor basem*nt, Gunner's Plaza, and National Guard Training Yard. Each of these can be repeated ad infinitum, as long as you give them some time to reset. Then just go and sell whatever loot, legendary or otherwise, you find.