Two Heists, Four Players, One Shared Pot
The Prison Break and The Pacific Standard Job are the second and fifth of the five original apartment heists, and both pay a single crew pot that the host splits between four players.
Prison Break pays a base GTA$350,000 on Easy, GTA$700,000 on Normal and GTA$875,000 on Hard. Pacific Standard pays GTA$750,000, GTA$1,500,000 and GTA$1,875,000 on the same three difficulties.
Both heists need exactly four players for every setup and finale, a host at Rank 12 or above with a high-end apartment, and a GTA$25,000 setup cost paid by the host. Those are the current figures at the time of writing, before any weekly bonuses.
Key Takeaways
- Both heists are four-player only, from the first setup to the finale — there is no two-player or solo version.
- The host needs Rank 12 and a high-end apartment with a planning room; the cheapest high-end apartments cost around GTA$200,000.
- Setup cost is GTA$25,000 per heist, paid by the host, and the finale pot is split by percentage cuts the host sets.
- Since the July 2026 Title Update 1.73, the host's first finale completion each week earns a 1.5x bonus on these heists.
- Older guides quoting a GTA$500,000 Prison Break or GTA$1,250,000 Pacific Standard on Hard are using pre-2022 figures.
1. Where These Two Sit in the Original Five
The original heists unlock in a fixed order: The Fleeca Job, The Prison Break, The Humane Labs Raid, Series A Funding, and finally The Pacific Standard Job. You cannot host Pacific Standard until you have worked through the ones before it as a leader.
The other three are covered in depth in our guide to GTA Online heist payouts, which tracks the whole ladder. This article stays with the two bookends most crews actually farm: the first full four-player heist and the richest finale of the original set.
The planning room lives in a high-end apartment, so if you are still in a cheaper place, our rundown of GTA Online apartments explains which buildings qualify. Lester introduces the chain, while Prison Break itself is handed to you by Agent 14 — one of the recurring GTA Online mission contacts worth knowing.
Joining is easier than hosting: any player can be invited into a crew for these heists regardless of their own apartment or progress in the chain. Plenty of players learn both finales as crew long before they ever pay a setup cost of their own.
2. The Prison Break, Setup by Setup
Agent 14 wants Maxim Rashkovsky, a prisoner with useful knowledge, broken out of Bolingbroke Penitentiary. The job is built from four setups, and each one steals a piece of the escape plan.
Plane has the crew steal a Velum from gang members at McKenzie Field. Bus hijacks the prison transport bus that will carry the ground team in. Station splits the crew: one pair steals a police cruiser and the prison transfer schedule, the other takes a container from a cargo ship.
Wet Work is the violent one — two players assassinate Rashkovsky's former business partners while the other two take out his lawyer and collect documents. None of the four setups is long, but Station is the one that most often falls apart with random players.
The finale splits the four roles clearly. The Pilot flies the Velum, Demolition handles air support in a Buzzard, and the ground team enters the prison disguised as a Prison Officer and a Prisoner.
The ground pair fights through the yard, collects Rashkovsky, and drives to the airfield under a heavy wanted level. Everyone then flies out together, and the payout lands once the plane reaches the marker and the crew jumps or lands safely.
3. The Pacific Standard Job, Setup by Setup
Pacific Standard is Lester's finale to the whole original run: robbing the Pacific Standard bank in Downtown Vinewood. It has five setups, the most of any original heist.
Vans photographs and tracks the bank's security vans to find the one carrying a transponder. Signal delivers that transponder to Avi Schwartzman, who tunes it from a hideout while the crew holds off police. Hack steals the hacking rig from a gang's vans and delivers it to Lester's factory.
Convoy ambushes a Merryweather convoy for explosives and thermal charges. Bikes steals four Lectro sports bikes from The Lost MC clubhouse and parks them near the bank as the escape vehicles.
The finale assigns a Hacker, a Demolition player and Crowd Control roles inside the bank. The take starts as cash carried on players' backs — and this is the detail new crews miss: every hit a carrier takes knocks loose money, so the pot literally shrinks on the escape.
The ride out on the Lectros, through police roadblocks to a boat on the coast, decides what the crew actually banks. A clean Elite Challenge run of the finale also pays a separate GTA$100,000 bonus, on top of the crew split.
Each original heist carries an Elite Challenge of that kind — a GTA$100,000 bonus for finishing the finale fast and clean, with conditions such as taking no damage to the take. It is a small figure next to the main pot, but it is the badge veteran crews measure a run by.
4. What They Pay Now, and the Old Numbers to Ignore
At the time of writing, the base finale takes are GTA$875,000 for Prison Break and GTA$1,875,000 for Pacific Standard on Hard, before cuts. Pacific Standard remains the biggest single payout of the original five.
Title Update 1.73 in July 2026 did not cut these figures. What it added is a weekly bonus: the host's first completion of each original heist finale after the Thursday reset pays 1.5x, which lifts a Hard Prison Break to GTA$1,312,500 and a Hard Pacific Standard to GTA$2,812,500 for that one run.
Many older guides still show a GTA$40,000 setup cost for Prison Break, GTA$100,000 for Pacific Standard, and Hard takes of GTA$500,000 and GTA$1,250,000. Those are pre-July-2022 values from before The Criminal Enterprises rework lowered the buy-in to GTA$25,000 and raised the takes.
Run in order, on Hard, with the same four players and no deaths, the original heists also feed the Criminal Mastermind challenge, worth GTA$10,000,000. That challenge — not the per-run pay — is why veteran crews still rehearse these two.
A worked example shows how the split feels in practice. A Hard Pacific Standard at the standard 40/20/20/20 pays the host GTA$750,000 and each crew member GTA$375,000. The same split on a Hard Prison Break pays GTA$350,000 and GTA$175,000 — respectable, but Pacific Standard is the earner of the pair.
Rockstar also promotes these heists in event weeks from time to time. In early November 2026, for example, the Heist Event doubled first-time completion bonuses on the original heists — a time-limited extra, and a good week to learn them if one is running.
5. Running Them Well With a Real Crew
Four players is a hard requirement, which puts these heists at the opposite end of the scale from the picks in our guide to the best two and three player heists in GTA Online. If your group is short a player, those smaller jobs are the honest alternative.
Neither of these heists can be started alone at all, as our explainer on which heists can be done solo in GTA Online sets out. The originals were built as fixed four-player co-op, and that has never changed.
Set cuts before the finale, not after an argument: the host paid the setup cost and earned no money during setups, so hosts commonly take a larger finale share. A 40/20/20/20 split is a fair starting point most crews accept.
That asymmetry is built into the design. Crew members are paid a modest amount for each setup they complete, while the host's only payday is the finale itself. It is also why a host who disconnects mid-finale hurts everyone — the run, and its pot, belongs to the leader's planning board.
Protect the cash carriers on the Pacific Standard escape above everything else. Slow and shielded beats fast and shredded — every bullet a carrier takes is money off the whole crew's payday, and no driving trick earns it back.
Frequently Asked Questions
What rank do I need to host Prison Break or Pacific Standard?
You need Rank 12 or above and a high-end apartment with a heist planning room. Lester's introduction also has to be complete before the chain opens for you as a host.
How much does Pacific Standard pay on Hard?
The base finale take is GTA$1,875,000 on Hard, split between the four players by the host's chosen cuts. A host's first completion in a week currently pays 1.5x that figure under the weekly bonus.
Can I do these heists with two or three players?
No. Every setup and both finales require exactly four players. If your crew is smaller, later heists with flexible team sizes are the better fit.
Can either heist be done solo?
No. The original apartment heists have always been fixed-size co-op jobs. Solo players should look at The Cayo Perico Heist and other later content designed for one player.
What is the setup cost for each heist?
GTA$25,000 per heist, paid by the host when the job is started from the planning room. Older figures of GTA$40,000 and GTA$100,000 are outdated.
Why do some guides show lower payouts for these heists?
They are quoting values from before The Criminal Enterprises rework in July 2022. That update cut setup costs to GTA$25,000 and raised the finale takes to the figures used in this article.
What is the weekly first-completion bonus?
Since Title Update 1.73, the host's first finale completion of each original heist after the weekly reset pays 1.5x the base take. It applies once per heist, per week, to the host.
Do you really lose money during the Pacific Standard finale?
Yes. The cash is carried by players, and damage taken by a carrier drops bills along the way. The amount that reaches the boat is what the crew split is calculated from.
What is Criminal Mastermind and how much is it worth?
Criminal Mastermind pays GTA$10,000,000 for completing all five original heists in order, on Hard, with the same team and no deaths. It is a one-time challenge award paid on top of the normal takes.
Which original heist should a new crew learn first?
Prison Break. It unlocks earlier, has one fewer setup than Pacific Standard, and its finale roles teach the pilot, support and ground-team teamwork the later heist depends on.
The Bottom Line
Prison Break and Pacific Standard still earn their place: fixed four-player teamwork, a GTA$1,875,000 base take at the top end, and a weekly 1.5x first-completion bonus that rewards the host for returning. Learn them in order, protect the cash carriers, and ignore any guide still quoting the pre-2022 numbers.
