GTA 5 The Big Score: Subtle vs Obvious, Best Crew, and Maximum Payout
The Big Score is GTA 5's biggest payday. Here is why the Obvious approach earns more, the exact crew that maximizes your cut, the costs Subtle hides, and how to avoid losing half the take.
The Big Score is the final heist in GTA 5 and by far the largest payday in the game, a gold-bullion robbery that nets over $200 million before cuts. Which approach and crew you choose decides whether each protagonist retires wealthy or merely comfortable, and one specific crew mistake can wipe out half your take. Here is the complete breakdown: Subtle vs Obvious, the optimal crew, the hidden costs, and how to walk away with the maximum.
Subtle vs Obvious: which pays more?
Both approaches steal a near-identical amount of gold. The gross take is about $201,600,000 on Obvious and $201,300,000 on Subtle. Nearly a wash, right? Not once you account for costs.
The Obvious approach is significantly more lucrative, netting roughly $6 million more per protagonist. The reason is not the gold, it is the overhead:
- Subtle requires a $300,000 bribe.
- Subtle requires a minimum $30,000 in upgrades to the Bravado vehicles.
- Subtle needs a bigger, more expensive crew, meaning more cuts taken out of the same pot.
Obvious uses a smaller, cheaper crew and skips those costs entirely. Same gold, fewer hands taking a slice, and no bribe. If money is your priority, take Obvious.
The best crew for the Obvious approach
With a smaller crew, every percentage point matters. The optimal setup:
Drivers
- Taliana Martinez (5%): the best value driver in the game, cheap and highly competent.
- Karim Denz (8%), with one critical caveat. If Karim is inexperienced, he must be your second driver. Put an inexperienced Karim in the first driver slot and he will lose 50% of the take and become a casualty. This single choice can cost you tens of millions.
Gunmen
- Daryl Johns (6%): go cheap here, since the Obvious approach does not demand elite gunplay.
- Norm Richards or Hugh Welsh (7%): if either gained experience from The Bureau Raid, choose that one as your second gunman, so he accompanies Michael.
The principle: spend on drivers where failure is catastrophic, save on gunmen where it is not.
The Karim mistake that costs you half the take
It is worth repeating because it is the most expensive error in the game. An inexperienced Karim Denz in the first driver slot loses 50% of your gold. He crashes, the take is halved, and he dies. If you have not built his experience in earlier heists, slot him second and let Taliana handle the critical run.
This is also why crew continuity matters. Members who survive earlier jobs, like Packie McReary from The Jewel Store Job, carry experience forward and become far more reliable by the finale.
What you actually walk away with
The gross take is roughly $201.6 million on Obvious. That is split between the three protagonists after the crew takes their cuts, which is why shaving percentage points off your crew matters so much. Choosing the cheapest competent crew is the difference between a good ending and the maximum possible one, and it is worth millions per character.
Because Obvious avoids the $300,000 bribe, the $30,000-plus in vehicle upgrades, and a larger crew's cuts, each protagonist ends up roughly $6 million richer than they would on Subtle.
A note on the story
Worth knowing before you commit: The Big Score sits right before the endgame, and your approach here does not change which of GTA 5's three endings you get. That decision comes separately. So there is no narrative reason to pick Subtle over Obvious, which makes the money case decisive.
The bottom line
For The Big Score, take the Obvious approach. It steals essentially the same $201.6 million in gold but skips the $300,000 bribe, the vehicle upgrade costs, and the bigger crew's cuts, leaving each protagonist around $6 million better off. Run Taliana Martinez and Karim Denz as drivers, with Karim in the second slot if he is inexperienced, and go cheap on gunmen with Daryl Johns plus an experienced Norm Richards or Hugh Welsh. Get that crew right and GTA 5's final heist pays out exactly as it should. Our full crew guide covers every heist in the game.
