Businesses in Agency Life: which shop is worth it?

All six businesses

Profit is the base profit per year at normal demand. Laundering is how much dirty money the business can clean per year. Raid risk is the yearly chance of a police raid.

Demand

Demand changes from year to year and stays between 70 and 150 percent of normal. There are good and bad phases you can react to, and events like a new competitor or an influencer visit can move it.

Expansions

Each business can be expanded three times. The stages cost 20, 30 and 45 percent of the purchase price and raise profit by 25, 20 and 15 percent. Every stage pays off a little worse than the one before, so expansions give you more money in total, but not a better return than buying a second business.

Advertising

You can run no advertising, normal advertising for 12 percent of the base profit per year, or strong advertising for 30 percent. Advertising pushes demand up over several years. In the long run normal advertising adds about 12 percent net, strong about 15 percent.

Clean or dirty

If you run a business cleanly, it does not launder money, but the raid risk drops to a quarter, and an inspection costs only 20 percent of the profit instead of half and brings no wanted level. If you use it to launder, you can clean far more dirty money each year. Owning the laundromat also lowers your laundering fee.

Which business should you buy?

The kiosk is the cheapest start. The laundromat is the classic for launderers: cheap, with lots of laundering capacity and a lower fee. The car workshop gives a bonus to everything involving driving. Club Velvet and the casino are the big earners once you are rich. A business degree makes all your businesses more profitable. If you sell, you get 60 percent of the price plus expansions back.

Read money laundering and taxes to understand how businesses and the tax office fit together.