Buying a GTA Online Shark Card is the fastest way to get your hands on some virtual cash to spend in Los Santos, as they provide an instant boost to your Maze Bank account which can be spent on developing your criminal enterprises or maybe a fancy purchase. Of course, getting a healthy injection of GTA$ without having to put in the grind to earn it is always going to be appealing, though it does come at a cost to your real world funds. You'll want to know when you put your hard-earned cash into the game that it's a sound investment, so we're here to explain whether the premium currency in GTA Online is a good way to spend your money.
Since the game launched way back in 2013 there have been numerous additions of properties, weapons, and vehicles that have steadily increased in cost over the years, but the actual value of each GTA Online Shark Card had stayed locked to their day one amounts. It was only in December 2022, in preparation for the GTA Online Los Santos Drug Wars update, that the value of these cards finally increased by 20-25% to try and stay in line with ever-growing prices. In this article we’ll take a look at all the different GTA Online Shark Cards you could buy, how much they each cost, and what you could buy in game for your money, as well as showing you the best current deals online.
Megalodon Shark - $10,000,000 (was $8,000,000)
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Cost: $99.99 / £64.99 / €74.49
Cost per GTA$1 million: $10.00 / £6.50 / €7.45
The whopping 10 million GTA dollar Megalodon Shark Card easily offers the best value for money, although that’s not exactly saying much. There are a number of in game vehicles that cost upwards of 4 million each, such as the Scramjet supercar ($4.6m), Deluxo flying car ($4.7m), Swift Deluxe helicopter ($5.2m), and P-996 Lazer fighter jet ($6.5m), so if you’re wanting two of these you’ll struggle to get both for 100 bucks. There are even items that cost the full amount or more than the 10 million you get from this card, such as the Luxor Deluxe plane ($10m). You would be severely mistaken for thinking that pulling the trigger on this “greater than the cost of a brand new game” ‘micro’transaction will allow you to purchase everything you want. If anything, it will just make you realise how much more you’d have to spend.
Whale Shark - $4,250,000 (was $3,500,000)
Cost: $49.99 / £31.99 / €37.99
Cost per GTA$1 million: $11.76 / £7.53 / €8.94
You’re only saving a few dollars by going for the Whale Shark card instead of 3 Great White Shark cards, and you’ll be able to buy a decent amount of vehicles or a smaller number of properties, but at this point these start to become serious purchases. Since it’s been out for nine years now, the GTA 5 base game costs less to buy brand new than this add on cash card. Something to keep in mind.
Great White Shark - $1,500,000 (was $1,250,000)
Cost: $19.99 / £11.99 / €14.99
Cost per GTA$1 million: $13.33 / £7.99 / €9.99
A lot of high end supercars and sports cars in GTA fall into the “just over a million dollars” range, so if you feel that one of those is worth 13 bucks and change then this is the card for you. There is a big value shift here too in comparison to the cheaper cards. More bang for your buck.
Bull Shark - $600,000 (was $500,000)
Cost: $9.99 / £6.19 / €7.49
Cost per GTA$1 million: $16.65 / £10.32 / €12.48
A little over half a million GTA dollars is not something to be sniffed at, and you can certainly buy a large number of vehicles for that price. Nothing top end of course, and you won’t be able to buy multiple of them, but if there’s a single car you’re craving that isn’t too expensive this can cover the cost. Whether it’s worth 10 bucks though is something for you to decide.
Tiger Shark - $250,000 (was $200,000)
Cost: $4.99 / £3.29 / €3.99
Cost per $1 million: $19.96 / £13.16 / €15.96
Everything that was said about the Red Shark card can be said about the Tiger Shark card too. You save a little more money compared to buying two Reds, but in reality there’s not much you can buy with this either.
Red Shark - Discontinued (was $100,000)
Cost: £1.99 / $2.99 / €2.49 (now discontinued)
Cost per $1 million: £19.90 / $29.90 / €24.90
This Shark Card offered you the worst value by far, costing over double what you’d pay for the same amount of in-game money if you bought a more expensive card. And it wouldn’t buy you much these days either - at least nothing that’s been added to the game in the last 5+ years. You might have be able to combine it with some of your own funds to buy some older weapons, or sports cars that have been around since the game released, but prices of DLC cars quickly started to increase after those early days. This particular card was discontinued in December 2022.
So, if the Megalodon Shark Card offers the best value for money and it comes out to an approximate cost of $10.00 / £6.50 / €7.45 for every GTA$1 million of in game funds, how much would it cost to own everything?
As you might expect, that number is almost sickeningly large. This article’s author made some calculations during research made while creating this video, which talks about the most expensive items in GTA Online and the results are pretty staggering.
To simply own one of every single vehicle in the game that it’s possible for you to store on your character, not taking into account property costs, weapons, vehicle upgrades, clothes, or anything else that costs money to acquire, would now set you back somewhere in the region of $6,300 / £4,100 / €4,700. You can find a detailed breakdown of this here. And with the reported profits of Rockstar & Take-Two over the last few years, it’s not difficult to assume a significant portion of the player base have spent just that, if not more.
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