Best Saints Row ventures and businesses explained
How to build ventures for your Empire Tier in Saints Row
Saints Row ventures and businesses for your Empire Tier should be considered as a high priority, as they are a gateway to unlocking fresh opportunities, missions, and rewards, as well as providing a decent route to earning money. You can set up a passive income from certain ventures such as JR's Garage, which can be increased over time as you complete additional side ventures, and I've got all the details for doing this below. If you're looking for more information on Saints Row ventures, businesses, and your Empire Tier, then read on.
Ventures and businesses in Saints Rows explained
Ventures are small businesses that you can buy into via the Empire Table and menu in Saints Row. Ventures can be placed in locations around the map that cost money to buy, but provide a steady stream of income once accessed, as well as a chain of new missions and perks, making them great sources of passive Saints Row money. Completing these missions will improve the business and the income it generates permanently, and may unlock new perks depending on context and progress - you might need a venture established in an area to use nearby Saints Row fast travel points, for example.
How to buy and unlock new Saints Row ventures
The first business venture you get in Saints Row is JimRobs's Garage, unlocked early on as part of the story, but it's not until about five hours in and you complete the "Networking" campaign mission that you get access to the business table in the Saints' church.
After this point, you can buy new businesses by heading back to the church and immediately taking the stairs on the left up when you go in through the main door. Upstairs is a small room with a map table - interact with that for the business menu.
To buy new businesses in that menu, select an empty slot/circle on the map, whereupon you'll get a list of available ventures to put there (most will be locked early on). Pay the down-payment on the venture (expensive purchases that start at $30000), and you'll be teleported to that location to see your business begin, as well as get a little tutorial about the unique missions tied to the venture.
As you get more businesses, upgrade the ones you have, and complete certain milestone missions in the campaign, your "Empire Tier" (shown in the top-left of the business table menu), will improve, allowing you to own more buildings and businesses at once.
How to upgrade Saints Row ventures and increase business income
Businesses you've bought into in Saints Row can be upgraded and improved by completing the specific missions tied to that business. From the main menu map, select the business itself, and it'll tell you the missions, sidequests, collectibles and objectives needed to upgrade it. These change from venture to venture, though dealing with "Threats" (little random fights and mini-quests around the map), is a common theme. Each Threat you clear from the map will also bump the passive hourly income the nearby Venture generates by a small amount.
Complete the conditions and the venture will improve by one stage (the amount of stages each venture in Saints Row has varies), improving its hourly income along with it.
How to get venture rewards
Each Venture has rewards listed underneath it - money, crew outfits to change your appearance in Saints Row, decorations, new Saints Row weapons and vehicles, what it is varies according to the business itself. However, these can't be accessed until players have completely maxed out venture completion, and done every quest and mission tied to the business. It's a long process, but also a very good money earner - the bulk reward for completing ventures, plus how much money they output, means you'll be swimming in cash for the foreseeable future.
Best Saints Row ventures to buy
To start off with, players will be given a choice of three business ventures to choose from. They can get one for free as part of the Networking mission, but have to pay $30000 for the other two each.
- Chalupacabra
- Bright Future
- Shady Oaks
If you're wondering about the best one to pick, we suggest either Chalupacabra or Shady Oaks, for different reasons. Chalupacabra has the shortest progression path - only 5 stages - but the same financial reward for completing ventures - $30000 and 5000XP, so that's efficient (though the other rewards aren't too exciting).
Shady Oaks, on the other hand, still has a short path (7 stages), but unlocks two new weapons and a vehicle on completion, as well as one of the best minigames - Saints Row insurance fraud, which has the player dramatically throw themselves into cars to try and injure themselves as much as possible. You'll get this the moment you buy the venture too, so hit yourself off fenders as much as you like.
How to get venture money and income in Saints Row
Once you have a business, it'll generate a passive income - but not to you directly. It goes to the Cash app in your phone, which you have to open and use to manually transfer every so often. Be careful though - the app has limited storage and if it maxes out, that money doesn't go anywhere you can get it. Make sure you empty it regularly!
All ventures
There's a total of fifteen ventures in Saints Row, including the Church (it doesn't provide income, but can be improved and upgraded like any other business). We've listed them all below.
- The Church
- JimRob's Garage
- Chalupacabra
- Bright Future
- Shady Oaks
- Castle Kraken
- Eurekabator!
- Planet Saints
- Let's Pretend
- Laundromat
- Wuzyerz Repo
- First Strike Dojo
- KAKTS Radio
- The Big One
- Cutting Edge
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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and raconteur with a Masters from Sussex University, none of which has actually equipped him for anything in real life. As a result he chooses to spend most of his time playing video games, reading old books and ingesting chemically-risky levels of caffeine. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at USgamer, Gfinity, Eurogamer and more besides.