What should you do first in Schedule 1?

Collect Uncle Nelson’s dead drops, buy the $75 motel room, and start growing OG Kush. Sell directly to customers rather than through dealers — direct sales give 20 XP each versus 10 — and save toward the $6,000 Bungalow rather than buying the $800 Sweatshop.

How do you level up fast in Schedule 1?

Sell directly rather than through dealers, since direct sales are worth 20 XP against a dealer’s 10. Split large deals into several smaller transactions, escape the police once a day for 60 XP, and trim plants passively for 5 XP a harvest.

What is the best early mix in Schedule 1?

With only the four Street Rat ingredients, Paracetamol then Donut then Banana on OG Kush sells for $72 against $39 unmixed.

How solid are these numbers?

All 34 effect multipliers, all 16 ingredient prices and the base product prices are cross-checked against the published Steam reference tables. The individual transformation rules are mostly not confirmed one by one yet, and meth/cocaine input costs are modelled. Checked against build v0.4.6f12 (Early Access) on 2026-08-11. Sources.

Schedule 1 Beginner Guide

Not a list of tips — an order. This is what to do in your first few hours, what to skip, and the two decisions that decide whether your first day feels slow or fast.

The single biggest early mistake

Selling through dealers

A direct sale is worth 20 XP. The same sale through a dealer is worth 10. Dealers are a convenience you buy later with money — early on, every deal you hand off halves your levelling speed.

Your first few hours, in order

Collect Uncle Nelson’s dead drops They fund everything below. Do not skip them chasing sales.
Buy the motel room — $75 Paid in cash to the owner. It is where everyone starts and it is enough space to grow your first plants.
Grow OG Kush and sell it yourself Unmixed OG Kush goes for $39. Take every deal by hand — 20 XP each. Split larger orders into several smaller transactions to bank more XP for the same product.
Start mixing as soon as you can Even two cheap ingredients change the maths — see the table below.
Skip the Sweatshop. Save for the Bungalow — $6,000 The $800 Sweatshop takes one employee and has no loading bay, so you still walk to every shop. The Bungalow takes five employees and has a bay, meaning supplies arrive at your door. That single feature is the biggest quality-of-life jump in the early game.
Hire a botanist first Growing is the most tedious loop to do by hand, so it is the first one worth automating.

The best mix you can actually afford

Most "best mix" lists assume ingredients you cannot buy yet. These are restricted to the four unlocked at Street Rat — Cuke, Banana, Paracetamol and Donut — and computed with the same engine that powers the calculator.

Recipe	Effects	Cost	Sells	Profit
Unmixed OG Kush	Calming	$30	$39	$9
Paracetamol → Donut	Slippery Sneaky Calorie-Dense	$36	$65	$29	Open ↗
Paracetamol → Donut → Banana	Slippery Sneaky Calorie-Dense Gingeritis	$38	$72	$34	Open ↗

Remember the input-cost caveat: the seed price is per seed, and one seed yields several buds, so real margins are better than these rows show. See products.

Ranks and what they unlock

Eleven ranks, five tiers each. The XP column is per tier, so a rank costs five times that to clear.

Rank	XP / tier	Cumulative	Unlocks
Street Rat	200	1,000	Northtown. OG Kush seeds, Cuke, Banana, Paracetamol, Donut.
Hoodlum	400	3,000	Westville. Employee hiring, electric trimmers.
Peddler	625	6,125	Mixing Station, Packaging Station V2, Chili.
Hustler	825	10,050	Downtown. Iodine, Addy, Horse Semen.
Bagman	1,025	15,175	Higher-quality production.
Enforcer	1,250	21,425	Docks.
Shot Caller	1,450	28,675	—
Block Boss	1,675	37,050	Suburbia.
Underlord	1,875	46,425	—
Baron	2,075	56,800	Uptown.
Kingpin	2,300	59,100	Everything. Prestige tier with no endpoint.

Regions have two locks, not one

Reaching the rank is necessary but not sufficient. Since the Rival Cartel update you also have to push that region's cartel influence below 300 before it opens. If you have the rank and the region is still shut, the cartel is why — see the cartel guide.

XP per action

Action	XP	Notes
Sell directly to a customer	20	Unlimited. The best XP in the game.
Escape the police	60	Once per day, but the largest single payout.
Kill an NPC while wanted	20
Sell through a dealer	10	Half of a direct sale — convenient, but slower to rank.
Trim a full harvest	5	Passive, stacks up while you do other things.

A realistic target is 1,000+ XP a day: sell everything by hand, split deals, take one police chase, and let trimming tick over in the background.

The in-game phone showing a text from customer Trent Sherman offering $100 for 7g of OG Kush, with “You got it” and “Not right now” reply buttons. — Customers text you offers directly. Taking these by hand is worth double the XP of letting a dealer handle them. Screenshot © TVGS, from the official Schedule I Steam store page. Used for identification and commentary.

The property ladder

Property	Price	Staff	Bays
Motel Room	$75	0	0
Sweatshop	$800	1	0
Bungalow	$6,000	5	1
Barn	$25,000	10	2
Docks Warehouse	$50,000	10	2
Hyland Manor	$250,000	12	2

Mistakes that cost new players days

Handing sales to dealers too early. Half the XP, for convenience you do not need yet.
Buying the Sweatshop. $800 that mostly delays the Bungalow.
Spraying graffiti during a cartel truce. It reduces nothing. Details.
Filling every effect slot regardless of value. Eight of the 34 effects add nothing and still occupy a slot — check the effects list.
Forgetting employees need beds and wages. Unpaid staff simply stop.
Letting trash pile up. It hurts performance and can break co-op loading. Fix.

Mix calculator — build recipes as you unlock ingredients.
Cartel guide — the gate on every region past Northtown.
Properties — full prices and capacities.

Sources

Switchblade Gaming — Schedule I rank guide — rank XP thresholds and XP-per-action values.
ScreenRant — All properties in Schedule 1 — property prices and capacities.