Every Schedule I Ingredient Ranked: Cost, Source, and Profit Margin Per Batch

Schedule I gives you 16 mixing ingredients from a single supplier. Most guides tell you which combinations sell highest. What they don’t tell you is that the highest sell price and the best profit margin are two different things — and confusing them is why most operations stall in the mid-game.

This Schedule I ingredients guide covers every component available in the game: where to buy it, which rank unlocks it, what effect it adds to your product, and how much value each dollar of ingredient cost actually returns. You’ll also find the supplier unlock order that maximises profitability at each game stage, the key mixing transformation chains, and six common mistakes that quietly destroy margins.

For lab setup basics, see the Schedule I Lab Setup Guide. For the full operation overview once your ingredient selection is dialled in, the Schedule I Beginner Guide covers everything from first batch to first dealer.

Quick Start: Five Steps to Ingredient Efficiency

Before the full breakdown, here’s the priority order that matters most:

1. Street Rat I — Cuke, Banana, Paracetamol, and Donut unlock immediately. Start mixing with weed and build early cash flow.
2. Reach Hoodlum II fast — Viagra ($4) has the best efficiency ratio of any ingredient in the game: 0.46x sell multiplier for $4 spent. Nothing else comes close at that cost.
3. Unlock Gas Mart delivery — Both Westville and Downtown Gas Marts offer $200 flat-fee delivery. Only use it when your order exceeds $400 in ingredients — below that, walk in and buy direct.
4. Push to Peddler III — Mega Bean unlocks here and anchors the most efficient early weed recipe: OG Kush + Viagra + Cuke + Mega Bean, $13 ingredients, approximately $100 sell price.
5. Hustler III last — Horse Semen ($9, 0.52x) is the highest single-ingredient multiplier, but only earns its cost in meth or cocaine operations. Don’t prioritise it for weed.

Verified on Schedule I Early Access, April 2026. Values may change with patches.

Tier 1 — Starter Ingredients (Street Rat I through Hoodlum V)

Eight ingredients unlock before Peddler rank. They’re cheap, available from day one, and more valuable than most players realise.

Viagra is the standout at this tier. At $4 with a 0.46x Tropic Thunder effect, it delivers more value per dollar than any other ingredient in the game, including late-game premium picks. Reaching Hoodlum II specifically for Viagra access is the single most impactful rank push you can make in the early game.

Gasoline is not a multiplier ingredient. Its Toxic effect carries a 0.00x multiplier — it contributes zero directly to sell price. Players who add it expecting a value boost lose $5 per batch. Gasoline earns its cost only in specific transformation chains (see Mixing Effects section below). Until you’re building those chains deliberately, leave it out.

Storage tip: Cuke and Banana are safe to stock in bulk — they’re cheap and used in almost every recipe. Keep 20–30 units of each on hand. Avoid bulk-stocking Flu Medicine; its low 0.26x return on $5 means you won’t cycle through it fast enough to justify large orders.

Tier 2 — Mid-Game Ingredients (Peddler I through Peddler V)

Five new ingredients unlock across Peddler rank. Three are worth the grind; two are situational fillers.

Mega Bean at Peddler III is the milestone worth rushing. At $7 for a 0.36x Foggy effect, it completes the most efficient weed recipe available before Hustler rank: OG Kush + Viagra + Cuke + Mega Bean at $13 total ingredient cost, selling for approximately $100 — a 670% gross return before overhead.

Battery (Peddler V) unlocks the Zombifying chain. Gasoline + Cuke + Battery in the correct mixing order produces Zombifying at 0.58x, a significant value jump available before you hit Hustler rank. If you’re scaling a meth operation, push to Peddler V specifically for this combination — the $15 combined ingredient cost is highly efficient for the effect value it generates.

Energy Drink and Motor Oil are solid slot-fillers but won’t define your recipe. Include them when you have free mixing slots; don’t delay your push toward Mega Bean or Battery to unlock them faster.

Tier 3 — Advanced Ingredients (Hustler I through Hustler III)

Three ingredients in the same $8–9 cost bracket, but with meaningfully different use cases depending on your drug base.

Horse Semen has the highest multiplier in the game at 0.52x, but at $9 per unit, its efficiency ratio (0.058x per dollar) is lower than Viagra (0.115x) or Cuke (0.110x). The math works in its favour only in high-base-price drugs. Add it to a cocaine base selling for $600, and the 0.52x contributes $312 in added value for $9 spent — that’s justified. Add it to a $40 weed batch and you’re barely covering ingredient cost with no margin left.

Addy ($9, 0.44x Thought-Provoking) has the worst efficiency ratio of any multiplier-positive ingredient in the game (0.049x per dollar). Use it in cocaine recipes where base prices are high enough that the absolute gain matters. Avoid it entirely in weed or early meth operations where the base price can’t absorb the ingredient cost.

Iodine is the Hustler-tier entry point worth prioritising. It unlocks at Hustler I — earlier than Addy and Horse Semen — and at $8 with 0.42x Jennerising, it performs well in mid-to-late meth builds before you unlock the top-tier options.

Related: schedule npc guide.

Storage tip for Tier 3: Horse Semen and Addy at $9 each tie up capital quickly. Order 10–20 units per batch run rather than bulk-stocking until you have a fully automated operation cycling through them consistently.

Gas Mart: How the Supplier System Works

All 16 mixing ingredients come from a single supplier: Gas Mart. There are two locations — Westville and Downtown — and both are open 24/7. Gas Mart stocks are unlimited; you won’t run out of any ingredient through normal play.

Delivery costs a flat $200 regardless of order size. This number determines when delivery actually makes economic sense:

• Ordering $50 of Cuke with delivery = $250 total, or $5 per unit instead of $2 — a 150% cost increase
• Ordering $500 of ingredients with delivery = $700 total — a 40% overhead addition, much easier to absorb

The breakeven point is roughly $400–500 in ingredients per delivery. Below that, walk to the nearest Gas Mart. Above it, delivery saves time without wrecking your margins.

Ingredient availability scales with rank, not with money. You can’t buy Horse Semen early by paying more — it simply doesn’t appear in the Gas Mart catalog until Hustler III. As you progress through Street Rat, Hoodlum, Peddler, and Hustler ranks, new items appear in stock automatically. There’s no unlock dialogue or mission — they’re just there when you hit the rank threshold.

Storage management: Order only what your current recipe cycle needs. Running 10-unit batches doesn’t justify a 200-unit stockpile of any ingredient. Over-ordering ties up cash and fills storage unnecessarily — particularly important for expensive Tier 3 ingredients where a 100-unit stockpile of Horse Semen represents $900 in idle capital.

ROI Per Dollar: Which Ingredients Give the Best Return

Most guides rank ingredients by highest multiplier or highest sell price. Neither metric tells you whether the ingredient is worth buying. The better question: how much multiplier value does each dollar of ingredient cost deliver? This table ranks all 16 by efficiency ratio (effect multiplier divided by cost per unit).

Two key takeaways from this ranking: First, Viagra dominates early-to-mid ROI — no ingredient at any price point delivers 0.46x value for $4. Second, expensive Hustler-tier ingredients earn their cost in absolute terms, not efficiency terms. Addy (0.049 efficiency) is worse per dollar than Cuke ($2), but when your cocaine base sells for $700, Addy’s 0.44x adds $308 in sell price for $9 spent. The ROI per dollar metric guides which cheap ingredients to always include; the absolute value metric guides which premium ingredients justify their slot.

For the specific recipe combinations that maximise these ingredients by drug type, see the Schedule I mixing recipes ranked guide.

Supplier Unlock Priority Order

Hit these rank milestones in this sequence for maximum profitability gain per rank invested:

1. Hoodlum II — Unlocks Viagra. The single biggest profitability jump per rank for any operation type.
2. Peddler III — Unlocks Mega Bean. Opens the $13-cost/$100-sell weed formula and significant revenue scaling.
3. Peddler V — Unlocks Battery, completing the Zombifying chain with Gasoline + Cuke. Essential for meth operations pushing past mid-game ceiling.
4. Hustler I — Unlocks Iodine ($8, 0.42x) and the Downtown region. First step into premium-tier mixing.
5. Hustler III — Unlocks Horse Semen. Only worth prioritising if you’re running meth or cocaine as your primary operation.

Hoodlum III (Mouth Wash) and Hoodlum IV (Flu Medicine) are progression steps, not priority targets. Both unlock useful-but-not-critical ingredients. Don’t slow your push to Peddler rank chasing them — the profitability gap between Hoodlum and Peddler tier is significant enough that speed matters more than completeness.

For a full breakdown of what each rank unlocks beyond ingredients — including regions, equipment, and employee access — see the Schedule I tips and tricks guide.

Mixing Effects Reference: Key Transformation Chains

When specific ingredients combine in a recipe, they don’t just stack their individual effects — they transform them into new, often higher-value outputs. Knowing these chains is the difference between a $200 batch and a $350 batch at the same rank.

Zombifying (0.58x combined): Gasoline + Cuke + Battery — $15 total ingredient cost. The most accessible high-value combined effect before Hustler rank. Gasoline’s Toxic effect, which is worth zero on its own, transforms into Zombifying when mixed with Cuke and Battery in this chain. This is the only context where Gasoline justifies its $5 cost.

Shrinking (0.60x combined): Cuke + Banana + Chili + Energy Drink — $17 total. The highest naturally combined multiplier available at Peddler IV rank. Requires four ingredients and correct mixing order — check effect outputs in the mixing station UI before committing a batch.

Base drug effects on the same ingredient: Banana produces Gingeritis (0.20x) in weed recipes but produces Electrifying — a substantially higher-value effect — in meth recipes. The $2 ingredient does more work in meth than weed, which is one reason meth recipes pull significantly ahead of weed on a per-unit basis even with identical ingredient lists.

Ingredient order matters. The mixing station applies ingredients sequentially, and adding Gasoline first vs. third in your chain can produce entirely different outputs. Always verify the effect list in the mixing station UI before confirming a batch. For the full mechanics of how the mixing sequence works, the Schedule I production guide covers mixing station operation in detail.

Common Mistakes That Destroy Margins

1. Buying Gasoline as a multiplier ingredient. Gasoline’s Toxic effect contributes $0 to sell price. Adding it to a recipe outside of the Zombifying or other known transformation chains burns $5 per batch with zero return. Verify you’re hitting the chain output before including it.

2. Using Horse Semen on weed. A weed batch selling for $40–80 base price can’t absorb a $9 ingredient. The 0.52x multiplier adds $21–$42 to sell price — you’re barely covering ingredient cost. Horse Semen earns its slot only in cocaine or high-grade meth where the same 0.52x contribution adds $300+ in value per unit.

3. Chasing highest sell price over actual ROI. A recipe selling for $3 more that requires $80 in extra ingredient costs per 20-unit batch is a losing trade. Run the ingredient cost math against sell price before locking in a new recipe. The community learned this the hard way — one Steam discussion documented a popular meth recipe where a small sell-price upgrade required over $100 in additional ingredient spending per batch, turning a profit improvement into a margin collapse.

For more on this, see schedule marketplace prices.

4. Paying $200 delivery for small orders. A $20 Cuke order with $200 delivery costs $220 total — an 1,100% cost multiplier on ingredients. Walk to Gas Mart for anything under $400 in total ingredient value.

5. Bulk-stocking expensive ingredients before automating. 100 units of Horse Semen is $900 in capital sitting idle. Order per batch run until your operation reaches the scale where an automated dealer network cycles through stock consistently. For scaling to that level, the automation guide covers the full transition from manual to automated dealing.

6. Prioritising Addy unlock over other Hustler-tier goals. Addy is the last ingredient most operations actually need. Its efficiency ratio (0.049x per dollar) is the worst of any multiplier-positive ingredient. If you’re already running an efficient Hustler I–II recipe, pushing specifically to Hustler II for Addy rarely beats other progression investments at that stage.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Gas Mart the only supplier for mixing ingredients?
Yes. All 16 mixing ingredients are exclusively available at Gas Mart — either in-store at Westville or Downtown, or via $200 flat-fee delivery. Other supplier NPCs like Shirley Watts and Salvador Moreno provide drug base materials (pseudo, coca leaves), not mixing components.

Which Peddler-tier ingredient should I unlock first?
The unlock order is sequential — Energy Drink (Peddler I), Motor Oil (Peddler II), Mega Bean (Peddler III) — you can’t skip ranks. Energy Drink and Motor Oil are useful additions while you grind toward the Mega Bean milestone. Don’t stop at Peddler I thinking Energy Drink is the tier payoff; keep pushing.

Does adding more of the same ingredient increase the effect?
No. Each unique effect contributes once to sell price. Adding two Cukes gives you one Energizing effect, not two. Stacking the same ingredient is a waste of mixing slots — always use unique ingredients to maximise the number of distinct effects in your product.

What’s the best recipe before reaching Peddler III?
OG Kush + Viagra + Cuke at $8 total ingredient cost is the most efficient three-ingredient early recipe. Once you hit Peddler III, adding Mega Bean ($7) for a $15 total pushes sell price to approximately $100 and becomes the standard weed formula.

When is Gasoline actually worth buying?
Only when you’re building the Zombifying chain: Gasoline + Cuke + Battery, in the correct mixing sequence. Outside of that specific combination and any other transformation chain that calls for it, Gasoline should be excluded from your recipe entirely.

Sources

1. Schedule 1 Mixing Guide: All Ingredient Effects — Game Rant
2. Schedule 1: All Ingredients and Effects — Complete Mixing Database (2026 UPDATED) — Steam Community (steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3648818766)
3. Schedule 1 Best Lab Mixes: All Ingredients, Prices and Mix Level Requirements — BisectHosting
4. Cost-effective mixes vs highest-selling discussion — Steam Community Discussions (steamcommunity.com/app/3164500/discussions/1/599648768444365993/)
5. Schedule 1: All Ranks And What They Unlock — TheGamer

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.