The best customers to give your dealers in Schedule I are your lower-spending and out-of-the-way ones, not your biggest buyers. A dealer takes a cut of every sale and makes the deal choices you would otherwise make yourself, so your highest spenders earn you the most when you serve them in person while dealers soak up the volume you have no time for. Below we cover how dealers work on the current build, how to rank your customers using the in-game apps, when to break the rule, and what changed in the updates since spring 2025.
How Dealers Work on the Current Build
Dealers are hired contacts who hold your product and complete deals with the customers you assign them. The mechanics that matter for choosing customers, verified against the official patch notes on Steam:
- Up to 10 customers per dealer. The v0.4.3 Storage Closets update (February 2026) raised the limit from 8 to 10.
- Two deals per deal window. The same update cut dealers from booking 3 deals per window to 2, so a dealer’s throughput is capped by time as well as by customer count.
- The dealer picks the product. When you sell in person you choose what to offer, how much and at what price. A dealer makes those calls for you. v0.4.3 improved the logic dealers use to choose products for a customer, and dealers now reserve stock for deals they have already accepted.
- Dealers take a cut. Community documentation and early player reports put it at 20 percent of each sale.
Community documentation lists one dealer per region of Hyland Point, and a dealer can only serve customers you have already unlocked. Recommendations from customers and suppliers are how you meet new dealers, so your network grows as you expand into new regions.
How to Rank Your Customers
This used to be guesswork. Since v0.4.3 the game shows you the numbers you need:
- The contacts app now lists each customer’s most ordered products and weekly spend.
- The dealer management app was redesigned to show each customer’s region and standards (the product quality they expect), and it uses a dropdown to switch between dealers.
Sort your customers by weekly spend. The top tier, the people who spend the most every week, are the ones to keep for yourself. The bottom two-thirds or so are dealer material, because a cut taken from a small order costs you little, and handing them over frees your day for the high spenders and for production.
Then check standards. A customer with high standards who receives lower-quality product is harder to satisfy, and dealers sell what they are holding. v0.4.3 added the option to make up for inadequate quality with extra quantity, but that costs you product. Assign demanding customers to a dealer only if you can keep that dealer stocked with product that meets their standards.
When to Break the Rule
Two situations justify handing a big spender to a dealer:
- Distance. A high spender in a region you rarely visit earns you nothing if you never make the trip. A sale minus the dealer’s cut beats no sale.
- Time. Once your production outruns your ability to deliver, throughput matters more than margin per unit.
Both come down to the same judgement: most of a sale beats a sale you never made.
What Changed Since 2025
The dealer system has been reworked several times since Schedule I hit early access in March 2025:
- v0.4.0 Rival Cartel (August 2025) added the Benzies family. Per the patch notes they can rob your dealers and make deals with your customers, and a deal is cancelled if its assigned dealer is dead or unconscious. Customers now carry the cash for an upcoming deal. If you attack a customer, they will not order from you for 72 hours.
- v0.4.2 Shrooms (December 2025) added four new customers (Irene Meadows in Uptown, Kelly Reynolds and Sherman Giles in the Docks, and Bruce Norton in Downtown) and shifted a few existing customers’ preferences toward shrooms. Older customer counts you see quoted online predate this.
- v0.4.3 Storage Closets (February 2026) made the dealer changes above: 10 customers, 2 deals per window, faster dealers who sprint when late, and notifications when a rival dealer is trying to make a deal.
- v0.4.7 (open beta, September 2026) adds special customer groups: Hippies, Party Bus, Businessmen and Bikers. Developer Tyler described them as travelling groups that buy one or two preferred drug types in bulk when they are in town, “a fast method of offloading bulk quantities of product, albeit at a slightly lower profit margin.” They are on the beta branch for now, so treat them as a coming option rather than part of the default game.
Tips Most Players Miss
- Fill dealers to capacity. A dealer holding four customers takes the same restocking trips as one holding ten.
- Group by region. The dealer app shows each customer’s region, so match customers to the dealer who covers them.
- Stock what the customers order. The contacts app shows each customer’s most ordered products, so keep each dealer holding what their list actually buys.
What your dealers sell matters as much as who they sell to. Cheap, reliable mixes like Grandaddy Stink keep volume moving, while conversions such as the Schizophrenic effect take more steps. If you are expanding into cocaine, see how to unlock coca seeds, and our full Schedule 1 guides cover the rest of the supply chain.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many customers can one dealer handle in Schedule 1? Ten, since the v0.4.3 update in February 2026. It was 8 before that.
What cut do dealers take? Community documentation and player reports put it at 20 percent of each sale. It has not appeared in any official patch note.
Should I give my best customers to dealers? Generally no. Keep your highest weekly spenders for yourself and give dealers the smaller and more distant customers, unless you no longer have time to serve everyone.
How do I see how much a customer spends? Open the contacts app. Since v0.4.3 it shows each customer’s weekly spend and most ordered products.
Can the rival cartel hurt my dealers? Yes. Since v0.4.0 the Benzies family can rob your dealers, and any deal assigned to a dealer who is dead or unconscious is cancelled.