The new Sims 4 Businesses and Hobbies Expansion Pack was released earlier this month. In the first week, I spent over thirty hours exploring the game mechanics and discovering all the new content. This experience led me to wonder which type of business would be the most profitable. Consequently, I created five distinct types of businesses and tested each one to help you maximize your experience with this pack.
The Profit Experiment
I designed an experiment to determine which type of business is the most profitable. This experiment uses the new Business and Hobbies Expansion Pack to generate income. The expansion offers various ways to charge customers, including door, service, and retail charges. Door charges can be either one-time fees or hourly rates. Service charges can include a variety of offerings, such as massages, lectures, or even tattoos. For our trial, we categorized the businesses into five types: hourly door charge, retail charge only, service by tattoo, service by lecture, and one-time entrance charge.
It’s Sudsy Time – Laundry Mat
Business #1 – Laundry Mat
Pay Method – Hourly Charge
Business Activities – Do Laundry, Watch TV, Eat Popcorn, Eat Food, & Read
Business Opened – 46 Hrs
Total Profit – 3,878
Level of Difficulty – 2/5
In our hourly-charged business, I established a laundromat. I quickly realized that I needed to offer multiple activities to keep customers engaged for several hours. Therefore, this laundromat includes options for reading, watching TV, eating, and doing laundry. I considered what activities customers typically bring with them to a laundromat and determined that reading or watching TV would be popular options. Additionally, providing food and beverages was essential to keeping customers at the laundromat for longer.
Besides the cleaning responsibilities, which could theoretically be handled by hiring a maid, the laundromat, called “It’s Sudsy Time,” is designed for an AFK (Away From Keyboard) business model. The primary tasks involve picking up laundry piles, plates, and books.
Kendall’s Kandies – Candy Shop
Business #2 – Candy Store
Pay Method – Retail Profit
Business Activities – Buy Retail Items (Candy).
Business Opened – 46 Hours
Total Profit – 2389
Level of Difficulty – 5/5
Of all the businesses I created, I initially thought a simple retail shop would be the easiest to manage. I was mistaken—very mistaken. With only one employee and one Sim in the household, it’s crucial to have your stock ready before opening. If you want to operate for extended hours, you must continuously produce candy to keep your inventory stocked while balancing your needs and welcoming customers. All of this effort is for just a mere 2,389 Simoleons—no, thank you.
As cute and fun as the idea seemed, running the shop was a lot of work. After investing 46 hours, I felt the time spent did not equate to the profit gained. There are clearly some imbalances in the retail aspect of the game, and in the Sims economy, if I could sell items directly from my inventory, I bet Kendall would be making much more profit!
Fenrir’s Tattoos – Tattoo Studio
Business #3 – Tattoo Shop
Pay Method – Service Profit
Business Activities – Get Tattoos, Dance, Listen to Music, Have Drinks, Business Opened – 46 Hours
Total Profit – 8,658
Level of Difficulty – 3/5
During my first playthrough with my tattoo artist and business owner, who had maxed out his skills and charged for consultations, he and his spouse earned over $47,000. However, this wasn’t the case when starting with no skills. I found it much more challenging to offer tattoos; I often had to rely on Sims requesting tattoos instead of initiating them myself. Additionally, I couldn’t mentor anyone.
Once I improved my skills, the money started to flow in. The key takeaway is that higher skill levels lead to higher profits with any service or skill-related business activities. Despite the challenges, the time was enjoyable, especially because I gave every Sim the same design I had tattooed, which I like to call the “Tattoo of the Day!”
Starlight Cinema – Movie Theater
Business #4 – Movie Theater
Pay Method – 1x Entrance Fee
Business Activities –
Business Opened – 46 Hours
Total Profit – 4,748
Level of Difficulty – 1/5
This was by far the easiest business to set up and operate during this experiment. I established a large screening room, provided restrooms, and set up two popcorn stations with refrigerators for drinks. The business owner simply interacted with the Sims enjoyed popcorn and watched movies with her customers. It’s easy to imagine how we could enhance this by adding acting classes or additional services for real profit. It required very little effort; most Sims cleaned up after themselves, which was a pleasant surprise.
This is definitely my idea of making a hobby into a business. I did not expect movie theaters to be creatable in the Businesses and Hobbies, but I love this idea.
Brad’s Academy of Design – Art School
Business # 5 – Art School
Pay Method – Lecture/Lessons Profit
Business Activities –
Business Opened – 46 Hours
Total Profit – 12,098
Level of Difficulty – 4/5
For my final test, I wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of the mentoring, classes, and lectures. I believe that combining skills with an initial investment is key to earning a lot of Simoleons. Of course, having sufficiently high skills to teach and mentor is important, so I chose a household with strong arts skills.
Running this type of business was a lot of fun. After each painting class, I sold all of the students’ artwork to collectors, which provided a nice boost to my funds—*insert evil laughter* This business model keeps you busy, as the classes involve specific tasks similar to other in-game events, which help increase your success level. It was challenging and required a lot of activity, but I achieved gold in three of the four classes I ran, with one earning a silver achievement. I think that’s pretty impressive for my first attempt!
Conclusions
In the new Sims 4 Business and Hobbies Expansion Pack, profit primarily comes from services and classes. Tattoo studios can be extremely lucrative if you manage traffic effectively. I’ve discovered that combining different payment types—such as a door charge and service fees at the tattoo shop—I could earn over 40,000 simoleons in less than an hour of real-life time. I was actively playing the whole time, focusing on creating cow plant tattoos, and it was an enjoyable experience. The Fenrir family made a significant amount of simoleons.
The Sims 4 Business and Hobbies Expansion Pack offers many creative opportunities, and there are numerous ways to earn money by finding better combinations. Additionally, I’ve noticed that Sims tends to stay engaged in the business longer when they watch TV. Providing services also allows for more time to attend to additional customers.
You can find our Businesses and Hobbies Expansion Pack Hub here. You can also read my initial review of what I love about businesses and hobbies HERE or Is the Sims 4 Businesses and Hobbies Expansion Pack For Me Blog HERE.
