ARC Raiders: how to earn Coins in 2026 — value per kilo, resale, and Celeste's real exchange rate

In ARC Raiders, the problem has never been finding loot. It's deciding what goes in the bag when there's three kilos of space left, the Bombardier is circling overhead, and extraction is two hundred meters away. Carrying capacity ranges from 35 to 80 kg depending on the equipped upgrade (arcraiders.wiki): every kilo taken up by a mediocre item is a kilo that won't earn anything once you're back at Speranza.

Two figures are enough to settle almost every trade-off. The first is value per kilo: a Turbine Compressor earns 10,000 Coins per kilo carried, a Fabric earns 500. Twenty times less, for the same space on your back. The second is Celeste's exchange rate, the only merchant in Speranza who doesn't deal in Coins: every Seed Blend spent with her buys exactly 50 Coins' worth of market value, while the same seed sells for 100 Coins. A ratio of one to two, rigorously constant across her entire stock.

This guide starts from these two constants, tracked item by item using ARCTracker's FR database, to establish what's worth picking up, what's worth offloading, and what's worth keeping in reserve — especially eight days out from the 1.42 update on August 18, which will open the second part of the Phantom Targets project.

Value per kilo, the only calculation that matters when the bag is full

As long as the bag is empty, everything is worth picking up. Once it's three-quarters full, you have to make trade-offs, and those trade-offs come down to the value-to-weight ratio, not the displayed rarity. Here are the benchmarks drawn from ARCTracker's item sheets (resale value and weight recorded on August 10, 2026):

The takeaway is brutal: the basic materials you scoop up by the dozen in houses, Fabric and Metal Parts, are the worst items in the game per kilo. They're only worth carrying if the workshop specifically calls for them at that moment. A 50 kg bag filled with Fabric earns 25,000 Coins; the same bag filled with Turbine Compressors earns 500,000.

Second lesson, less obvious: Seed Blend holds its own against epic items. At 0.05 kg per unit and 100 Coins each, it climbs to 2,000 Coins per kilo and stacks up to 100. A full stack weighs 5 kg for 10,000 Coins and takes up only a single inventory slot. No other consumable offers this density, which makes the next trade-off decisive.

Celeste: the only barter merchant, and the conversion trap

Celeste doesn't sell anything for Coins. She trades her materials for Seed Blend, with restocks every 24 hours and a purchase limit per row. Cross-referencing her prices with the resale value of the items in question, the rate becomes immediately clear:

Seven rows, one and the same ratio: one seed buys 50 Coins of market value. Since a seed sells for 100 Coins to other merchants, any conversion at Celeste's halves your liquid wealth. That's not a reason to never trade — it's a reason to only trade for what you actually need.

Concretely, the rule boils down to three points. Never buy Fabric or common materials from Celeste: they rain down on every map and the conversion is a pure loss. On the other hand, buy without hesitation the Exodus Module and the Complex Weapon Parts, capped at one unit per day, because farming them for real costs far more than a handful of seeds: they're the bottlenecks of advanced weapon recipes and Expedition tiers. In between, Magnets, Batteries, Steel Springs and Processors are worth picking up when the workshop or the caravan calls for them, not out of reflex.

The daily cap of one unit on the two epic items has a practical consequence: Celeste is worth visiting every day, even without running a raid. Twenty-four hours without stopping by means one Exodus Module and one batch of Complex Weapon Parts lost, or 5,750 Coins of value that won't come back. Over the span of an Expedition window, the gap becomes considerable.

Who buys what at Speranza

The rest of the hideout runs on Coins, with a strict division of stalls. Selling to the right contact doesn't change the price, but accepting their contracts unlocks their advanced stock: that's where progression really happens.

• Tian Wen — weapons, ammunition and weapon mods. This is where you get run refills and barrel, magazine and stock mods.
• Lance — heals, shields and augments. His stall is a good illustration of merchant markups: the Light Shield sells for 640 Coins and costs 1,920 to buy from him, three times its buyback price.
• Apollo — gadgets, grenades, mines and field utilities.
• Shani — Speranza's security. She carries the Binoculars and, above all, the Raider Hatch Key, limited to two per daily restock: the one row in the hideout you should always grab, because a failed extraction costs you the whole bag.
• Celeste — materials, via seed barter, plus Expedition coordination and a long chain of seasonal quests.
• Ermal — the nomadic emissary, reserved for level 25 and above. See below.

The general lesson from the "Light Shield" line applies to the entire shelter: buying costs about three times what selling brings in. An item that can be crafted or scavenged shouldn't be bought, except in an emergency before a decisive run. Coins are meant to cover consumables and fill gaps, not to gear up.

Selling, recycling, or keeping: the rule of three piles

When you come back from a raid, every item falls into one of three categories, and hesitating costs stash slots.

To sell without hesitation: surplus common materials once the workshop stations are fed, decorative and collectible items with no quest use, and any low-rarity weapons no longer in use. Coins are never lost on death, unlike what you're carrying.

To recycle: mid-rarity items whose components are worth more than the resale line, especially anything that gives back ARC Alloy and electrical components. Recycling turns a cumbersome item into raw material useful for the workshop; it's the right instinct when the stash is saturated.

To absolutely keep: ARC parts from the big machines. They serve as trade currency with Ermal, raw material for the workshop, and a milestone for community projects. Update 1.42, scheduled for August 18, 2026, opens the second part of the Phantom Targets project; the first part already had its damage thresholds go through Pop Triggers, Wasp Pilots, and Leaper Pulse Units. Dumping this stock this week would be a very bad idea.

One last habit, too often overlooked: the augmentation's secure pockets. Their contents survive death. They should therefore always hold the items with the best value-to-weight ratio in the bag — a Turbine Compressor, a stack of Seed Mix, an Exodus Module — and never ammo or healing items.

Ermal: end-game bartering

Arriving in May 2026 with update 1.29.0, Ermal, the Nomadic Envoy (a term left in English by the game), sets up in Speranza's trader area and only unlocks at level 25. He takes neither Coins nor Seeds: he runs on pure bartering, in exchange for valuable ARC components and rare weapons, whose mods are removed before the trade.

Two services remain available at all times, and they're the reason to level up to him: stash expansion, in increments of twelve slots, and the Expedition vault, which lets you put up to five items safely away before setting off on an Expedition — the only way to carry a rare blueprint over from one cycle to the next.

The rest of his stall — cosmetics, weapon blueprints, Raider token bundles — rotates every week. The game's rhythm is set to Tuesdays: the weekly updates dropped on July 14 (Store Update 1.37.0), July 21 (Store Update 1.38.0), July 28 (Live Update 1.39.0), and August 4 (Store Update 1.40.0). Whatever hasn't been traded before the weekly switch disappears until it possibly resurfaces in the cycle.

The plan for a profitable week

None of this requires exotic farming. A daily visit to Celeste to grab the Exodus Module and the complex Weapon Parts capped at one unit, two Raider Hatch Keys from Shani, a ruthless sort-through after every raid, and a bag sorted by value per kilo rather than by rarity color: this is the routine that separates a Raider stuck at a few tens of thousands of Coins from a Raider who's funding their caravan.

And if only one number should stick, let it be this one: a seed is worth 100 Coins sold, 50 spent at Celeste. The day you knowingly choose to lose half because you need an Exodus Module right now rather than waiting for a run to Stella Montis, that's the day you've understood the game's economy.