In The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies, just about anything can become a business! Your Sims can charge entry fees with a ticket kiosk to run a park, gym, or art gallery, run a service-based business like a bar or tattoo parlor, or sell crafted objects using Retail Surfaces.
To open a Small Business:
To open a Small Business using the phone:
To open a Small Business using a computer:
You’ll pay some Simoleons to register your business, and a menu will pop up with customizable options for your Small Business. Here you can:
In this menu, you can choose to run the business from home or from a Small Business Lot elsewhere. You’ll need to buy a Small Business Lot first for this option to become available under Business Lot Assignment.
Choose what type of Sim you want as your customer base. Select specific ages, Traits, interests, and even Sims with a specific relationship status.
You can set the criteria to be either required or preferred. Selecting Required means that all customers must meet at least one of the criteria you selected. If you choose this and have multiple customer criteria selected, it’ll limit the pool of customers available.
For example, if the required criteria for your target customers are Teen Sims with the Bookworm Trait, it’ll reduce the pool of Sims who can visit your business. If the pool of Sims is too small, you’ll get a pop-up notification telling you your customer criteria is too strict.
Full list of criteria options for customers:
Business Activities encourage certain actions when Sims visit your Small Business. You can choose up to five Business Activities, and there’s lots of cross-Pack compatibility.
To run a retail business, choose the Browse and Buy Items option from the list of Business Activities. If these Items are placed on Retail Surfaces, they’ll automatically be up for sale and Sims can still buy them even without this option selected.
To find Retail Surfaces:
Business Presets can help you get started with running a Small Business in The Sims 4. Choosing a preset skips the steps of selecting Business Activities and Target Customers. Each preset has these pre-selected to match certain business types. These can be customized and saved as a custom preset.
Available presets:
Note: There are presets for each different Lot type across Packs. For example, if you own The Sims 4 Get Together Expansion Pack, a Cafe Lot type will have preset Business Activities.
The ticket kiosk gives your Sim the freedom to run a wide variety of businesses without the need to sell a product. Have your Sim or their employees tend service-based objects like the tattoo table or bar so that customers can buy these services. You’ll find the ticket kiosk in Build Mode under Appliances.
There are three options for charging Sims:
The Entrance Fee is pre-set by the game and will depend on how successful your business is. The more Renown your business has, the higher this Entrance Fee will be.
You can change the markup on your Entrance Fee by selecting the ticket kiosk and choosing Price Modifier. You can increase the Entrance Fee by:
Adjusting the Price Modifier will also raise or lower the price of goods or services your Sim sells.
In The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies, you can run your Small Business from:
Buy a Business Venue Lot using the phone or computer. To buy a Business Venue Lot using the Owned Businesses tab, you must have registered a Small Business first.
You can buy a Business Venue Lot furnished or unfurnished, and these Lots are fully customizable in Build Mode.
Anyone in a Household can open their business on a Lot, but only one business may be open at a time.
Areas on the Lot can be zoned for different uses. In Build Mode, rooms will appear with outlines around them. Select the area or room you want to zone and choose between these three categories:
Note: The Residential option is only available on Small Business Residential Lots.
Your Small Business can have a maximum of 3 employees, not including the owner. You can hire:
Members of your Household who don’t own the business and aren’t employees can still be directed to complete business tasks.
To hire a Sim:
Or, you can ask them directly by selecting the Hire for [business name] interaction.
To fire an employee:
You can also fire a Sim directly by selecting the Fire from [business name] interaction. Be warned, when you fire an employee, your Sim’s relationship with them will take a hit.
Employees get paid by the hour, and you can set their pay rate to low, medium, or high. Employees can have different pay rates, and their pay rate impacts their satisfaction level. For example:
To manage employee pay:
If an employee’s relationship with a business owner is low for too long, they’ll quit.
You can set up to five tasks for each employee, which they’ll autonomously work on when they arrive for their shift.
To set tasks for employees:
Building business Renown earns Perk Points for your Sim. You can build business Renown through customer satisfaction, which impacts the success and growth of your business.
Spend these Perk Points on Small Business Perks, which are divided into three categories: Neutral, Dreamer, or Schemer. You can choose Perks from any category, or focus on one to align your business future with. This Alignment affects interactions with customers and even some of your Sim’s personal relationships.
When you close your business, you’ll get an end-of-day summary outlining areas of excellence and areas of improvement.
