The five traders of 7 Days to Die are the backbone of the early-to-mid game economy. They buy your loot, sell gear you cannot craft yet, and hand out quests that pour experience, Duke’s Casino Tokens, and hand-picked item rewards into your pack. In 1.0, the quest system runs on a tier ladder from Tier 1 to Tier 6, and understanding how points, tiers, and rewards interlock is the difference between scraping by and snowballing. This guide breaks down every trader, every quest type, and how the rewards scale.
Meet the Five Traders
There are five named traders, each living in a different biome and specializing in a different category of goods. You will usually meet Rekt first, because the tutorial questline points you to the nearest trader. As you grind quests for one trader, you eventually unlock a special “go visit another trader” quest that reveals the next one on the map.
| Trader | Specialty | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rekt | Food & Seeds | Usually your first trader; infamously rude |
| Jen | Medical supplies | Bandages, first aid, healing items |
| Bob | Tools & Vehicle parts | Your go-to for mobility upgrades |
| Hugh | Weapons & Ammo | Combat loadout supplier |
| Joel | Armor | Found in the Wasteland; best armor stock |
All traders share the same operating hours: their compounds are open from 04:05 to 21:50 in-game time. Outside those hours the doors seal and you are locked out (and exposed), so plan your supply runs around the clock. Trader inventory restocks every three days, and the in-game interface shows a countdown to the next restock while you are talking to them.
How the Quest Tier System Works
Trader jobs are organized into six tiers. You do not jump tiers by completing a fixed number of quests at the same level. Instead, each quest awards points equal to its tier, and you must accumulate a points threshold to unlock the next tier. The threshold for each tier is ten times the tier number.
| Tier | Points per quest | Points to advance |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 1 | 10 |
| Tier 2 | 2 | 20 |
| Tier 3 | 3 | 30 |
| Tier 4 | 4 | 40 |
| Tier 5 | 5 | 50 |
| Tier 6 | 6 | 60 |
The practical upshot is that completing roughly ten quests at a given tier advances you to the next one. You can also mix tiers: doing lower-tier quests still adds their (smaller) point value toward the next threshold. Tier progression is tracked per trader, and finishing a tier eventually unlocks the cross-trader referral quest that reveals a new trader location.
The Quest Types
- Fetch — Travel to a marked building and locate a hidden Courier Satchel containing White River Supplies, then return it to the trader.
- Clear — Travel to a POI and kill every zombie in the area. Once the building is cleared, report back.
- Fetch & Clear — A combination: find the supplies and wipe out the zombies. This type begins at Tier 2.
- Buried Supplies — Dig for a buried stash inside a dashed yellow radius on the map. Digging shrinks the radius and can spawn small groups of zombies; opening the stash spawns a larger group. Only the White River Supplies inside are required to finish.
- Restore Power — Travel to a location and restart one or more generators with an uninterrupted action. It does not need fuel, but the restart typically fails on the first attempt and draws nearby zombies. These are night-oriented jobs and appear from Tier 2 onward.
- Infested Clear — A harder Clear variant with denser zombie spawns and a higher chance of feral and radiated enemies. The loot room adds an Infested Cache containing large quantities of ammo and a Quality 6 item.
The very first job most players see is a special intro Buried Supplies quest from Rekt. Its training-wheels version hands you a Stone Shovel on accept, uses a small 3-meter dig radius, does not spawn zombies while digging, and only spawns one or two zombies when you open the food stash. Turning it in grants 500 XP and unlocks Tier 1 quests.
Rewards and How They Scale
Every completed quest pays out three things: experience, Duke’s Casino Tokens (the in-game currency), and a choice of one item out of five offered options. Both XP and Dukes scale sharply with tier — a Tier 6 job pays many times what a Tier 1 job does. For example, a Fetch quest pays roughly 2,500 XP and 100 Dukes at Tier 1 and climbs toward 20,000 XP and 3,000 Dukes at Tier 6, while Clear and Infested jobs pay even more.
Two factors govern reward quality: the quest tier and your game stage. A high-game-stage player completing a Tier 6 quest sees far better item options than a low-stage player doing a Tier 1 quest. This is why the rewards from the highest tiers feel dramatically stronger than early jobs.
The big quality-of-life lever is the Daring Adventurer perk. Each level adds 10 to your trader stage (improving the quality of quest rewards) and increases Dukes earned by 5% per level. Crucially, at level 4 it lets you pick two reward items instead of one — effectively doubling the loot value of every quest you complete. If you intend to live off trader jobs, this perk pays for itself fast. For more on how perks slot into the 1.0 progression system, see our 7 Days to Die Skills, Attributes & Perks Guide, and pair it with the Magazines Guide to learn what you can craft yourself.
A Practical Quest Routine
Stack two or three quests at the same POI cluster, clear them in one trip during daylight, and bank the loot before the trader closes at 21:50. Use the Dukes to buy whatever your loot tables are stiffing you on — ammo from Hugh, healing from Jen, a vehicle part from Bob. As you push into Tier 5 and 6, Infested Clear jobs become the fastest way to bank top-quality gear and ammo in bulk. Just be sure your weapon loadout and horde base can handle the feral and radiated spikes those quests throw at you. New players should also read up on how Loot Stage & Game Stage shapes both your finds and your reward quality.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many quests do I need to reach the next tier?
Each tier needs ten times its number in points, and each quest awards points equal to its tier. So completing about ten quests at the current tier advances you. Lower-tier quests still count, but contribute fewer points.
How often do traders restock?
Trader inventory refreshes every three days. The countdown to the next restock is shown in the trade interface while you are talking to them. Traders are open daily from 04:05 to 21:50.
Which perk improves quest rewards?
The Daring Adventurer perk. It raises your trader stage by 10 per level (better reward quality), adds 5% Dukes per level, and at level 5 lets you choose two reward items per quest instead of one.
Quests and traders are even better with a crew — running shared quest routes and tackling Infested Clears together is far smoother on a dedicated box. If you want to take the grind co-op, spin up a 7 Days to Die server to play with friends, and check the 7 Days to Die setup docs for configuration help. For more survival fundamentals, browse our Base Building Guide and Farming & Food Guide.
Ready to play?
Run your own 7 Days to Die server with XGamingServer
Spin up an always-on 7 Days to Die server your friends can join in minutes — no port-forwarding, no tech headaches.
