What is Thrifty in Valorant and what it means

✓ At a glance

• Thrifty is the end-of-round announcement in Valorant when you win over a team with a superior economy advantage.
• Your team needs to have around 2500 fewer credits under the enemy’s loadout to qualify for Thrifty.
• Picking up enemy guns won’t impact your ability to get Thrifty.

Valorant shares many common phrases with other FPS games. Terms like retake, rotation, plant/defuse, full-buy, and others can easily be applied to most modern team shooters. Still, there are some terms that you hear when a round ends, like Flawless, Team Ace, Ace, and lastly, Thrifty. While most of them are self-explanatory, the term Thrifty can often confuse newcomers. 

What does Thrifty mean in Valorant?

If you win a round of Valorant while using a team loadout that’s much cheaper than your opponents, your team will get the Thrifty commendation at the end of the round. This will most commonly happen when your team opts for an eco or low half-buy round, while matched against enemies with a full buy.

As it normally stands, it is expected that your opponents will win the round based on a better economy. Better, deadlier guns mean getting easier frags, right? But if your team plays strategically and uses clever positioning, it’s possible to overwhelm or outplay your opponents and snatch their guns. This can snowball the round in your favour. 

How to get Thrifty?

To get the announcer to proclaim your round win as Thrifty, your team needs to use low-cost loadouts at the start of the round. The key metric is that you need to have spent around 2500 credits less than your opponents, all combined. That means using a selection of cheap but effective guns, like:

• Sheriff (costs 800 credits)
• Marshal (costs 950 credits)
• Stinger (costs 1100 credits)
• Spectre (costs 1600 credits)
• Bucky (costs 850 credits)
• Judge (costs 1850 credits)
• Bulldog (careful with this one, as it costs 2050 credits)
• Ares (costs 1600 credits)

✓ Pro tip

If you’re going to buy weapons like Bulldog, Ares, Judge, and even Spectre, try to limit them to around 1-2 per team, while the others get even cheaper loadouts. Then, aim to get kills and trade up with enemy weapons.

Beyond that, opt for either half-armour or no armour at all. Also, keep in mind that your abilities factor into the cost, but are usually too important to leave out. Don’t skimp on getting your Agent abilities.

Position your team at odd angles and close corners, trying to get one-tap kills and ambushes. When your better-equipped opponents drop, you can pick up their premium guns off the ground and use them to win the round. Best of all – using their guns won’t influence getting the Thrifty announcement.