If we were ever offered the chance to sell our souls, we would be pretty careful about the whole deal. We would want to know what we’d get in exchange, and we would have very detailed and careful plans about how we would use the money/flying boat/golden fiddle we were getting in exchange for being owned by the Devil.

Only, one of the major themes in soul selling is the huge discrepancy between what is promised by the dark powers, and what the human ends up with. For the sake of comparison we’ve assumed that all soul trades take place in the modern day, and you can find below some examples both ‘real’ and fictional; what was promised and what was delivered. We’ve estimated both of these in monetary terms, along with the % return, or ‘what did the soul seller actually end up with as a % of what they were offered?’

(Please note that all monetary values are approximate, and Centives is not responsible if your soul trade goes wrong. Or right. To be honest, we advise against the whole business. Too hard to graph.)

-Centives would like to thank our guest writer Gregory Maus of strategic consulting firm Maus Publicity and Consulting for getting in touch and helping with the writing of this article.

We’d also suggest checking out Greg’s thoughts on soul trading and General Moulton, or maybe take a look at how long resources would last in the zombie apocalypse. You can find this and other articles in our Editorials although for a selection of the best check out our Greatest Hits. And be sure to stay in touch: