Why your CS2 inventory has three different values

Market reportFor sellersData from October 25, 2026

6 min read

On October 25, 2026, the same 16-item CS2 inventory was worth $773.68 at Steam's lowest listings and $567.74 at the cheapest cash-market listings, a 36.3% gap. Neither number is wrong. Steam prices are paid in wallet money, and a Steam dollar bought about 70 cents of skins on cash markets.

Value of the same 16-item CS2 inventory, October 25, 2026

Steam listing$773.68

Steam instant$714.67

Skinport$622.48

Typical market$603.49

Buff.163$581.96

CSFloat$574.04

Cheapest$567.74

Buff.163 is China-focused and shown for context. Fees are not included.

On this page

One inventory
Steam dollars
Selling on Steam
Which source
Expensive knives
Four steps
What checkers miss
Checking safely
How we measured
Questions

One inventory, seven honest totals

We built a sample inventory of 16 popular items: nine guns, a knife, an agent and five cases. Then we priced it the way different inventory checkers do, from Steam, from single marketplaces and from the cheapest listing anywhere.

The spread between the top and bottom total is $205.94. Even among cash markets it moves: using the typical price instead of the cheapest adds 6.3%, and picking the highest listing on every item adds 15.8%. So when two checkers disagree, ask which prices they read before you ask which one is right.

Steam prices are in wallet dollars, worth about 70 cents

Steam is the outlier, and it is high on purpose. Money from a Steam Market sale goes into your Steam Wallet and cannot be withdrawn, so sellers ask more there. Across 13,717 items listed on Steam, a typical item cost 42.9% more than on the cheapest cash market.

Turn that around and you get a simple exchange rate. A dollar of Steam value bought about 70 cents of the same items on cash markets. The rate is worst on items under $1, where cases and cheap skins sit.

Cash-market price per $1 of Steam price, typical item

Under $163¢

$1 to $1073¢

$10 to $10074¢

$100 to $1,00068¢

Over $1,000 is left out: only 16 items had a usable Steam price.

Bars are on a 0 to 100 cent scale. Item counts: Under $1 4,081, $1 to $10 3,860, $10 to $100 3,862, $100 to $1,000 1,898.

Selling on Steam right now pays 12% less than the listing

The Steam number most checkers show is the lowest listing, which is what you would pay to buy, not what you get to sell. To sell instantly you fill the highest buy order, and that was typically 12% below the lowest listing. On our sample inventory it is the difference between $773.68 and $714.67.

Even so, the instant-sale price beat the cheapest cash listing on 90.6% of items, by 24.4% in a typical case. That is not free money. It is paid in Steam Wallet funds, so it only wins if you were going to spend on Steam anyway.

CSFloat and Buff.163 sit closest to the cash price

Checkers that use a single marketplace land between the two extremes. CSFloat prices were typically 5% above the cheapest market, Buff.163 7.8%, Skinport 12.1%. That is why a Buff-based total usually comes out well below a Steam-based one for the same inventory.

Typical gap above the cheapest cash-market price

CSFloat+5.0%

Buff.163+7.8%

Skinport+12.1%

Steam+42.9%

No single source is the true value. A cheap listing on one market tells you what you could buy for, and the typical price across markets is a fairer guess at what a buyer will pay you. Our comparison of which market is cheapest shows how much that varies by price range.

Steam cannot price most expensive knives

Steam caps how high a listing can go. The highest Steam listing among the items we compared was $1,799.55, and only 25 of the 490 items worth over $1,000 had a Steam listing at all.

Take a Karambit Fade (Factory New): no Steam listing, but 17 cash markets, from $1,494.03 on Lis-skins with a typical price of $1,564.46. A checker that only reads Steam either skips it or prices it far too low, which can hide most of an inventory's value.

How to value your inventory in four steps

01
Make your inventory public
In Steam, open your profile, then Edit Profile, Privacy Settings, and set Inventory to Public. No checker can read a private inventory, and none needs your login to read a public one.
02
Decide what the number is for
If you want cash, use cash-market prices: the cheapest or typical price across third-party markets. If you will spend the money on Steam anyway, the Steam instant-sale price is the honest one.
03
Run the inventory through a checker
Paste your profile URL, SteamID64 or vanity name into an inventory value checker and note which price source it uses. A Steam-based total and a cash-market total for the same items can be a third apart.
04
Check the fees where you would sell
Listings are what buyers pay, not what you receive. Before you count the money, subtract the seller fee and any withdrawal fee of the market you plan to use.

Our inventory value checker does step three at CSFloat prices, typically 5% above the cheapest market, and uses Steam only when CSFloat has no price. Every item links to its price on every market.

What no inventory checker sees

Every total, ours included, is an estimate. Four things move the real number that a checker cannot see.

Float, pattern and stickers. Checkers price every Field-Tested AK-47 Redline the same. A low float, a rare pattern or an expensive applied sticker can add a lot that no total shows.
Fees. Every market keeps a cut of the sale, and some charge to withdraw. Our marketplace pages list each one.
Listings are not sales. A listing is what one seller asks today. On a thinly traded item, the price you actually get can be well below it.
Trade holds. Recently traded or bought items can be locked for a while, so the value is real but you cannot sell it yet.

Checking your value should never cost you your account

Check your own inventory

Paste a Steam profile URL. No login, live CSFloat prices for every item.

Check inventory value

How we measured this

One snapshot of our price data, taken on October 25, 2026 around 10:44 UTC.
We used the lowest listed price on each market, in USD, for listings that were in stock. Seller fees, buyer fees and withdrawal fees are not included.
Cash-market prices come from 18 international markets: avan.market, Buff.Market, cs.money, CSFloat, DMarket, HaloSkins, Lis-skins, Market.CSGO, ShadowPay, SIH.app, SkinBaron, SKINFLOW, SkinOut, Skinport, SKINS, UUSkins, Waxpeer and White.Market. Steam and Buff.163 were compared against them, not included in them.
"Instant sale" on Steam is the highest buy order, before the Steam fee. Steam had a buy order for 13,115 of the items we compared.
We covered skins, knives, gloves, cases, agents and charms. An item needed prices on at least four markets to count, which left 17,091 items. A price less than half the item's median across markets was treated as bad data and ignored.
The sample inventory holds one of each of the 16 items in the table. It is a mix of popular items, not a real player's inventory.

Questions

How do I check my CS2 inventory value?

Set your Steam inventory to public, then paste your profile URL or SteamID64 into an inventory value checker. Check which price source the tool uses: on October 25, 2026, the same 16 items were worth $773.68 at Steam prices and $567.74 at the cheapest cash-market prices. No checker needs your Steam login.

Why is my inventory worth less on Buff than on Steam?

Steam prices are paid in Steam Wallet money, which cannot be withdrawn, so sellers ask more there. A typical item listed on Steam cost 42.9% more than on the cheapest cash market in our October 2026 check, while Buff.163 was only 7.8% above it. Buff is closer to what your items are worth in cash.

Is my Steam inventory value real money?

Only partly. It is what your items would fetch on the Steam Market, paid into your Steam Wallet. In our October 2026 data, one Steam dollar bought about 70 cents of the same items on cash markets, so a $100 Steam value is closer to $70 in cash, before fees.

Why does my inventory checker show no price for my knife?

Steam caps how high a listing can go, so most expensive knives and gloves are never listed there. Only 25 of 490 items worth over $1,000 had a Steam listing on October 25, 2026. A checker that only reads Steam prices leaves those items out or undervalues them.

Does float change my inventory value?

It can, a lot, but inventory checkers do not see it. They price every item by its wear tier, such as Field-Tested, so a low float, a rare pattern or applied stickers are not in the total. Check those items one by one on their item page.

Keep reading

How to sell CS2 skins

Turning that inventory value into money: fees, payouts and where you keep the most.

Cheapest place to buy CS2 skins

Which marketplace had the lowest price most often, by price range.

CS2 skin investment guide

Tracking what your inventory is worth over time, and what tends to hold value.