If you want to turn a CS2 skin into money, or swap it for a different one, you have more options than the Steam Market. They differ in three things that matter: the fee, how you get paid, and who carries the risk while the trade settles. This guide covers all three, with each marketplace's fee taken from its own page. None of the marketplaces below are SkinBetHub partners.
Ways to sell CS2 skins
- Steam Community Market. Valve's own market. Simple and safe, but the fee is high and the money stays inside Steam.
- Peer-to-peer marketplaces. Sites like Skinport, CSFloat, SkinBaron and DMarket list your item. When it sells, the item moves by Steam trade and the site releases the money to your balance, which you can withdraw.
- Trade bots and instant-sell sites. The site buys the item from you straight away at a price it quotes. Fast, but usually below what a listing would get.
- Direct trades with other players. No fee, but no one in the middle if something goes wrong.
Steam Community Market
Two fees apply to every CS2 sale: Steam's 5% transaction fee and a 10% Counter-Strike 2 fee set by the publisher. Both are added on top of what the seller receives, so the buyer pays about 1.15 times your amount and you keep about 87% of the buyer price. Our Steam Market fees guide has the exact maths.
Other Steam rules worth knowing before you list:
- Market sales go to your Steam Wallet, and Steam says those funds cannot be withdrawn to a bank or third party.
- The maximum listing price is $1,800, or the equivalent in your currency.
- You need Steam Guard enabled for 15 days and a Steam purchase older than 7 days (but not older than a year) to use the Market.
Marketplace fees compared
Fees below are the seller fees each marketplace publishes on its own pages (see the source column). Buyer-side fees, deposit fees and payment-method charges vary, so look at the full cost on the site before you list.
| Marketplace | Seller fee | Getting paid | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam Community Market | 5% Steam fee plus 10% CS2 fee, added on top of what you receive (you keep about 87% of the buyer price) | Steam Wallet only. Funds cannot be withdrawn to a bank. | Steam Support |
| Skinport | 8%. Items over €1,000: 6%. Private sales: 2%. | Check payout methods and limits on the site. | Skinport blog, July 2025 |
| SkinBaron | 15%. CS2 items at €999 or more: 2%. Private offers: half the usual fee. | SkinBaron lists a public code that cuts the standard fee to 8%. | SkinBaron |
| CSFloat | 2% sale fee | 0.5% to 2.5% withdrawal fee, lower as your total sales grow. No fee if you spend the balance on skins. | CSFloat blog |
| DMarket | 2% on liquid CS2 items, up to 10% on low-priced or low-liquidity items | DMarket says it adds no fee of its own on cash-outs; the payment method rate shows at withdrawal. | DMarket blog |
Fee changes happen. Skinport, for example, cut its standard seller fee from 12% to 8% in July 2025. Recheck the source before a large sale.
What you keep on a sale
Here is what each fee leaves you from a sale at 100 (dollars or euros, depending on the site), using the standard rates above:
| Where you sell | You keep | Working |
|---|---|---|
| Steam Community Market | 86.96 (Steam Wallet) | 100 ÷ 1.15 |
| Skinport | 92.00 | 100 × 0.92 |
| SkinBaron (no code) | 85.00 | 100 × 0.85 |
| CSFloat, then withdraw at 2.5% | 95.55 | 100 × 0.98 × 0.975 |
| DMarket (liquid item) | 98.00 before payment method fees | 100 × 0.98 |
The fee is only half of the picture. The same skin often sells for different prices on different markets, and Steam prices are often higher, partly because Steam Wallet money cannot leave Steam. Compare the price you can actually sell at, minus the fee, minus any withdrawal cost. A lower fee on a market where the item sells for less can leave you with less.
Trade bots and instant sell
Instant-sell sites and trade bots quote a price, you accept a Steam trade offer, and the balance is credited straight away. You pay for that speed in the price: the quote is set below where the site expects to resell the item. Before you accept, check the quote against the current listing price on a marketplace minus its fee.
Trade bots that swap one skin for another work the same way. The site values your item and the item you want, and the gap between those valuations is its margin. Check both values against a marketplace price.
Trade protection and holds
Since July 2025, CS2 items received in a trade are Trade Protected for 7 days. According to Steam Support:
- The items arrive immediately and you can equip and play with them.
- For 7 days they cannot be consumed, modified or transferred, including into a Storage Unit.
- Either side can reverse trades containing protected items from the last 7 days. All such trades are reversed together, and the account that reverses gets a 30-day trade and Market cooldown.
- Steam says CS2 items are not subject to trade holds or trade escrow; they move immediately because of Trade Protection.
For sellers this matters because a buyer could, in theory, reverse a trade after you have been paid. Marketplaces handle this in their own way, for example by holding the payment until the protection window ends. Read the site's rules on trade reversals before you sell anything valuable, and know who carries the risk.
Staying safe
- Only log in to Steam on steamcommunity.com or store.steampowered.com. Fake Steam login pages are a common way skins get stolen.
- Never share Steam Guard codes, and check every trade offer on the Steam mobile app before you confirm it.
- Check that nobody you do not recognise has a Steam Web API key on your account, since scammers have used them to intercept trade offers.
- Compare the buyer's name and Steam level in the trade offer with what the marketplace shows.
- Prefer markets that publish their fees, their company details and a support contact.
Prices for rare items can move a lot, but we do not treat skins as an investment. Fees take 2% to 15% every time you sell, and past price moves say nothing reliable about future ones. If you are working out whether a trade-up is worth it, the TradeUpLab guide shows how to check inputs against outputs, and our list of the most expensive CS skins covers the top end of the market.