CSGO Trading Guide 2021

2020-01-13

Ever wondered how to boost your CS:GO profits and make more money by playing your favorite game? Well, congratulations, because you have stumbled across the best CS:GO trading guide that will help you sharpen your abilities and make a lot of money. You probably often wonder how some players manage to earn a hefty amount of money in a short amount of time. Well, don’t be surprised, but this is not rocket science. 

This guide will help you to balance the effort and skills required for boosting your trading knowledge, which will later be used for maximizing your profit. Enough introductions, let’s start! 

Identifying the market

The best way to evaluate the overall CSGO economy is to dig deeper into Steam Community Market and CSGO Marketplace. As you may already understand, these platforms are mostly flooded by third-party sellers, so naturally, identifying for what price players are willing to sell or buy some specific items can be the best factor while deciding its precise market value. 

You should be aware of many factors that can make an influence on some specific skin market value, however, irrespectively of what some blogs, players or developers might say to you, the most important of them all is item’s rarity. Similar to any other products on the market, or even other games functionality, the rarer the item is – the bigger is its price. Well, at least the potential price is hugely affected by this. Economics for beginners. 

You may have heard different opinions on how CSGO weapon skins price is valuated. Some hardcore traders claim that it depends on the average amount of cases you have to open to drop that specific skin. If that is indeed the case, calculations are quite simple. You should take the cost of acquiring those cases, add the cost of all keys and you should come up with the average weapon evaluation. However, such calculations could not be taken for granted, because each one of those cases should be evaluated separately. Also, there is another unique factor that should be considered while analyzing CSGO Marketplace. You should always wait at least two or more weeks after a new collection of skips is dropped, as it is usually a minimum amount of time required for the prices to become indicative. 

CSGO market for beginners

CSGO Steam Market is one of the main aspects of the overall CSGO economy. You may be amazed how easy it is to use, however, a certain amount of rules be taken into consideration if you want to make full use of it. If you are a newcomer to the market, you should first meet the minimum requirements that would allow you not just observe market tendencies, but sell and buy various items from the CSGO marketplace or you can buy or sell CSGO skins in other marketplaces. GameZod have you covered here and you can check our listing where to Buy or Sell CSGO Skins.

To avoid fishy accounts, that could make a negative impact on market tendencies, developers have created a long list of requirements for those who want to participate in the ever-changing CSGO market. In may not come as a surprise that you should already have bought some games for at least five dollars in Steam and also, your Steam account must be older than at least 30 days. Steam Guard system is also a must-have. Additionally, you will also need to download a Steam application. This is required for either approving various transactions between two accounts, or logging in to your Steam account. 

If you have managed to meet all the requirements – congratulations, you are now eligible to sell and buy tons of items and skins through the CSGO marketplace. Steam application is extremely handy and easy to navigate. It allows you to check many different aspects of your account, including your market history and most importantly, see your listings and available balance. Another handy functionality is mostly used by players, who are short on funds but want to find some particular CSGO skin. More specifically, we are talking about buy orders. This allows you to check the item’s price without you buying it. Cool usability for those who want to calculate how much they need to earn before buying some long-awaited skin. What makes this usability extra handy, is that anyone who decides to fulfill your buy order will eliminate you from any extra taxes, because 15% of the total amount has to be paid to be seller, not by you. Always consider this when valuating your possible earnings. 

You always have 4 possible tabs that you should be aware of. It presents you with Newly Listed items, Popular Items, Recently sold items and most importantly – a search box. Although only popular items box gives you some better knowledge about the market and its tendencies, the search box will eventually become your most used functionality. As you may have already guessed, this is where you start enquiring about your currently hold CSGO items, skins, etc. To make your usability even more flexible, you could always try using advanced search options, since this allows you to choose a certain weapon category and check the most expensive skins applied to it. If you want to check weapon skins prices in other marketplaces you can do it in our CSGO Skin Price Check tool.

CSGO trade bots

Although it’s quite unlikely that you haven’t heard about this cool aspect of the CSGO marketplace, nevertheless, if you are a newcomer, you should consider this trading alternative as you must have. 

CSGO trade bots have emerged in terms of popularity across CSGO players throughout a couple of past years due to their ability to make your trading experience much more simple and convenient. There is a huge list of advantages that you should be considered, but even a couple of those can turn your trading experience much more profitable. For example, as indicated before, 15% of taxes must be paid when completing buy orders, but with the help of trade bot, this can be avoided. Not even you will get much lower fees than in casual Steam markets, you will also benefit from instant trades, meaning that you won’t need to wait countless days for them to be completed. Lastly, a bunch of CSGO sellers loves trade bots due to their ability to trade a large number of mediocre or outdated skins in exchange for an expensive, stylish and decent one. 

Best CSGO trading sites

CSGO trading economy is quickly evolving, meaning that players should always be aware of ever-changing market prices, tendencies and other aspects that could make an impact on their beloved skins and other items that they often want to sell for the best possible market price. 

Although there are an infinitive amount of CSGO trading sites across the internet, we have gathered some of those truly trusted sites, that you should at least consider while searching for a most trusted companion throughout your journey. 

CS.MONEY

Over 70 million trades and counting. Do you even need any more information about them? They are the best and most trusted CSGO trade bot you can find. The company was established back in 2016 and have already made their user base the biggest in the CSGO trading community. It does not matter which trading company you sympathize with mostly. If you haven’t yet, you should certainly check these sites for any flashy deals that might interest you. If you still ask yourself "Is CS.Money legit?" you can read our full review here.
VISIT CS.MONEY

CS.DEALS

CS.DEALS is one of the best trading sites for those who consider themselves social skin traders. Not only it lets you easily trade your most expensive CSGO skins, but it also eases the overall process with its unique, sometimes overlooked and extremely cool chat function. Since many traders can no longer tolerate painful Steam chat, this is probably one of the best alternatives for it. On the website, you will find an integrated chat system that will allow you to chat with other sellers or traders straight via the website. 
GO TO LISTING

CS.TRADE

Although this site was only launched back in 2018, it is now considered as one of the main players in CSGO market, because they have already managed to operate more than 1 million trades (!), without receiving many disputes of complaints thorough the player base. Also, due to their colorful website design, it looks more user-friendly than other similar websites. If you only trust sites that can prove their validness with various giveaways, sponsorship deals or affiliate programs, CS.TRADE should become your number one option. Only a couple of years in the market and they are already taking big steps in becoming the most influential CSGO skin trading companies across the internet.
GO TO LISTING 

TRADEIT.GG

This is not the common name across CSGO trade sellers. Although it lets you trade various CSGO skins similarly as others already mentioned websites, you can also use it for other games as well, including DOTA 2, RUST and H1Z1. This website has already facilitated more than 20 million trades across all of those games and is extremely easy to use. If you never tried using, well, at least take a look. It will be worth your while.
GO TO LISTING 

SWAP.GG

Similarly to LOOT.FARM, SWAP.GG also lets you trade for DOTA 2, H1Z1 and DOTA 2 items, as well as CSGO. The overall website design might not look as flashy and colorful as its market competitors, although, its functionality sometimes might look even smoother than anywhere before. It's quality over quantity, guys! Despite only containing a link to a youtube video, trade panel, links to social media channels and a bulk white background, SWAP.GG is still considered as one of the best skin trading sites on the market. It might not look very appealing to players who just started their CSGO experience, but it’s hugely appreciated and beloved by hardcore and skilled players. Never judge a book by its cover! 
GO TO LISTING

Highest prices on the market

You can find a large number of expensive CSGO skins on the market, however, if you take a good look, some of the patters are not so easy to miss. For example, some items are quite impossible to miss. Starting from 2014 Katowice sticker capsules, which market price is usually around one thousand dollars, then going up with some karambit accompanied by at least two Dragon Lores (also for one thousand dollars), and then stopping at the very top, where we have a Crimson Web or StatTrak M9 Bayonet, which is usually sold for a jaw-dropping amount of 1500 dollars. Not bad for a video game, right? And you thought that EA games are putting too much loot boxes in their games. 

Conclusion

Even in the last quarter of 2020, CSGO is still considered as one of the most popular gaming experiences of all time. Whether you are a pro gamer or prefer sinking your precious time strictly on single-player games only, CSGO was always around the corner and you have tried it at least once. 

Analyzing and even understanding the CSGO market and its trading tendencies might be tricky sometimes, but make no mistake – with some research and hard work this could be a very rewarding activity. We hope this CSGO trading guide helped you to look in some of the aspects from a different perspective and some of the tips and methods indicated in this article will help you move forward. Cheers!