How to buy CS:GO skins and not overpay?

If you spend enough time playing CS:GO, you are bound to see items for sale that cost much more than your normal run-of-the-mill weapon skins.. What factors can make a skin cost more than usual? It’s good to understand such variables if you don’t want to mistakenly overpay for items that could otherwise be much cheaper. Have a look at what decides the price of an item so that we can all safely call ourselves informed customers.

What determines how much a skin is worth?

There are a couple of main aspects that influence the relative value of an item in CS:GO. The first and most common one is the base price of a skin, which can be easily figured out by looking it up on the Steam Community Market. The best way to do this is to check buy orders in the listed skins tab and look at the price graph to approximate the average value of a skin. Doing this alone will give you enough information to ascertain whether the purchase you’re planning really has to leave you broke.

The next thing you need to do to know how to buy CSGO skins and not overpay is to understand how float values work. Basically, every skin is assigned a value upon creation, called the “float value”. It’s a number that ranges from zero to one, and it influences the appearance of any skin in the game. The closer the float value is to one, the more worn out an item appears to be, which has a significant impact on its price.

Here’s how the float value ranges look like:

• Factory New 0.00-0.07
• Minimal Wear 0.07-0.15
• Field-Tested 0.15-0.37
• Well-Worn 0.37-0.44
• Battle-Scarred 0.44-1.00

This value is otherwise known as the in-game “wear rating”. As you can probably guess, the closer any given skin is to the value of 0.00, the more expensive it gets. That’s why if you’re looking to buy CS:GO skins, you shouldn’t go around looking at offers for factory-new items right off the bat – if you’re not willing to pay a lot, that is. There are some exceptions to this rule, as some items are valued at high floats due to that desired rugged look or the wear and tear revealing the underlying artwork.

There are two other factors that determine the price of a skin – patterns and stickers. Patterns, or pattern templates, as they are technically called, are different ways a skin can be applied to a weapon. They make skins look much more unique as it’s hard to find the same patterns, especially with very rare items. Stickers, on the other hand, may cost a lot themselves, but whether they affect the price of an item or not is highly subjective. It might change depending on the color scheme, sticker positioning, and the rarity of the skin on which it is applied in relation to the rarity of the sticker itself.

Some examples of especially pricey patterns and stickers include:

Stickers:

• Katowice 2014
• Katowice 2015
• The Crown Foil

Patterns:

• Fade skins
• Marble Fade skins
• Case Hardened skins

Be on the lookout for those names when you’re thinking of purchasing or selling, as items with those patterns or stickers may be some of the most valuable ones out there.

Putting everything together

All in all, there are many different factors that go into determining the price of a skin, so be sure to pay attention to details of any item you’re planning to buy. Check whether its value is not needlessly inflated due to something you might not necessarily want. The high rarity of any of the two elements mentioned earlier may send the value of any skin soaring.

There are also outliers – certain skins that are more desired with patterns or stickers that we wouldn’t commonly think of as valuable or with a low float value. That is why it’s generally a good idea to spend some time researching the market before shelling out any money – perhaps you’ll save yourself some cash by finding a cheaper but equally visually satisfying alternative.

And since not paying more than we should is something we all strive for, an excellent idea for saving money is to look for discounts on skins that usually would cost a lot more. Check out Skinwallet when you’re done planning and researching your purchase – who knows, maybe the skin you’re looking for is on sale right now.