Steam Inventory Value: How to Price It Honestly

"What is my inventory worth?" has four different answers. Three of them are defensible and one is fiction — the difference is which price they start from. Here is how to read a valuation and which number means money.

Why services quote different totals

The same set of items is valued differently depending on the basis:

On one inventory the gap between the first and the last row easily reaches a factor of two. So "the valuation went up" means nothing until you know which basis it used.

A valuation and money in hand are different numbers

Even an honest valuation at the median of sales is not the sum you will receive. Three things stand in between:

• Fees. 15% of your proceeds on Steam — about 13% of the tag — and 2–8% on third-party marketplaces.
• Liquidity. Positions that trade once a week sell either slowly or at a discount.
• Where the money goes. Selling on Steam gives Steam balance, not money on a card. Details in the article on marketplace fees.

A practical rule: the liquid part of an inventory is worth about its valuation minus the fee; the illiquid part is worth noticeably less.

How to value it properly

1. Use the best price across marketplaces, not only Steam. Steam is the most visible reference, but far from the most generous one.
2. Separate the liquid positions from the thin ones. "What can I get in a week" and "what in a month" are more useful than one combined number.
3. Account for condition. The same skin in different conditions is a different item at a different price.
4. Do not forget hidden value. A low float, a rare pattern, expensive stickers — bulk valuations usually miss all of it, because they price the item name. Details in the article on float and pattern.
5. Look at the trend, not at a single snapshot. One number cannot tell growth from standing still; the meaning is in the chart.

Turning a valuation into a portfolio

A valuation answers "what is this worth now". A portfolio answers the more important question: did you make money or lose it. For that, every position needs a purchase price and date — then you get P&L rather than a total. How it works here is described in the article on portfolio and P&L.

Enter items that came from drops at a zero entry price: then you see the clean result instead of a distortion.

Privacy

• Valuing a public inventory needs no login: a profile link or SteamID is enough.
• If the inventory is hidden in Steam settings, it cannot be counted from outside — that is a Steam restriction, not a service one.
• No valuation service should ever ask for your Steam password or an API key just to show you a total.

FAQ

Why does Steam show one total and you show another? Steam counts at its own tags and in its own currency. We take the best price among all collected marketplaces, which usually differs, sometimes noticeably.

Are stickers included? Applied and unapplied are two different assets. A sticker in your inventory is worth its own market price; once it goes onto a gun the market usually pays back a fraction of that — a few percent for ordinary prints, tens of percent for legacy ones such as Katowice 2014 — and scraping does not give it back. Bulk valuations usually do not see stickers at all.

Why does the total change every day? Because prices are live. Every price has an age, and a stale one is not worth relying on.

What about Dota 2, Rust and TF2? They are counted the same way. Keep in mind that liquidity outside CS2 is lower, so the gap between valuation and real money is wider there.

Which number is the "real" one? The one that reaches your card after the sale and the withdrawal. Everything else is a reference point with a varying degree of optimism.