CS2 Trade-Up Guide

What Is a CS2 Trade-Up Contract? (Complete 2026 Guide)

How does a CS2 trade-up contract work?

For a standard contract, you add exactly 10 skins of the same rarity (e.g. 10 Mil-Spec / blue skins), and Valve returns one skin from the tier directly above. A separate rule allows 5 Covert inputs to return an eligible Knife or Gloves item. The result comes from one of the collections represented by the inputs.

Two rules govern what comes out:

• Output pool: The system pools every higher-rarity skin from every collection represented in your inputs. If 7 of your inputs came from the Dust 2 Collection and 3 from the Mirage Collection, the output is more likely to be from Dust 2 (7/10 weight) but can still come from Mirage (3/10).
• Output float: The output's float value is calculated from the raw average float of all inputs, then mapped onto the output skin's min-float / max-float range. A low average pushes the output toward Factory New; a high average pushes it toward Battle-Scarred.

What rarity tiers can you trade up?

The CS2 trade-up ladder is:

• Consumer Grade (white) → Industrial Grade (light blue)
• Industrial Grade → Mil-Spec (blue)
• Mil-Spec → Restricted (purple)
• Restricted → Classified (pink)
• Classified → Covert (red)
• 5 Covert items → eligible Knife / Gloves special item

For Covert contracts, 5 regular Covert items can return a regular Knife or Gloves item from an input collection. Five StatTrak Covert items can return an eligible StatTrak Knife.

How is float calculated on the output skin?

The formula Valve uses is straightforward but easy to get wrong:

1. Average the float values of every selected input skin.
2. Multiply that average by (output_max_float − output_min_float).
3. Add output_min_float.

That gives the float of the output skin. Because each skin has its own min-float / max-float wear range (e.g. AK-47 Redline runs 0.10–0.70, while AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge runs 0.00–0.50), the same input float average produces wildly different output floats depending on which skin you roll.

What makes a CS2 trade-up profitable?

A trade-up is profitable when the expected value (EV) of the output pool, after Steam or third-party marketplace fees, is greater than the total cost of buying the required inputs. The math:

EV = sum over all possible outputs of (probability × resale_price_after_fees)
Profit = EV − total_input_cost
ROI = Profit ÷ total_input_cost

The trap most traders fall into is using the average headline price of each output skin instead of the price at the specific float your contract will produce. A Field-Tested Redline sells for very different money than a Well-Worn Redline — and the same input batch can produce either, depending on which collection the output rolls from.

Why most CS2 trade-up calculators get it wrong

Generic calculators usually make three mistakes:

• They use the median listing price, not the bid-side liquidity. You will not actually sell at that price.
• They ignore the float-to-wear-tier mapping, so a contract that "looks" profitable on paper actually outputs Well-Worn skins that no one is buying.
• They do not subtract the Steam Community Market fee (~15%) or third-party marketplace fees (~2.5%) before reporting ROI.

This is exactly why we built TradeUpTarget — every contract on our scanner factors live market prices, wear-tier float boundaries, and post-fee profit. If a contract reads +12% ROI on our dashboard, that is +12% after Steam takes its cut.

What is a "float-tier edge case"?

An edge case is a contract where the predicted output float lands within roughly 0.01 of a wear-tier boundary (e.g. 0.37, which is the Field-Tested / Well-Worn boundary). At that boundary, the same skin can be worth 2× to 5× more if it rolls FT vs. WW — pure float compression. Catching these is the highest-ROI play in CS2 trade-ups, and it is also the trickiest to compute manually. We wrote a dedicated post on float compression edge cases.

Are CS2 trade-up contracts allowed by Valve?

Yes. Trade-up contracts are a first-party Steam feature, accessible from the in-game inventory. Using a scanner like TradeUpTarget to find profitable contracts is also allowed — we only read publicly available market data, run the math externally, and you execute the contract yourself in CS2. We do not automate anything, do not modify the game, and do not interact with Steam in any way that touches the Steam Subscriber Agreement.

How to start your first profitable CS2 trade-up

1. Pick a budget. Most profitable contracts at the lower rarities (Mil-Spec → Restricted) cost $5–$30 in inputs. Start there.
2. Filter for ROI, not just price. A $4 contract returning $5 is better than a $80 contract returning $84.
3. Check the loss probability. Even a +15% EV contract can have a 40% chance of net loss on a single roll. Run a few in parallel to converge to EV.
4. Match the float targets exactly. The scanner gives a target float per input skin. Buy that float (or lower) — not a generic "Field-Tested".
5. Sell the output where the fees are lowest. Steam = 15%, third-party = ~2.5%. The same skin nets very different cash.

Frequently Asked Questions

Quick answers to the questions new CS2 trade-up traders ask most.