CS2 Skins Prices Analytics: March 2024

CS.MONEY analysed the trends and behaviour of the CS2 in-game items market in early spring 2024. This brief report provides insights on:

what items CS.MONEY users purchased most frequently;
which skins had the highest increase in value;
what factors have affected skin prices.

In this post:

Introduction: Market Analysis

First, let’s talk about the prices on the skin market in March and why this month’s dynamics are so noteworthy. After the release of Counter-Strike 2 in September 2023, the skin market collapsed, with all popular items losing 5–10% of their worth. At that time, the Total Marketcap (total market capitalisation) was valued at $3.6 billion, and we witnessed a drawdown of $170–340 million in just two to three days.

This decline persisted for several months, and even the release of the first CS2 case failed to revive players’ interest in the shooter. CS2 felt raw due to the lack of modes and competitive maps.

Prices began to rise slowly only in the spring. The Total Marketcap was $3.3 billion in March, just 10% less than in September. By this time, the game had been finalised, and the first Major sparked the audience’s interest in updating their inventories.

Which skins were the most popular in March?

According to our statistics, in March, CS.MONEY users most often purchased cases, stickers, and inexpensive skins in the Trade mode. Typically, traders do this to resell items on other skin trading services.

Here are the top 10 most frequently traded items in March and the total number of transactions for each:

Recoil Case — 4549
Sticker | Fnatic (Glitter) | Paris 2023 — 2033
Revolution Case — 2032
Sticker | MOUZ (Glitter) | Paris 2023 — 1740
MAC-10 | Silver (Factory New) — 1679
Glove Case — 1648
UMP-45 | Carbon Fiber (Factory New) — 1414
USP-S | Cortex (Field-Tested) — 1261
AK-47 | Ice Coaled (Field-Tested) — 1240
Kilowatt Case — 1188

In the Market, the picture looks different. In March, when Valve had not yet changed the API, which affected the number of P2P trades, users were interested in purchasing budget skins. These items not only look great during matches but also, with rare exceptions, are inexpensive, costing up to $2.

Here are the top 10 popular items in the Market, along with their average cost:

AK-47 | Slate (Field-Tested) — $4.56
AK-47 | Safari Mesh (Field-Tested) — $0.25
AWP | Mortis (Field-Tested) — $2.85
M4A1-S | Night Terror (Field-Tested) — $0.70
AK-47 | Redline (Field-Tested) — $26.65
AK-47 | Slate (Well-Worn) — $2.98
USP-S | Cortex (Field-Tested) — $2.26
USP-S | Ticket to Hell (Field-Tested) — $0.50
AK-47 | Elite Build (Field-Tested) — $2.20
Glock-18 | High Beam (Factory New) — $0.27

Which skins have experienced the highest increase in price?

In March, prices for certain skins skyrocketed by hundreds and even thousands percent. We attribute this growth to two main factors:

Trade Up. This is a way of making money by purchasing a number of inexpensive items with a very low float value (for example, 0.00003), a variable that determines the degree of wear of the weapon, to craft a more expensive skin.
Collecting. Users who collect items often hunt for a specific skin with a rare float value, with one skin available for each subject.

Here are the top 5 skins whose prices have increased the most*.
*The price of these items was affected by the extra charge for float, pattern and stickers, while the price of default stickers did not change that significantly.

Negev | Army Sheen (Factory New) +1339.49% — actively bought, floatvalue < 0.009
Glock-18 | Bunsen Burner (Minimal Wear) 1265.09% — extra charge for stickers
MAG-7 | Metallic DDPAT (Factory New) 815.81% —actively bought, floatvalue < 0.009
AWP | Safari Mesh (Field-Tested) 576.33% — extra charge for stickers
USP-S | Forest Leaves (Battle-Scarred) 509.77% — actively bought, floatvalue > 0.79 + extra charge for stickers

Skins from which category became the most popular in March?

Predictably, the most popular skin categories in March were rifles and pistols, accounting for 36.93% and 31.36% of all transactions, respectively. No surprises here: these are the items users play with most frequently.

Sniper rifles came in third place with 17.42%, followed by SMGs (10.1%) and shotguns (3.01%) in the fourth and fifth places, respectively.

What skins were most searched for in March?

At the same time, demand for the following items experienced a decrease:

MAC-10 | Candy Apple (Factory New), SSG 08 | Mainframe 001 (Well-Worn), AUG | Sweeper (Factory New) — these skins were bought during a price drop to be sold later at a profit, but the current market price doesn’t meet buyers’ expectations.
AK-47 | Elite Build (Minimal Wear), PP-Bizon | Facility Sketch (Factory New), M4A4 | Poly Mag (Field-Tested). The value of these items has dropped significantly. People who bought these skins at high prices are likely to anticipate a “rebound.”

FYI: what factors affect the cost of skins in general?

The price of CS2 skins is influenced by various factors, such as important in-game or Steam events and even real-world occurrences.

Steam Sales

About a week prior to the big sale launch, users tend to sell old skins to buy discounted games. This is usually one of the best opportunities to purchase items. In the first couple of days of the sale, skin prices hit their lowest point.

For example, during the 2023 Summer Sale, the price dynamics for AK-47 | Red Line looked like this:

New Cases Releases

First and foremost, the appearance of a new case affects the number of online users in the game. Also, cases are expensive immediately after their release, and users still buy them to quickly obtain new skins.

Here’s how the price of Red Line changed after the release of Recoil Case on July 2, 2022:

Operations Releases

With each new operation launch, new cases, agents, stickers, and graffiti appear in the game. Before the operation is released, traders “dump” skins at a discount — according to our observations, discounts usually reach 10–20% at this time.

Weapon Stat Changes

Sometimes, developers may change certain attributes of the weapon, such as the number of rounds in a magazine, damage or shot spread. This was the case, for example, with the M4A1-S, UMP, and M4A4.

Skin prices may rise or fall depending on how the community reacts to these changes. On June 16th, 2022, Valve reduced the M4A1-S clip size from 25 to 20 rounds. Prices for M4A1-S | Decimator responded almost instantly.

Major Events

As a rule, for major tournaments Valve releases new capsules, stickers, and the Viewer Pass — an unopened spectator pass to the event. At the end of the tournament, the price of these capsules drops significantly, sometimes by 70–80%, which is when investors buy them, hoping for their further increase in value.

In order to avoid replenishing virtual balances with real money, investors sell their skins at a 15–20% discount and spend the proceeds on capsules.

These discounted skins are typically available for 3–4 days before their prices return to normal, providing another opportunity to update one’s inventory.

For example, PGL Major Antwerp 2022, which took place from May 9 to May 22, 2022, affected the cost of skins and stickers as follows: