Image made by gVo. SheiLabeouf
There’s so many ways of making a profit with TF2 trading, but sometimes what you’re doing just isn’t working and you don’t know what to do. This guide is meant to help you either get started with trading or help you get new ideas on what kind of trades you can do. I will list a bunch of different ways of making a profit with TF2 trading, very brief summaries for all of them and I will link to my guides and other peoples guides so you can go and learn more on some of the methods. If you have something you think would be a nice addition to the list, feel free to leave a comment on the bottom of the page.
A few of the links in this guide are affiliate links, use them to support the site (or don’t)
- Start trading with Unusuals, if you don’t have any keys this require a small investment to get started, so it might not suit completely new traders, that being said, unusual trading is where the big profit in TF2 is, check out my TF2 Unusual trading guide over here, 6000+ words of wisdom.
- Head over to trade.tf’s Live Deals section and look for good deals here. Here you’ll find a list that’s keep updating with good deals from the major trading websites, the site compares listings with the current backpack.tf value and if it’s a bargain it shows in the list. You decide how much of a discount the items shown should have. The system doesn’t work flawless so always double check the listing before making a trade.
- Banking keys, buy keys low then sell them high, heading over to backpack.tf to check the current key price is a good start – Something that a lot of traders do is to buy & sell TF2 keys, there´s a lot of competition but there´s also always a demand for keys.
- Buy items on the community market and then trade them for keys and metal, or the other way around. Just compare prices on the community market with TF2outpost/backpack.tf and other trading sites to find the best deal. I made a guide about it over here.
- Trading with Unusual hats, this is nothing I would recommend new traders doing, because you need a lot of keys to invest and you need to know what you’re doing otherwise you won’t go far. Here’s a very basic guide that can help you get started if you’re interested in learning more, found here.
- If you’re out of trading ideas you can head over to Backpack.tf & Spy on other traders to see what kind of trades they are doing. Either just pick someone random or check out a high valued backpack, then head over to their profile on backpack.tf and see what kinds of items they are buying & selling, you can learn a lot from spying and sometimes you can even just steal someone’s method of making a profit.
- Buy keys using real cash in one shop and sell it in another for some profit, you could for example buy keys on Opskins and then resell them on Marketplace.tf, or the other way around, there’s a lot of different stores that are dealing with keys, and the prices goes up and down constantly, just compare prices on different shops and see where you can find the cheapest keys and also where you can sell your keys for the highest price at the moment. If you need a list of places to buy keys you can find my list of shops here. (also keep in mind there’s always a sell fee on these kinds of sites.)
- Buy trading cards with metal, then sell the cards on the Steam community market. You can find a guide about it over here, Trading Cards trade guide
- Find good deals over at OPSkins TF2 section, buy items for real money and then trade or sell them on the SCM. Items bought using money will almost always be cheaper. (can also be done using marketplace.tf)
- Buy people’s whole inventory/backpacks for real money. Some people just wants to cash out all their TF2 items and sell their backpacks for cash, this is a golden opportunity to make some profit. Keep in mind that it can get expensive and selling/trading the items you buy can take quite some time to sell off. Over at the backpack.tf forum people regularly sell their whole inventories, also you can find other traders buying backpacks, so head over there and see how they are doing the trades and what they are paying.
- Buy hats below it’s price suggestion over at backpack.tf and selling it above that price or at it’s current value. Some people wants to get rid of their hats as fast as possible and don’t care if they’re losing a few metal, so it can be quite easy to find cheap hats.
- Trade your TF2 keys for CS:GO keys and the other way around. Generally the CS:GO keys will be worth more. There’s a lot of people looking to trade between the two games. Do a search on TF2outpost and see what others are paying, match their price & start trading.
- Buy hats in bulk. Go to Tf2Outpost or Bazaar.tf and find people selling a bunch of hats, offer to buy all the hats for a discounted price and then sell them for a higher price one by one.
- Start a service and charge metal/keys for it. This could be anything from making SFM posters/videos, boosting/leveling people in games or anything you can come up with. Not the best way of making a profit but I seen it work for some, a way of gaining a few keys here and there.
- Head over to Trade.tf and get yourself a trading bot, takes like a minute to setup and it’s free. The bot has a built in Banking feature (banking pretty much mean buying & selling a item), pick a item you want to buy and sell, first compare at what price other people are trading that item for and then undercut or match that price, then start banking items using the bot and the bot will do all the trading for you. If you want more trading bot options check out our guide about Steam trading bots here
- Use my guide on how to resell Steam games using Scrap.tf & Dispenser.tf in order to make some profit. Good guide for new traders.
- Buy & Sell taunts, everyone likes taunts.
- During big Steam game sales (like the summer & winter sale) people always sell their items on the community market so that they can afford to buy the games they want. This is a perfect time to find & buy cheap TF2 items on the market, after you bought your items then just wait a few weeks or a month after the sale has ended for the price to rise back up again and then just sell your items for a much higher price.
- This is for everyone with a huge chunk of keys in their inventory. Head over to Scrap.tf unusual bot, if you’re lucky you can find some real nice bargains here. Compare the price and do a quick search on TF2Outpost & Backpack.tf to see if there’s room to make some profit if you would resell the hats.
- Cross-buy between TF2 & CSGO, set up at trade listing asking to buy CSGO skins for a scrap metal each (or whatever you think is reasonable). Some people wanting TF2 items that doesn’t care about CSGO will offer you trades. Don’t expect to get rich from this, you’ll only receive shit skins and you’ll be making a few cents/trade. Add your own twist to this method and think about what CSGO items you could buy with metal to make a profit (or the other way around).
- Buy yourself a few keys with real money and start trading with more expensive items instead, they have generally a greater profit margin then if you would buy & sell cheaper items like craft hats
What you SHOULDN’T do when starting with TF2 trading
- Gamble/betting. Perfect way of throwing away items. (or join giveaways that cost to join, that’s basically a gamble)
- Scrap bank, low profit and extremely slow.
- After you done any type of trading, it can be good to evaluate what you’re doing. Are you making a profit with what you’re doing? Is it worth your time? If no, then stop what you’re doing and try something ells.
- Don’t open crates, it’s a really small chance of unboxing a unusual or anything of value.
- As a rule of thumb don’t pay more for painted items, you’ll never be able to sell a hat for it’s value + the value of it’s paint, it’s never ever going to happen.
- Don’t beg for items, a lot of people do this and it won’t get you any items, so stop wasting everyone’s time doing it.
- Don’t get scammed, it’s no fun. Here’s a list of common trade scam and how you can avoid them.
- Avoid reading “Get rich fast”-guides. Trading in TF2 isn’t anything that’s going to get you rich, it takes time and effort. If a guide promise you’ll get the unusual hat of your dreams in a instant, the guide is filled with bullshit. Be sceptical when reading trading guides, even when reading my guides. (this included)
I will try and keep this post updated with new ways of making a profit in TF2, and I’d appreciate any suggestions you might have. Also if the guide helped you any way feel free give it a like or share it with your friends, community or mom!
