How to Buy Skins on Skinport

If you are new to Skinport and want to buy some skins for your favorite games, you might not be sure how this whole thing works. That’s why in this guide, we will show you exactly how buying items on Skinport works and how you can use our search functionality to find the skins you want.

What is Skinport?

Skinport is the safe and easy-to-use marketplace for virtual items from games such as CSGO, Dota 2, Team Fortress 2 and Rust. Items from these games can be used to customize your loadout, equipment, or heroes. What makes these items special is that they can be traded using the Steam trading functionality. This makes it possible for Skinport to offer you a safe marketplace on which you can buy these items for real cash. By doing this, you can save a lot of money compared to the Steam Community Market. Some items are not even available on the Steam Community Market, cause their prices exceed the maximum price allowed on there. So, whether you are looking to buy some new skins with a great discount or want to pick up some rare and expensive items, Skinport is the right place!

All the items you see on Skinport are being sold by other users on our platform. The items are in the inventory of our bots, ready to be traded to your Steam account once you have bought them.

Step 1: Sign up

Before you are able to buy some new skins at a great discount, you’ll have to create a Skinport account. You can also just browse the site without creating an account, but a Skinport account is needed to purchase items. Creating an account is super quick and easy. To get started, simply click on the “Sign Up” button on the top right of our site or click here. You now have multiple ways that you can create your account. You can either choose a username, password and fill in your email address, or you can sign up via Steam, Facebook, or Google. We would recommend signing up via Steam, as this is the easiest option for you as a user.

If you choose the first option, you’ll have to confirm your email address by clicking on the link sent to you via email. Afterwards, you’ll have to link your Steam account to your Skinport account, so that you can receive your bought skins. To do this, simply go to your Skinport settings page, click on “Add Steam Account” and use the sign-in with Steam functionality to link your Steam account to your Skinport account. Once the account is added, make sure to also click on “Edit Trade URL” and set your Steam Trade URL following the on-screen instructions. Once you have done this, you are good to go. You can now log in on Skinport with your email and password or use the sign-in with Steam functionality.

Signing up via Google or Facebook works almost the same as the option above, so please refer to the steps and follow them as needed.

Should you decide to use the sign-up via Steam option, the process is even easier. Simply log in with your Steam account and the account will be linked right away. Afterwards, you’ll have to fill in your email address and confirm it, so that we can contact you if needed. Please make sure to also fill in your Steam trade URL by going to your Skinport settings page, clicking on “Edit Trade URL” and following the on-screen instructions. To log into Skinport in the future, you can simply log in with your Steam account.

Whichever method you have used, you are now ready to buy your items on Skinport.

Step 2: Finding the items you want

Finding the right items on Skinport is made as straightforward as possible. We currently offer a marketplace for CSGO, Dota2, Team Fortress 2 and Rust items. The first step is to select your game in the drop-down menu on the top left of the site.

Afterwards, you have different options to find the item you want. You can type the name in the search bar and look for it that way. Please keep in mind that it will only show items that are currently available on Skinport. This option is ideal if you already know what item you are looking for and just want to find it quickly.

Another option is to use the categories shown at the top of the page. As an example, you can select the category Knife for CSGO items. It will then show you all the different knives currently available in CSGO. Simply select one that you like and it will show the available finishes. You can click on one that you like to see the current listings. Alternatively, you can also click on “See all Offers” and check out all the knives currently listed on Skinport. This works for all the different categories.

Whether you have selected a specific item or clicked on see all offers, you will now see the items that are currently available on Skinport. You can sort these results or filter for even more specific results with our in-depth filters. To make this process easier, we will take look at the different sorting and filtering options that our marketplace offers you.

Sorting your results

To sort the results, you can use the drop-down menu on the top right of the search results. By default, the items are sorted by popularity. You can also select best value, highest discount, cheapest first, expensive first, lowest wear, highest wear, oldest and newest. Best value looks at the amount of money you would save compared to the suggested price. Highest discount looks at the percentage a knife is reduced by compared to the suggested price. The wear filters are there to sort for high or low float values on CSGO skins and don’t have an effect on searches for other games.

Filter options

Our filter options can be found on the left side of the page. You can select price ranges and filter the results for specific item properties like applied stickers, rarities, colors, etc. If you want a certain thing included in the results, make sure that the checkbox is ticked. If you want it filtered out, the checkbox must be unticked. For some item properties in the category "Extras", you can also set the option to neutral. It will then show items with these properties in the results but won’t filter specifically for them.

By clicking on “only”, you can quickly deselect all the other available properties in the same category. As an example: If you select “only” on StatTrak for CSGO items, it will show items that have StatTrak on them, but no items with stickers or name tags. If you want to see items that, as an example, have StatTrak and stickers, make sure to check the two checkboxes instead.

If you want to browse the whole catalog of items on Skinport to find good deals, you can also show all items for a specific game by going to the landing page and hitting the “See All” button for the specific game. Afterwards, you can use the filters and sort the results to your liking. This way, you can find all the highest discount items on Skinport on one page.

The discounts shown on Skinport are all based on our suggested price. The suggested price is usually calculated from the Steam Community Market sales over the last 30 days. For items that are too expensive to be listed on the Community Market, the price is calculated from other sources. This price is a suggestion and can be inaccurate if the price recently changed a lot. By clicking on the "Compare" button, you can check the current Steam market listings to compare the price manually. The sales history on Skinport and the recent sales tab below the item screenshot show you the latest sales and the price development to make your decision easier.

Step 3: Buying your items

Once you found the items you like, buying them is super simple. The first step is to add them to your shopping cart on the site. You can do this by clicking “Add to Cart” from either the search result overview or from the item page. You can add up to 40 items to your cart at once. Please keep in mind that items in your cart are not reserved for you. If someone else decides to buy them before you proceed to the payment process, they can become unavailable.

As soon as you have all the items in your cart, you can hit “View Cart“, which will give you an overview of the items in your cart and the total amount you’ll have to pay for all the items.

If the item has an active trade lock, you’ll also have to confirm that you are aware of the fact that you can’t withdraw the item until the trade lock expires. Trade locks only exist for CSGO and Dota2 items at the moment. After an item has been traded on Steam, it receives a cooldown of up to 8 days until it can be traded again. This trade cooldown affects all items from these games and can’t be circumvented. All items that you can buy on Skinport are in the inventory of our bots. The sellers have to trade them to our bots in order for the items to be listed on the marketplace. After this trade, the items will receive a trade lock. This is why most newly listed items are not tradeable for 7-8 days. If you want to receive your items right after buying them, please make sure to select items that are instantly tradeable. You can learn more about trade locks here.

After you have ticked the checkboxes, you can hit proceed to checkout, which will open up a selection screen of all different payment methods available in your region. Click on the one you want to use, follow the on-screen instructions and complete the payment. Afterwards, you’ll see a confirmation screen that the order was completed. And that’s it, the items are now yours!

Unlike many other sites, Skinport does not have an on-site balance system. This means that you don't need to deposit money before you are able to buy items. All payments are handled at the checkout process, meaning that you can keep the money in your own bank account until you actually want to buy something.

Step 4: Getting your new items sent to your Steam account.

Now for the most important step for most users: Getting your newly bought items sent to your Steam account. If you have already fully set up your Steam account in the sign-up process, getting the items sent to your account takes just a few clicks. Otherwise, please make sure to fill in your trade URL on your account settings page.

The first step in the withdrawal process is to go to your Skinport inventory. On this page, you can find all the items that you currently own and that are in the inventory of our bots. As soon as an item is tradeable, you can hover over the item, click on the 3 dots, and hit withdraw. This is ideal if you only want to withdraw a single item. If you want to withdraw multiple items at once, you can also select items by clicking on a checkbox or hitting “Select Items”. Simply hit the checkbox on all the items you want to withdraw or click “Select All”. Afterwards, you can hit the “Withdraw” button on the bottom right side of the page.

You will now receive one or more trade offers on Steam. To accept them, you can either follow the links that are shown on the right side of the screen, or you can simply open up Steam, click on the green envelope symbol and accept the trade offers there. Afterwards, the items are in your Steam inventory, ready to be used in-game.

Should you not accept the Steam trade offer within 10 minutes, it will be automatically canceled and the items are safely returned to your Skinport inventory, ready to be requested again whenever you want to get them.

Get started today

Now that you know exactly how to buy skins on Skinport, you can also give it a try yourself. Simply visit our marketplace, find some new items and save a lot of money while doing so. Most items are significantly discounted on Skinport compared to the Steam Community Market, so you can save money with every purchase. If you should have any questions or encounter any problems, our support team is always happy to help you out. You can also check out our FAQ for answers to some of the most frequently asked questions.