CS.MONEY

Introduction

CS.MONEY is a marketplace for Steam items, particularly for CS:GO skins and items. The platform was founded about 7 years ago, on September 16th, 2015. CS.MONEY is currently operated by Haris Neoptolemou, with headquarters in Limassol, Cyprus. The CS.MONEY marketplace and company have been vetted by CSGOSKINS.GG and deemed trustworthy by all our standards.

Popularity

CS.MONEY is rated 4.9 out of 5 with over 3.3K reviews on Trustpilot. The CS.MONEY platform received approximately 2.5M visits during the last month. There are currently 11.2K different items available on the marketplace, with a total of 84K listed offers. Additionally, the combined value of all CS:GO skins that are currently available on the CS.MONEY market amounts to $2.5M.

Market Type

CS.MONEY is a traditional bot-based marketplace. That means a seller must first deposit an item before it can be listed on the market. The deposit is done by sending the item to one of CS.MONEY’s Steam bot accounts. Compared to P2P markets where the item can be listed on the marketplace while still being in the seller’s inventory, this is not such a smooth experience for the seller. But it provides a better buyer experience because upon purchase, the buyer can immediately receive the item without needing to wait for the seller to accept the trade.

The Largest Skin Trading Website

CS.MONEY is single-handedly the largest weapon skin trading website for CS:GO at the moment with millions of monthly unique visitors and a gigantic skin collection that users have the freedom to choose from when trading. Being one of the oldest skin trading websites out there, CS.MONEY is also one of the most reputed marketplaces to trade weapon skins in CS:GO. They have also been actively sponsoring large tournament organizers and renowned esports organizations like BLAST Premier and NAVI respectively. This has helped bring the website to the mainstream.

Due to the high volume of weapon skins available on the website, users are also likely to have an easier time finding the specific skins that they are looking for. The skin trading process is also simple and hassle-free, which makes CS.MONEY a favorite among traders who are looking to make quick trades. As claimed by the website itself, it only takes traders about 30 seconds "from logging in to making a purchase".

They also have other useful resources like a wiki dedicated to CS:GO skins and a skin inspection tool that lets users inspect any skin in 3D.

History

On August 13th, 2022, CS.MONEY was hacked and $1.6M million worth of skins were stolen. The stolen skins were traded to multiple Steam accounts owned by the hackers. Additionally, the hackers sent many trade offers with high-value items to legitimate traders, which is speculated to have been a diversion tactic. The CS.MONEY website was temporarily shut down as a result.

Trading Fees

CS.MONEY currently charges a fixed transaction fee of 7% to its users, which can be reduced to a minimum of 4% by purchasing the Prime subscription from the website. While the 7% trading fee is much less than the 15% selling fee of the Steam Community Market, it’s also significantly more than that of some third-party marketplaces like BUFF163, which enables users to trade with only a 2.5% overall transaction fee.

Method Of Trading

The simple and hassle-free nature of trading on CS.MONEY is the reason why it outshines its various competitors. The method of trading on CS.MONEY is extremely intuitive and provides users with the freedom to choose from a wide variety of weapon skins as long as they have something of equal or more value to offer in exchange.

Here’s how the trading system works on the CS.MONEY marketplace:

• Users have to log in with their Steam account on the official CS.MONEY website.
• After logging in, users can go to the trading section of CS.MONEY to make a trade.
• From the left-hand side, users have to put up items that they wish to trade from their CS:GO/DOTA 2 inventory.
• From the right-hand side, users have to select items of equal or less value than what they offered that they wish to receive in exchange for their skins.
• When satisfied with the selected items, users can click on the "Trade" button located towards the top and the CS.MONEY bot will automatically send you a trade offer for the items.
• Double-check the offer before accepting it from your Steam account.

Besides trading, users also have the option to buy items with real money, sell items at the marketplace for an elevated value, or put up an item for auction.

Users looking to buy items with real money can head over to the Store tab of CS.MONEY, whereas users looking to sell items can head to the Sell tab. Auctions are found in the Auction tab of the website.

Prime Subscription

CS.MONEY also enables its users to purchase a Prime subscription that regular users of the website often opt to purchase. Prime subscribers of CS.MONEY enjoy a number of additional benefits when trading on the website. These include:

• Full access to the 3D skin viewer of CS.MONEY
• Faster responses to technical support queries
• Additional 45% top-up bonus
• Additional 2.4% discount when purchasing skins for real money
• Reduced trading commission of 4%

The Prime subscription costs buyers a pocket pinch of $8.99 per month, but new users are provided with the option to access it for free for the first five days of usage.

The additional trading discount of 3% is the primary reason why CS.MONEY users look to purchase the Prime subscription on the website. When trading high-tier items, an extra 3% can potentially save you much more money than the $8.99 it takes to purchase the Prime subscription.

Users

The CS.MONEY marketplace is the go-to trading website for small and big traders alike due to the plethora of skins that the website has to offer and the swift process of trading. The website also offers plenty of payment options for users looking to top up their wallets. However, the trading fee of 7% discourages a good portion of traders from using CS.MONEY and opt for alternatives that offer lower transaction charges.

Controversies

While it can’t be denied that CS.MONEY has managed to attain widespread popularity over the past few years, it has also grown infamous as one of the shadiest skin trading websites as a number of allegations against the website started surfacing on the internet.

Since the introduction of the 7-day trade hold by Valve, many users have accused CS.MONEY of manipulating the prices of CS:GO weapon skins, imposing hidden fees on skins that weren't transparent on the website, selling items at much higher rates than the Steam marketplace, and lying to traders about a "cash out" feature that never arrived.

The controversies involving CS.MONEY have been summed up in great detail by the content creators TDM_Heyzeus and zipelCS in their YouTube videos that were made to raise awareness regarding the website among traders.

All these factors combined resulted in a slow decline of the popularity of the platform, and also gained CS.MONEY an ill-reputation in the trading community.

Advantages

Here are some of the key advantages that users enjoy when trading on CS.MONEY:

• Lower transaction fees than the Steam Community Market.
• Swift, hassle-free trades that can be done in only a few seconds.
• Intuitive UI that can be easily used by new traders.
• Availability of a well-optimized mobile app, which enables users to trade on the go without needing to log in from a desktop PC.
• Large variety of weapon skins, with most skins almost always being available in stock.
• Freedom to exchange CS:GO items to that of DOTA 2 and vice versa.
• Features like selling and auctioning for traders who look to make some extra profit.
• A convenient inspecting system that can be used to inspect and weapon skin in 3D.
• Overpays on good floats/rare stickers.

Disadvantages

There are also a number of prominent disadvantages when trading on CS.MONEY:

• Higher transaction fees than BUFF163 and some other third-party marketplaces
• Infamous for not following Steam Market prices, ignoring market crashes, and imposing hidden fees on skins.
• The skins on CS.MONEY being priced at much higher values than their Steam Market prices make the website an inefficient choice for depositing real money.
• Several skins on the website can be found to be on a trade hold, which means users have to wait the duration before receiving the skins in their inventory.
• There isn’t an option to cash out funds from the CS.MONEY wallet to real money, which means that users are limited to purchasing skins with any funds that they deposit on the website.