CS2 Marketplace Fees: How Much Actually Reaches You
Verified seller fees for 9 CS2 marketplaces as of 27 August 2026 with source links, the correct Steam formula (divide by 1.15, do not multiply by 0.85), and an end-to-end example: what is left of a $30 item once the money is on your card.
Short version: what you actually keep
Sell an item for $30 and you end up with: $26.09 on Steam (and not as money — as wallet balance you cannot cash out), $27.60 on Skinport, $27.90 on DMarket, $28.50 on Market.CSGO and WhiteMarket, $27.00 on Lis-Skins, $29.40 on Waxpeer and CS.Deals — all before the withdrawal. Once you cash out, subtract another 0.4–3.5% depending on the marketplace and the payout method.
The thing to understand up front: Steam's 15% is charged on the seller's proceeds, not on the listing price. That is not pedantry about wording — it is a difference in real money, and almost every fee calculator out there gets it wrong. The correct formula is price / 1.15, not price × 0.85. Here is why.
AK-47 | Redline
★ Karambit | Doppler
★ Sport Gloves | Pandora's Box
Kilowatt Case
Sticker | Crown (Foil)Rate table: verified 27 August 2026
| Marketplace | Seller fee | Withdrawal fee | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam Community Market | 15% of the seller's proceeds (≈13.04% of the listing price) | No withdrawal — the money stays in the Steam wallet | Steam Subscriber Agreement |
| CS.Deals | 2% (1% if you add "CS.Deals" to your Steam name) | SEPA/bank 1.5%, crypto 2% + network fee, in skins 0% | steamdb.com/markets/csdeals |
| Waxpeer | 2% | Crypto 2% + network fee (USDT, TRX, LTC only) | steamdb.com/markets/waxpeer |
| Market.CSGO | 5% | No fee of its own, the payment provider keeps 1–5% | steamdb.com/ru/markets/csgotm |
| WhiteMarket | 5% (minimum $0.01), 0% for the buyer | 1–3% depending on the payment provider | white.market/faq |
| DMarket | 7% | Depends on the method | Official DMarket fee page |
| Skinport | 8% base; 6% on items over €1000; 2% on private sales | Depends on the method | "8% forever" announcement of 18.07.2025 |
| Lis-Skins | 10% | Card 3.5% + €0.50, crypto 0.4% + network fee, to balance 0% | steamdb.com/markets/lis-skins |
| BitSkins | — | — | Marketplace shut down 30.06.2026 |
BitSkins is gone. On 27.05.2026 the marketplace announced it was closing, on 29.05.2026 it disabled new listings and deposits, and on 30.06.2026 it switched off automated withdrawals. The stated reasons were tightening regulation, restrictions from the authorities and VAT. Deposits were declared non-refundable, and anything left after 30 June is only recoverable through a manual support review. If you see an article or a calculator that still lists BitSkins, that data is at least two months stale. Official announcement
Where we could not confirm the numbers
Being straight about the gaps, because an "approximate" figure is worse than no figure:
- Waxpeer. The official fee page
faq.waxpeer.com/fees-sellserves an empty JS shell and cannot be read without a browser. The SteamDB aggregator says 2% (checked 02.07.2026), the CSGOSKINS.GG aggregator says 6%. We went with 2%, because it matches the marketplace's own announcement of the cut from 6% to 2%, while the CSGOSKINS.GG figure looks inherited from the old tariff. Check the rate in the interface before your first sale — the listing confirmation screen is required to show you the amount you will receive. - Market.CSGO. The
market.csgo.com/feespage serves its rates as an image, so there is no text to pull. The 5% is confirmed by two independent aggregators, but we have no official text source for it. - Lis-Skins. Do not conflate two different scenarios here. The 10% fee applies to a listing on the marketplace. Separately there is "instant sell" to bots, where you get materially less than market price: that is not a fee, it is a discounted buyout, and comparing it with the rates in the table is not valid.
- DMarket and Skinport. The rates in the table (7% and 8%) come from our working source registry and match the marketplaces' public announcements, but the exact withdrawal fees vary by method and country — check those in your account at the moment you cash out.
The Steam formula: why 15% is not 15%
This is the single most expensive mistake in CS2 skin math.
Steam takes 15% (5% to Steam + 10% to the game) on the amount the seller receives, not on the price the buyer pays. The mechanic: you create a listing, the interface asks how much you want to receive, and it adds the fee on top for the buyer.
Which gives the formula:
Net proceeds = Listing price / 1.15
Compare the two approaches on a $30 item:
| Approach | Calculation | Result | Error |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wrong (× 0.85) | 30 × 0.85 | $25.50 | overstates the fee |
| Correct (/ 1.15) | 30 / 1.15 | $26.09 | — |
The gap is 59 cents on a $30 item. Sounds trivial, but it is 2.3% of the trade, and it compounds: across $10 000 of turnover the wrong formula eats roughly $230 out of your own numbers — meaning you walk away from trades that were actually profitable.
The effective rate against the listing price works out to ≈13.04%, not 15%. Easy to verify: $30 − $26.09 = $3.91, and $3.91 / $30 = 13.04%.
Working backwards. If you want a specific amount in hand, multiply by 1.15. Want $50 net? List at $57.50. Steam rounds cents in its own favor and charges a $0.01 minimum on each of the two fee components, so on cheap items (under $0.20) the effective rate lands well above 13% — sometimes 20% and more.
End-to-end example: a $30 item
Same item, sold on every marketplace at the same $30 price, taken all the way through to money you can actually spend outside the game.
Step 1: after the marketplace fee
| Marketplace | Rate | Calculation | On the marketplace balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| CS.Deals | 2% | 30 × 0.98 | $29.40 |
| Waxpeer | 2% | 30 × 0.98 | $29.40 |
| Market.CSGO | 5% | 30 × 0.95 | $28.50 |
| WhiteMarket | 5% | 30 × 0.95 | $28.50 |
| DMarket | 7% | 30 × 0.93 | $27.90 |
| Skinport | 8% | 30 × 0.92 | $27.60 |
| Lis-Skins | 10% | 30 × 0.90 | $27.00 |
| Steam | 15% of the seller's proceeds | 30 / 1.15 | $26.09 |
Step 2: after cashing out to a card or crypto
This is where the picture changes, and not in favor of the "cheap" marketplaces:
| Marketplace | On balance | Withdrawal fee | Money in hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| CS.Deals (SEPA 1.5%) | $29.40 | −$0.44 | $28.96 |
| Market.CSGO (provider ~3%) | $28.50 | −$0.86 | $27.64 |
| WhiteMarket (~2%) | $28.50 | −$0.57 | $27.93 |
| Waxpeer (crypto 2% + network ~$1) | $29.40 | −$1.59 | $27.81 |
| Lis-Skins (card 3.5% + €0.50) | $27.00 | −$1.50 | $25.50 |
| Steam | $26.09 | withdrawal impossible | $0.00 in cash |
Bottom line of the walkthrough: the spread between the best and the worst option on a $30 item is $3.46, or 11.5% of the trade. And that is before accounting for the fact that a $30 price is nowhere near equally reachable across marketplaces.
An important caveat. The same $30 price everywhere is a simplification that keeps the arithmetic clean. In reality a marketplace with a 2% fee can have demand so thin that your $30 listing sits there for a month, while on Skinport at 8% it sells in a day. The fee is only one of three multipliers. The second is liquidity, the third is how fast you get to the money.
The Steam wallet: money that is not money
This is the point that turns "Steam only takes 13%" into "Steam takes 100% if you need cash".
Proceeds from a Steam Community Market sale land in your Steam wallet. From there they cannot be withdrawn to a card, a bank or crypto — there is no route at all. The only use is buying games, in-game items and other content inside Steam itself.
The practical takeaway:
- If you play and keep buying skins, Steam is objectively one of the best marketplaces on rate alone, and its fee effectively becomes the cost of churning inside a closed loop.
- If you need money outside Steam, your real Steam rate is not 13% — it is "unavailable". Comparing it with Skinport's 8% is meaningless: they are different products.
That is exactly why in our calculations on omniskin-table.com Steam proceeds sit in a separate column rather than being dumped into a single ranking. Treating wallet balance as money on a card means systematically overstating your own returns.
Hidden costs the fee tables never show
The fee rate is the most visible cost, but far from the only one. Here is what eats your proceeds beyond the percentage.
Steam trade hold: 7 days
Steam holds items for 7 days if you have no Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator, or added it recently. For a seller that is not a direct loss of money — it is lost time and price risk.
What that looks like in practice: you agreed to sell at $30, and seven days later the market is down 8% and the buyer walks. Or the reverse — the price went up and you are already committed. On volatile positions (knives, rare patterns, fresh cases) a week-long hold is real price risk, not a formality.
Separately: Lis-Skins applies an 8-day payout delay to sellers who have not passed KYC and not accumulated $50 in sales. Instant withdrawal only unlocks after verification.
Currency conversion: the 1–3% nobody counts
Most marketplaces operate in dollars or euros. If you cash out to a ruble card, you lose twice:
- On the conversion rate of the marketplace or the payment provider (typically 1–3% worse than the exchange rate).
- On your bank's rate at credit, if the payout currency does not match your card currency.
Together, conversion easily adds 2–4% to your costs — which can exceed the marketplace fee itself on CS.Deals or Waxpeer.
Withdrawal fees
A separate line item that many people only discover on the final screen:
- Crypto is almost always cheaper as a percentage, but it adds a network fee. On small amounts that is brutal: the network takes $1–3 whether you are withdrawing $20 or $2000. On a $20 withdrawal that is 5–15%.
- Cards cost more as a percentage (up to 3.5%) and often carry a fixed add-on (€0.50 on Lis-Skins) — same logic as the network fee: on small amounts a flat charge turns into a double-digit percentage.
- Some marketplaces charge nothing themselves, but the payment provider keeps 1–5%. Not a scam, but not "0% withdrawal" either, however it gets advertised.
Minimum amounts
Withdrawal minimums rarely make it to the front page. If the minimum is $10 and your balance is $6, the money is effectively frozen until you sell something else. For small sales that means forced accumulation and, with it, more time exposed to marketplace risk.
Marketplace risk itself
The BitSkins story is the best illustration. A marketplace with years of reputation announced its closure and gave users 34 days to withdraw their assets, after which automated withdrawals were switched off. Deposits, meanwhile, were declared non-refundable.
Never hold more on a marketplace balance than you are willing to lose. A 2% fee is worth nothing if the marketplace shuts down while your $500 sits in a manual verification queue. Cash out regularly, even if it costs you a couple of percent in withdrawal fees — that is not an expense, it is insurance.
Common mistakes in the math
1. Multiplying by 0.85 instead of dividing by 1.15. Covered above. Overstates the Steam fee by 2.3% of the trade and makes you pass on profitable deals.
2. Comparing seller fees while ignoring the withdrawal. Waxpeer at 2% selling plus 2% crypto withdrawal plus the network fee loses on a $30 item to CS.Deals at the same 2% with SEPA at 1.5%. Count the whole chain, not the first link.
3. Treating Steam balance as money. The most common beginner mistake in arbitrage: "bought on Skinport for $25, sold on Steam for $30, made $5". You made nothing — you spent $25 of real money and got $26.09 of internal currency that cannot be cashed out.
4. Taking a rate from someone's article instead of the marketplace. Skinport cut its fee from 12% to 8% in July 2025. BitSkins closed outright. The articles ranking on Google for these queries were updated at some point, just not yesterday. Always check the rate on the listing confirmation screen — the marketplace is required to show you the amount you will receive.
5. Forgetting the minimum fee on cheap items. Steam charges a $0.01 minimum on each of the two fee components. On a $0.10 item that is already 20%, not 13%. Selling small stuff through the Steam Market is close to pointless on rate alone.
6. Ignoring liquidity. A 2% fee on a marketplace where nobody buys your item is not 2%, it is infinity. Compute expected proceeds adjusted for the probability and the time to sell, especially for expensive knives and rare patterns where sales run at a handful a month.
7. Confusing a fee with an instant-buyout discount. "Instant sell" to bots is not a 10% fee, it is a buyout well below market. Different things, different order of loss.
🔧Value your inventoryfree, no sign-upHow to do the math properly
- Take the listing price on the specific marketplace — not the market average, not the Steam price, but the price at which identical items in the same wear and with the same pattern actually sell there.
- Subtract the marketplace fee from the table above. For Steam, divide by 1.15; for everyone else, multiply by (1 − rate).
- Subtract the withdrawal fee for the method you actually use, including the fixed part and the network fee.
- Subtract currency conversion if you cash out in a currency other than the balance currency. Budget 2% as a conservative estimate.
- Check the withdrawal minimum — if your total is below it, the money stays on the balance, and that is a cost too.
- Estimate the time to sell. An item that sits for a month is a month of price risk and marketplace risk. Sometimes it is better to give up 8% and have the money today.
This is exactly the chain the live OmniSkin table computes automatically across 19 marketplaces: we show the seller's net proceeds, not the listing price, and flag in a separate column where the money can be withdrawn and where it stays in an internal wallet.
Which one to pick for your situation
There is no universal answer — there are three different scenarios.
You need money on a card and the item is liquid. Look at low rates with cheap fiat withdrawal: CS.Deals (2% + 1.5% SEPA) gives the best arithmetic of everything we verified. But check that your item actually trades there in a reasonable time.
You need money and the item is expensive or rare. Here the audience matters more than the rate. Skinport at 8% (and 6% on items over €1000) often produces the better final price simply because a buyer for a high-end position exists there and does not on a 2% marketplace. Paying 6 percentage points more in fees pays for itself if the sale price is 10% higher.
You need the money inside Steam. The Steam Market is competitive on rate (≈13% of the listing price) and you need no withdrawal at all. Just do not convert that balance into real currency in your returns spreadsheet.
No fee on its own makes a trade profitable. The fee determines what you give up — what you earn comes from the price gap between marketplaces, and that gap has to exceed the sum of every cost along the chain, not just the selling percentage.
FAQ
Every rate in this guide was verified on 27 August 2026 against official marketplace pages and market aggregators, linked in the table. Fees change without notice — before a large trade, check the number on the listing confirmation screen, where the marketplace is required to show you the amount you will receive. We are not promising easy money: the difference between marketplaces is real, but it is measured in percent, not multiples, and it takes discipline in the math.