Here we attempt to fill your brains with the know how of the trading world!


Note: This guide is mainly for people who are new to trading and need help getting started! Traders with a bit of experience can most likely skip most parts of this guide.

You are able to trade most of the items which are in your inventory but there are some restrictions that apply:

• You cannot trade achievement items
  
• If you are on a newly authorized device that has not been Steam Guarded for 7 days you will receive a 7 day restriction from trading and the Community Market.
  
• Your Steam Guard must have been permanently active on your account during the last 15 days else you are unable to trade (We will explain how to enable Steam Guard later in this Guide. To skip to it press here)
  
• If you reset your password, you will be restricted from trading and the Community Market for 5 days. If your account has not had any activity for more than 2 months, these restrictions will apply for 30 days. We do this to help protect users who lose access to their email account. Note that this does not affect password changes, only password resets.
  
• You are not able to trade if you're Community Ban or banned from trading (i.e. for scamming)
  
• Only items and games that are purchased with trusted payment methods can be traded immediately; otherwise there is a 7 day cool down before they can be traded.
  
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Trading:
  • If a VAC Ban (for any game), cooldown or overwatch ban has been registered on your account, you will no longer have access to the CS:GO store, or be able to make trades for CS:GO items, and you will no longer receive item drops. You will still have access to your items that were acquired before the ban/cooldown.

No, once a game has been activated it's permanently associated with your account and cannot be traded.

You can post your offers in the game specific trading-subforum or join a trading group within the Steam Community. Within a trading group you can offer your stuff within the discussion area, the group chat or the comments section.

The amount of items you can store in your inventory differs depending on the backpack you are using.

• Steam items and gifts inventory: Unlimited
  
• Team Fortress 2 inventory:
  • F2P Account: 50 Slots
    
  • Premium Account: 300Slots, +100 Slots per Backpack Expander (maximum 2000 Slots)
• Dota 2 inventory: 250 Slots

Yes and no.
If the game you traded for has been fraudulently purchased, then support will, as per Steam Trading Policy, recover your items once.
If you were scammed while trading for money or other goods outside of the steam trading window, then support will most likely not recover your items.

To open the trade window you have to first open a private chat with the person that you want to trade with.
Within this chat window there is an arrow on the top right (yellow box).



Click this arrow and a bunch of options will appear. Select 'Invite to trade'.



After doing this, the trade window will pop up and you can simply drag the items you want to trade from your inventory on the left hand-side into the top grid on the right hand-side. Another method of adding items to a trade is by double-clicking on them from your inventory on the left hand-side. When both you, and your trading partner have added the items you want to trade, you need to click 'Ready' (yellow box).



Once both of you have clicked 'Ready' the 'Make Trade' button will turn green, click it and the trade will be completed.



Things to note:

• If you are trading for Team Fortress 2 items, you cannot recieve more than you have empty slots in your inventory. F2P (Free to play) players have a maximum of 50 Team Fortress 2 inventory slots. Players who have bought at least one item from the Mann Co. Store get a maximum of 300 Team Fortress 2 inventory slots (See guide section: How to get TF2 premium). You can also increase the size of your Team Fortress 2 backpack by using backpack expanders (Picture below) which increase the size of your inventory by 100 for each one you use.

To use the new 'Trade offers' you have to go to your 'Activity Feed'. The 'Activity Feed' can be opened by clicking on 'Your Name' in the client and then choosing 'Activity'.
In your activity feed you will find a button called 'Trade offers'.



By pressing this button you will be forwarded to the 'Trade Offer' menu. Next you have to press 'New Trade offer...'.



This will open your friends list on which you can choose the friend you want to trade with (a person has to be on your friends list to be able to make them a trade offer). After choosing a friend you will be able to drag your stuff from your inventory and their stuff from their inventory into the trade window.
To send the offer you need to press on 'Click here to confirm trade contents' and then on 'Make Offer'.
If your friend accepts the offer, you will recieve a notification in your inbox which can be found on the top right hand-side.

Every user has their 'Trade offer URL', which can be found on your 'Trade Offers' site (http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/my/tradeoffers/). On that site, you have to press on 'Who can send me Trade Offers?'.



After that, you will be forwarded to a list of information about your settings. On the bottom of that site, you can find your 'Unique URL'. Anybody having that URL can send you 'Trade Offers', regardless of friendship.



If you want to stop people who know your URL from sending 'Trade Offers', you can simply create a new URL which will make the old one invalid. You can do so by clicking the following button:



It is not possible to transfer Steam Wallet via the trade offer system. People leaving a message claiming a specific amount of Steam Wallet will be transferred to your account after accepting the trade are trying to scam you!

Steam Trading Forums can be found within the discussion area of every game.

The advantage of leaving your offers within the Trading subforum is that you are able to send 'Trade Offers' directly and don't have to add each other (Basically you are able to trade with anybody, not just with people on your friends list. However, to do this, the user's inventory must be public, otherwise they will not be able to recieve trade offers).

To do this just open a thread and say what you would like to trade. It is important that your inventory privacy is set to 'Public visible', or else you won't be able to recieve any trade offers. After your trade is done, you can lock your thread. After doing that, you are no longer able to take actions on that thread.

Note: Please make sure to read the rules of the trading subforums before opening a thread there.

Disclaimer: Due to frequent changes of the prices, this list might be outdated from time to time but we will do our best to keep this list up-to-date. If you encounter mistakes, please leave a comment below.

A huge amount of traders also accept Dota 2 and CS:GO keys. But as the CS:GO keys have a fewer market share, they are sold for more (1 TF2/D2 keys + ref/rares, also have a higher community market price)
Where as TF2 and Dota keys are pretty much equaling the same, and it's just a matter of patience to 1:1.

When trading keys for games, you'll most likely get cheaper prices by offering CS:GO keys (due to the higher market price).

If you have a complete set of cards, you can craft a badge which grants you 100 XP towards your Steam Level. There are also some other rewards for crafting a Badge:

• 1 Emoticon
  
• 1 Background
  
• 1 Coupon
  
• +5 Slots towards your friendlist (Gained everytime you level up)
  
• 1 Showcase (Showcases are only gained by reaching the levels 10, 20, 30, 40, etc...)

Every badge can be crafted up to Level 5. Foil Badges can only be crafted once (Level 1) and will earn you 100XP.


There are a few different ways to get cards:

• Playing the specific game that you want cards for
  
• Trading for cards
  
• Buying cards from the Steam Community Market
  
• Opening Booster Packs

Booster Packs are sets that contain 3 cards. They will randomly drop into your inventory, the chance to recieve them rises 20% every 10 Levels you have.
To be eligable for 'Booster Packs', you need to log into your account at least once per week.


Showcases allow you to present your account better. For example, you can show your rarest achievements or your favourite screenshots on your main profile screen.
A showcase is granted once every 10th level you gain.
You can select and change your showcases by clicking 'Edit my profile' and picking which ones you want.

If you've been scammed, make sure to contact Steam Support or to report the scammer via their profile. Whether your items will be recovered or not depends on the situation, further information can be found within the Steam Trading Policy.

To stay safe from scammers keep the following in mind:

• Never rush trades - scammers often remove items quickly before you can notice
  
• Do not trade outside steam trading window
  
• Always check the profile of the person you're trading with, scammers may try to impersonate people you trust, it is your responsibility to know who you are trading with
  
• A lot of scammers state that they will trade you their share or the rest of the items/gifts in another trade or in the near future, but never do
  
• Pay attention to the trade log while making the trade. All changes, additions, removals and actions will be recorded in this box

One way to get Team Fortress 2 premium and increase the size of your inventory to 300 slots is to make a purchase from the Mann Co. Online Store. It can be found here.
The advantage of this option is that you will get 2 free hats.

The Mann Co. ingame Store
First you must install Team Fortress 2

Then, you need to open up Team Fortress 2 from your library and click on the 'Shop' button.



Next you need to click on 'Browse the store', this will open up a page showing all the items for sale in the Mann Co. store.



It does not matter which item you buy from the store (in the picture below we chose a backpack expander), you will get premium no matter what the item you buy costs. To buy the cheapest possible item, go to the drop down in the top right corner of the store screen, and select 'Lowest price' as sorting option. This will put the cheapest items first and you can pick one of these to buy.



After you have added the weapon to your cart, you have to press on 'Checkout'.



Now confirm the purchase. You should be shown a pop up with a reciept of the weapon you're buying and it will also say that you are purchasing Team Fortress 2 premium for 0.00. Confirm this (Picture below doesn't show Premium for 0.00 because we already had premium.)



Finally you will be updated to premium and should have access to 300 inventory slots instead of your previous 50 (Note: You may be required to restart Team Fortress 2 for your premium status to register).
Disadvantage: Instead of two free hats as you would get from the Online Store, you only receive one.

Activating an 'Upgrade to Premium Gift'.



Information about how to activate this gift can be found under the point 'How to activate TF2 items (e.g. Backpack Expanders, Upgrade to Premium...)?'
Disadvantage: Costs a lot.

First of all, launch the game and go to the main menu. After that, press on the button called 'Items'.



Open your backpack by clicking on 'Backpack'



Now your backpack will open and you can select an item you want to use by clicking on it.



As soon as you selected one item, a button called 'Use' will appear.



Click it and the following message will pop up:



Now you just have to confirm by clicking on 'OK'.

First of all, visit your inventory and select 'Steam Inventory'. Then click on the game which you want to activate. Now there will be a window in the right corner which gives you the possibility to activate your game by pressing on 'Add to my game libary...'.



After doing this, there will be a window asking you to confirm your request.



If you confirm your request, you will see the following confirmation and your game should now be accessible through your library.

Everybody with an account that fulfills the requirements below is able to use the Community Market:

• At least one successful purchase that is more than 30 days but no longer than 1 year ago
  
• Have had Steam Guard permanently enabled for at least 15 days
  
• The device which wants to be used for trading must have been authorized by Steam Guard for at least 7 days
  
• No password reset within the last 5 days (Note: If your account has been inactive for longer than 2 months, then your password will have been automatically resetted and you will be unable to use the market for 30 days instead of just 5 days)
  
• No trade ban
  
• No new payment method added within the last 7 days

Yes, when you make a succesful sale, you will have to share a percentage of the sale total with the developer/publisher of the game and Steam itself. The fees are between 10% and 15% in the most cases.

Example:
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive-Fee (10.0%)
+Steam-Fee(5.0%):
=========================================
15% fees

Go to your inventory by choosing 'YOUR NAME' in the client and then clicking on 'Inventory'.
After that choose a category that your item belongs to (TF2/Dota2/CS:GO...).



Then choose the item you want to sell and press the button.
Now set a price that you want to sell your item for. The right pricefield shows the money you recieve(excluding fees) and the right pricefield shows what the buyer has to pay (including fees).
After setting the price, you will have to agree to the 'SSA' (Steam Subscriber Agreement).
To set the item up, press 'OK, put it up for sale'.




200. After 200 sold items, you will need to provide further information to get access to an unlimited amount of sales per year.

Go to the main market page, there will be a list of all the items which you have added to the market.
If you're there, press the 'Remove' button near to the item which you want to remove from the market.



After that, you will need to confirm that you want to remove the listing.



You're paying the items with your Steam Wallet. If you don't have Steam Wallet, you can top up your Steam Wallet as follows:

In the top right corner of the client you can find your account name. Click on it and choose 'Account Details'. You will see the following:



Press the yellow marked button. Now the client will forward you to a site where you have to choose the amount of wallet that you want to top up:



After choosing the amount you want to add, you will have to select a payment method to be able to checkout.

To enable Steam Guard, you must first click on the tab 'Steam' which can be located in the top left corner of the main steam window.



Next, you need to find the 'Settings' button.



After clicking on the 'Settings' button, a new window will pop up containing a few options. To enable Steam Guard, click on the option 'Manage Steam Guard Account Security...'.



Next, you just need to tick the box which is next to 'Protect my account with Steam Guard (Recommended)'



Finally, all you need to do is clicking 'Next' and then 'Finish'.



Note: You must have Steam Guard enabled for 15 days before you can trade with other steam users.

Feedback such as suggestions, improvements, criticism or questions are welcome and will be answered as soon as possible.
We will try to maintain this Guide as good as possible and try to update it with new content and current prices of items frequently.
People who help us to improve this guide, may be added as a contributor and get the right to edit this guide.

• Hints for huge sales such as the Steam Summer Sale or the Steam Holiday Sale
  
• Pricelist for CS:GO items

• Steam Support FAQ
  
• Team Fortress 2
  
• Dota 2
  
• Steam Trading Policy
  
• Steam Subscriber Agreement (SSA)
  
• Our own experiences