«Can I even sell a Steam account?» is the first question, and the honest answer
has two halves. The Steam Subscriber Agreement forbids selling an account or
charging for its use, and Valve makes no exceptions. In practice Valve does not
hunt transferred accounts; what it does, tirelessly, is return an account to
whoever proves they created it — original email, first purchase, old keys.
That is the risk of selling a Steam account, it sits with the seller as much
as with the buyer, and everything below is arranged around it.
Our shelf holds 3 682 Steam accounts, median
$34.58, the middle half between
$14.67 and $68.38.
16% sell under $10 and
16,9% clear $100. A broad, cheap
market with a thin expensive edge — and the expensive edge is not where most
sellers think it is.
A Steam account is a login and a password, but what actually changes hands is
the email the account is bound to and the Steam Guard that confirms
logins — codes to that mailbox, or a mobile authenticator on a phone. A buyer
who gets the password alone has borrowed the account: the first «forgot
password» goes to your inbox, and the first login from a new device asks your
phone. Selling means handing over a mailbox the buyer can make his own and
removing your authenticator so he can add his.
That is why the access line sits ahead of the library on every card here, and
why the phrase sellers write — «original mail», «native», «full access» — is a
price line rather than a courtesy. Say which one yours is.
The instinct is to price the library. The shelf does not:
| what is on the account | tracks price | listings measured |
|---|
| CS2 profile rank | 0,579 | 2 868 |
| Steam level | 0,49 | 3 169 |
| Friends | 0,401 | 2 868 |
| Games in the library | 0,169 | 2 868 |
| Inventory value | 0,133 | 2 868 |
Games in the library barely move the median, and the inventory value moves it
even less — a library is what the previous owner played, and a buyer who wants
a game buys the game. What the shelf pays for is age and standing: the
Steam level, and above all the CS2 profile rank, which is years of play made
visible:
| CS2 profile rank | listings | median |
|---|
| no CS2 profile | 955 | $15.47 |
| 1 – 9 | 768 | $46.84 |
| 10 – 24 | 606 | $59.62 |
| 25 or more | 539 | $54.01 |
| not stated | 814 | $12.80 |
| Steam level | listings | median |
|---|
| under 5 | 833 | $21.58 |
| 5 – 9 | 1 567 | $41.56 |
| 10 – 24 | 723 | $77.63 |
| 25 or more | 46 | $222.31 |
| not stated | 513 | $9.61 |
Two things on the shelf are products of their own rather than steps on that
ladder. Rust accounts sell as Rust accounts — the game is the reason for
the purchase, and the median says so:
| Rust in the library | listings | median |
|---|
| not stated | 814 | $12.80 |
| no | 2 699 | $37.96 |
| yes | 169 | $93.96 |
And the store region is a filter buyers apply before they compare
anything else — the country an account is registered in decides its prices,
its currency and which payment methods work. The regions our buyers actually
find on the shelf:
The full measurement, with the library and the inventory shown not to price,
is in how much a Steam account is worth.
- The access line. Whether the mailbox comes with the account and whether
your authenticator is off. Everything else comes after.
- The store region — the country, not the language. It is the first
filter and it cannot be changed without a local payment method.
- CS2 status: Prime, profile rank, service medals, and whether the
account has any VAC or game ban. A ban is not a secret — it sits on the
profile — so write it before the buyer finds it.
- Level and account age. Both are visible on the profile and both are
checked against your claim.
- The games by name. Not «120 games» — the ones a buyer searches for:
Rust, PUBG, TF2, Dota 2. The shelf has a filter for each.
- Limited status. An account that never spent $5 is a limited account —
no friend invites, no market — and buyers know the difference.
- Move the account to a mailbox you will hand over whole. Register a
separate inbox, change the account email to it, confirm, and pass the inbox
with the account. Never your main email — the mailbox is the account.
- Remove your mobile authenticator and your phone number. Steam will warn
you; do it anyway. The buyer adds his own, and that puts a fifteen-day hold
on trades and the market on his side — a Valve rule, not a defect; say it in
the listing so it is not a surprise. How it works is in
Steam trade hold and limited accounts after you buy.
- Strip your payment methods — saved cards, PayPal, wallet codes — and
leave any Steam Family you are in. A buyer inside your family sees your
library; you inside his sees his purchases.
- Deauthorize every device in the account's security settings and sign
out everywhere, so the only session left is the one you hand over.
- Screenshot what prices the account. The profile with level and years of
service, the CS2 profile with rank and medals, the library sorted by name —
not a store page. A screenshot of the Rust icon proves nothing about hours.
- Leave the account alone once it is listed. No trades, no market
sales, no new bans. The listing goes through moderation, and a description
that no longer matches fails at handover — that is a refund, not a sale.
- Price against the band, not the ceiling. Find your CS2-rank band and
your level band above and read the medians there; the
Steam value calculator prices against live listings once you
give it the profile.
With Epic and Riot an ownership dispute is decided by the email. With Valve it
is decided by proof of creation: Steam Support returns an account to whoever
sends the original email address, the first purchase receipt or the original
CD key — and it does that even after the email, the password and the phone have
all been changed. What that means for a buyer is set out in
Steam account recovery: proof of ownership and what it means when you buy;
for a seller it means two things.
First: the account stays within your reach after the sale, forever, and the
buyer pays exactly as much less as the platform is unsure of you. Second: the
money does not arrive on delivery. It sits in escrow while the buyer checks the
login; if he stays silent the order confirms itself after 72 hours. Then the
buyer's warranty runs, and only then does the amount land on your balance. A
recovery filed inside that window is a dispute you lose, and the sale unwinds.
Sell once and for good, and the money is yours. The legal side, and how it
differs from a ban, is in
is it legal to buy a game account.
Most Steam accounts change hands in Discord servers and Telegram groups, and
that is where sellers most often lose money. The pattern is always the same:
the buyer asks for the login first and the transfer after, or pays in a way
that can be reversed once the mailbox has been handed over. No chat holds the
money for you. On a marketplace with escrow the buyer pays first, and once the
handover is confirmed the payment cannot be pulled back; what the marketplaces
charge for that, side by side, is in
where to sell game accounts.
You set the price you want to receive, and that is the amount that reaches you.
Seller commission is 0%, there is no listing fee, no monthly fee and nothing
is withheld at payout. The order runs in steps: a buyer pays; you have 24 hours
to deliver, and the deadline is printed on your listing; the buyer checks; the
warranty runs; the money lands on your seller balance; you request a payout —
crypto or card.
Sell your Steam account prices the listing against live shelf
data and walks the handover; the seller application is the way
in. What the region changes, for the buyer who will ask, is in
Steam account region: what the store country changes,
and the listing itself — what to write, what gets rejected, what protects
you — in how to sell a game account for what it is worth.
Every figure on this page is computed from our live catalogue when the page is
served, and each table prints how many listings stand behind each band.
Correlations are Spearman rank coefficients.
Counter-Strike 2
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Valorant