Team Fortress 2: Money Making Guide (PSA)

Hello! Ever been to a trade server and wondered why people buy certain things? Let me tell you why that is and how you can take advantage of this market. This can also help you if you own any of these items and want to know if you should sell them for metal. (Spoiler alert, it’s best to sell it on the market)

Before you get to trading you should really know your assets. Here are a few sites that can help you while you are trading:

• Steam.tools
  This site lets you see the value of your inventory for most games on Steam. Use this to see your current profits before you sell them on the market.
• Backpack.tf
  Price check any item in Team Fortress 2. Simple as that. Also check to see if anyone is suspicious of scamming through their rep page. If you are patient you can also sell keys to bots or other players for more than Scrap.tf
• Scrap.tf
  Use this if you want metal fast and don’t feel like clicking. Sell your keys here if you want the fastest metal.
• Marketplace.tf
  Great site to buy instantly-tradable keys. At the time of writing, keys are 1.80 there and you can use the code “Uncle” to get a free key when buying 10. (Once per day)

Now that you know these sites, next you are going to need your starting income. I would suggest buying 10 or so keys on Marketplace.tf and using the code “Uncle”. Convert a key into metal and hop onto a trade server. Use the server browser and type “trade” in the map filter. Here are some good servers to look out for.

• UGC
• Wonderland
• Panda
• Skial

Once you hop onto a server you can start putting down a trade bind by going into the console and typing this:

bind <BUTTON> “say <MESSEGE>”

Example: bind p “say HELLO!” will make it say “HELLO!” everytime you press P.

Steam Trading Cards are items that are dropped by playing various games on Steam. You may not know it but you might have plenty just laying around doing nothing. They are worth something and you can take advantage of the fact that nobody knows what they are. You can also take advantage of the fact that people might not care for them either.

At the moment, keys are worth 60 refined metal. You can convert that to 180 reclaimed metal. You buy Steam Trading Cards for 1 reclaimed metal each and then sell them for around 0.03 USD (After taxes, so the buyer of the card pays around 0.05. Be sure to check buy orders on each card) on average.

You can also find foil cards occasionally. Which will net you a rather large profit as well.

A good bind to use is this:

bind <BUTTON> “say Buying ANY Steam Trading Cards for 0.33 Refined Metal each!”

Doing this should net you on average:

5.40 USD on Steam after taxes.

A key is 2.30 on the SCM as of writing this guide. Which means you essentially doubled your money by doing this method. If you want to destroy the competition you can also buy for 0.44 refined metal. (One reclaimed and one scrap) and you would still make plenty of profit.

“What if you get unmarketable cards or ones that are 1 cent after tax?” Dump them on someone else.

If you have cards yourself, either sell them on the market or use them. Not worth the little amount of metal you will get for how many cards you have.

BONUS!:

You can also buy Steam Emotes/Backgrounds for 0.5-1 scrap each. Convert any that are more than 10 gems into gems, then dump the rest onto a bot or another player. Convert 1000 gems into a sack then sell the sack on the market. This will also net you a pretty penny and you can do this on top of buying cards.

“Team Fortress 2 cases are worthless and common, so CSGO cases must be that way too right?” WRONG! They are worth quite a bit, especially when they first come out or are older cases. In fact only two cases are below the 0.20 USD mark and most likely you won’t have them. They are dropped once per week and have a larger base of players unboxing than Team Fortress 2.

So how do you make money off this? Just buy them for one Refined Metal each! A lot of people who quit CSGO or have not played it in a while will have them laying around and you could easily make a fortune. Out of the three methods I explain in this guide, this is the most profitable method.

If you really want to stretch your dollar, you can exclude Prisma cases. You can also potentially hold onto these cases and hope they rise in the future.

Here is a good bind to use:

bind <BUTTON> “say Buying all CSGO Cases for 1 Refined Each!”

It isn’t as consistent as cards, but you will get quite a few cases that are worth 1-3 USD. So you can range from 5 USD to 20 USD per key you use.

If you have cases yourself, sell them on the market, do not sell them for metal to other players. Especially if they are only going to pay you a refined.

“Well okay, CSGO cases are worth something, but TF2 cases are still worth nothing.” WRONG AGAIN! While Christmas Crates are worth nothing, you can still make a lot of money off other cases that people have. Summer cases contain exclusive unusuals and Halloween cases will always have value.

This one is really simple and doesn’t require much compared to the other two methods. All you have to do is buy any 10 cases for 1 scrap. If you really want to stretch your dollar just exclude Christmas cases.

Here is a good bind:

bind <BUTTON> “say Buying any 10 cases for 1 scrap! (No Christmas cases please!)”

Once you buy enough cases, you just skim through them and sell any that are 0.04 USD or higher on the market, then dump the rest on a bot or another player doing this method. Rinse and repeat.

This may be slower, but you can still make a lot of cash. Still very inconsistent, but if you manage to get 1 cent off every case that is easily 4.80 USD per key used. Way more if you snag any case that is 2.50 (Such as Gun Mettle Cosmetic Cases).

What should you do if you have cases? Sell the ones that are worth something and delete the rest. Not worth your time to unbox or trade them away.

Here is another method to make money. You can even just flat out flip these for metal if you want to do that instead. All you have to do is buy any robot part for 1 scrap each.

“How does that make me money?” Well did you know that a lot of players who have these parts don’t know that “Battle-Worn” parts are worth 1 refined metal each? They will just give you them because it is another robot part and they think if one is worthless, they are all worthless.

Here is a bind:

bind <BUTTON> “say Buying any robot parts for 1 scrap each!”

All you have to do is sell the Battle-Worns for a refined or on the Steam Community Market, and dump the rest onto bots.

If you have these parts, please sell the Battle-Worn and Pristine parts on the Steam Community Market or to bots on Backpack.tf. The rest you can safely sell to anyone else for 0.5-1 scrap each.

Your items are worth more than you think. If you want to get into any sort of trading please visit a site like Backpack.tf to see what your items are worth, and check the Steam Community Market to see how much a item costs in your currency.

Refined Metal is 0.04 USD as of right now. While a key is 2.30 in the Steam Community Market.