Liquidity Score: Inputs and Formula Calculation

The liquidity score answers a simple question:

How easy should it be to sell this item near its current market price?

Every item receives a score from 0 to 100. A higher score means there is stronger evidence that the item can be sold without waiting a long time or accepting a large discount. The score does not predict whether an item’s price will rise or fall. It also does not mean an item is cheap, expensive, popular, or a good investment.

Reading the score

Score	What it usually means
`80-100`	Very liquid. Many completed sales, ready buyers, healthy listings, and broad market coverage.
`60-79`	Liquid. Usually sellable, although one part of the market may be weaker.
`30-59`	Situational. Selling quickly may require patience or a larger discount.
`0-29`	Low liquidity. Few confirmed sales, weak buy orders, thin listings, or incomplete data.

These ranges are a quick guide. The component scores explain why an item received its total.

What makes up the score

The total comes from five parts:

Part	Maximum points	What it measures
Listings count	`15`	How many items are actually listed at competitive prices
Valid buy orders	`25`	How close real buy orders are to seller prices, and how many buy orders exist
Sales volume	`45`	How often the item has actually sold recently
Consistent pricing	`5`	Whether recent prices are well covered and reasonably steady
Data coverage	`10`	How many independent sources support the score

The result is rounded to the nearest whole number and kept between 0 and 100. Missing information receives zero points for that part; the other parts are not increased to make up the difference. Completed sales are the largest part of the score. A large number of listings cannot make an item perfectly liquid by itself.

Listings count: 15%

This part looks at items that are currently for sale. Only listings priced within 10% of the cheapest current listing count. An item listed far above the rest of the market does not make the item easier to sell, so it adds no points. The first few listings matter the most. As the number grows, each extra listing adds less. This part reaches its maximum at 500 competitive listings. Listings older than six hours are ignored.

Only competitive inventory counts

Fresh listings close to the cheapest current price provide useful evidence. Old or overpriced listings do not.

Chart showing how listings near the market price earn up to fifteen points

Valid buy orders: 25%

A listing shows what a seller wants. A buy order shows what a buyer is willing to pay right now. The score compares buy orders with listings from the same marketplace. It never combines a cheap listing from one site with a high buy order from another site, because that does not represent a trade that can actually be made. Seller fees are deducted from the buy order before it is compared with the listing price. This part is split into:

Up to 20 points for how close the buyer’s offer is to the seller’s price.
Up to 5 points for the number of active buy orders.

A buy order worth 50% or less of the seller’s price receives no price-closeness points. An offer worth 95% or more receives the full 20 points. Fifty active buy orders are enough to receive the full 5 points for buyer depth. Clearly broken non-Steam data, such as a buy order more than 5% above the same site’s listing price, is ignored.

A strong score needs a realistic exit price

Buyers close to the seller price provide most of these points. A deeper group of buyers adds extra confidence.

Chart showing twenty points for buyer price and five points for the number of buy orders

Sales volume: 45%

Completed sales are the strongest evidence that an item is liquid. CS2Cap combines Steam sales counts with completed sales reported by supported marketplaces. It considers three time periods:

Sales during the last 24 hours provide 50% of this signal.
The daily average from the last 7 days provides 30%.
The daily average from the last 30 days provides 20%.

Recent sales matter the most, but the longer periods prevent one unusually quiet day from making a regularly traded item appear inactive. The points rise quickly when an item begins selling regularly, then rise more slowly. A combined rate of 100 sales per day receives the full 45 points. This part counts recorded sales only. It does not treat removed listings, expired listings, inventory resets, or missing marketplace pages as sales.

Completed sales matter most

Regular sales provide much stronger evidence than listings simply disappearing from a marketplace.

Completed-sales curve from zero to forty-five points

Consistent pricing: 5%

This is a small supporting part of the score. It cannot make up for missing sales or weak buyers. Half of the points come from price coverage. An item seen throughout more of the last 24 hours receives more credit than an item seen only once or twice. The other half comes from price consistency. CS2Cap checks price movement separately for each marketplace and currency. This prevents normal price differences between marketplaces or currencies from looking like wild price swings.

Reliable prices need coverage and consistency

Each half contributes up to 2.5 points.

Recent coverageup to 2.5 pts

Price consistencyup to 2.5 pts

Data coverage: 10%

The score is more trustworthy when several independent sources agree.

Evidence	Maximum points
Marketplaces with competitive listings	`4`
Marketplaces with both a usable listing and buy order	`3`
Available completed-sales data	`3`

The first part reaches its maximum with 12 marketplaces. The second reaches its maximum with 3 marketplaces. A confirmed result of zero sales still counts as available data. It tells us that the sales source was checked and found nothing, which is different from the source being unavailable. Broken buy orders data can remove 2 points from this part.

Using the score

Use the total score to compare items quickly, then check the component scores before making a decision. For example:

A high listing score with a low completed-sales score may mean many sellers are waiting for very few buyers.
A high buyer score with low buyer depth may mean one good offer is supporting the market.
A low data-coverage score means the total is based on fewer independent sources.

Liquidity describes how easily an item may trade today. It is not a promise that a sale will happen, and it is not a forecast of the item’s future value.

Missing or old data

Missing information receives zero points for the affected part. The other parts are not increased to hide the missing data.

Marketplace listings and buy orders older than six hours are ignored.
Steam sales counts older than two hours are ignored.
A missing sales source is different from a checked source reporting zero sales.

An older saved score may appear briefly while a fresh score is being calculated. Some field names are older than the current scoring method. Their current meanings are:

API field	Meaning
`listing_score`	Listings near the market price
`gap_score`	Buyers ready to purchase
`volume_score`	Completed sales
`stability_score`	Consistent pricing
`external_score`	Data coverage

The five component values always add up to the total liquidity score.

API fields

Market analytics responses include the total and its component scores:

{
  "liquidity": 62,
  "listing_score": 15,
  "gap_score": 24,
  "volume_score": 8,
  "stability_score": 5,
  "external_score": 10,
  "liquidity_last_updated": "2026-08-03T04:00:00Z"
}

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Reference

Liquidity Score: Inputs and Formula Calculation

Reading the score