Profitable CS2 Trade Ups

Valve changed the contract rules twice recently: the October 2025 update rewrote both the odds and the float formula, and the May 2026 update made souvenir skins usable as inputs. Most trade-up calculators still compute the pre-2025 math. Everything on this page uses the current rules.

Odds: every input is a ticket

Ten skins of one rarity produce one skin of the next rarity, drawn from the collections of your inputs. Each input carries exactly 1/10 of the probability, and a collection's share is split evenly among its next-tier skins. Nine inputs from a collection with one Restricted output give that output a 90% chance; one input from a collection with three outputs gives each about 3.3%. The old CS:GO model weighted by outcome count; calculators still using it overstate multi-skin collections.

Float: normalized per skin

Since October 2025 the game normalizes each input's float inside its own wear range before averaging; it no longer averages raw floats:

norm = (float − min) / (max − min) → averaged → out = outMin + avg × (outMax − outMin)

The result maps into each outcome's own float range, and the standard 0.07 / 0.15 / 0.38 / 0.45 boundaries decide the wear label. That is why each input line above carries a float ceiling: buy under it and the stated output wears hold.

Knife and glove contracts

Five Covert skins produce a guaranteed knife or gloves. Grouping is by case, not collection: each input carries 1/5 of the odds toward its case's gold pool. Five StatTrak™ Coverts return a StatTrak™ knife; gloves never come StatTrak™, so StatTrak™ contracts draw from knife-only pools. Coverts from map collections have no gold pool and cannot be selected at all.

Souvenir inputs

Since May 2026, souvenir skins are valid inputs at their printed rarity. All souvenir attributes are stripped and the output is always a normal item: a contract can never produce a souvenir. Souvenir listings are often the cheapest ticket into a collection, so the finder prices them as inputs alongside normal skins.

Input costs come from live cross-marketplace asks, the same data behind the Deals Scanner, and outcomes are valued at real market prices after sale fees, the numbers you see when comparing prices across marketplaces.