Cheapest Pink and Purple Skins for CS2 Trade-Ups

What are pink and purple skins in CS2?

Pink is Classified and purple is Restricted. They are the two grades just below Covert (red). Our glossary has the Classified and Restricted entries in full.

Most people buy cheap pinks and purples for one reason: trade-up contracts. Valve's Trade Up Contracts FAQ says ten skins of the same grade give one skin of the next grade, "from one of the weapon collections used". So ten purples give a pink, and ten pinks give a red. That makes the cheapest skin in each grade the starting point for any budget contract.

The catch is the word "collection". A pink skin is only useful if its collection also has a red. This guide shows which cheap pinks pass that test and what a ten-skin contract really costs.

How did we choose these skins?

All prices come from the CSRated price snapshot of 2 October 2026: the lowest listing on five cash markets (Skinport, Market.CSGO, Waxpeer, Lis-Skins and White.market) and the Steam Community Market. Our methodology page explains the collection.

To stop a single odd listing from topping the list, we used the same agreement rule as our ranked lists. A price counted only when at least 2 cash markets listed that exact skin and wear, with 3 or more listings in total, and the lowest listing was no more than 3 times the Steam price or the 30-day sale median. We used normal quality only and one row per skin, at its cheapest wear.

In total, 183 Classified finishes and 310 Restricted finishes had an agreed price. Only one pink was under $1, and 24 were under $3. For purple, 109 were under $1 and 59 were under $0.50.

What are the cheapest pink (Classified) skins?

Source: CSRated price snapshot, 2 October 2026. Steam prices are Steam Wallet money.

Why can't some cheap pink skins be traded up?

Valve's Trade Up Contracts FAQ says weapons "which are already the rarest in their collection" cannot be used, and it names the R8 Revolver | Amber Fade as its example. That rules out four of the six cheapest pinks. The Dust 2, Bank, 2018 Inferno and 2018 Nuke collections all stop at Classified in our dataset, so there is no red to roll.

The two Limited Edition items, the Desert Eagle | Heat Treated and the M4A1-S | Solitude, are a grey area. Our dataset groups them with the AK-47 | Aphrodite, a Covert, so a contract could in theory return it. We could not find a Valve source that confirms how the contract treats Limited Edition items, so we left them out of the recipes below. If you want to try, add them in game and read the outcome list before you confirm.

That leaves the P2000 | Wicked Sick at $2.15 as the cheapest pink with a clear Covert target.

What does a ten-skin pink to red contract cost?

We priced the cheapest single-collection contract for each case collection. Each recipe uses ten copies of the cheapest pink in one wear, an input float in the middle of that wear band, and each Covert priced at the wear it would land in. The two Coverts in each collection get an equal chance, as in our trade-up calculator.

Source: CSRated price snapshot, 2 October 2026. "Next market" is the second-cheapest cash market's lowest listing for the same skin and wear, times ten. No selling fees are included.

On paper, eight of these nine contracts returned more than they cost. That is the headline that gets shared, and it is misleading. The lowest listing was on one market with a handful of listings in most rows. Priced at the next market, seven of the nine fell below 100%.

Worked example: why a paper profit disappears

Take the Revolution Collection, the cheapest recipe.

1. Inputs. The P2000 | Wicked Sick (Well-Worn) had a lowest listing of $2.15, on Skinport, which had 12 listings. Ten at $2.15 is $21.50. The next cheapest market was Lis-Skins at $3.17. If you need ten copies and the cheap ones run out, ten at $3.17 is $31.70.
2. Outcomes. The Revolution Collection has two Coverts, so each has a 50% chance. With a mid-band Well-Worn input float (0.415 on a 0 to 1 skin), the AK-47 | Head Shot lands in Well-Worn ($25.67) and the M4A4 | Temukau, whose range stops at 0.80, lands in Field-Tested ($27.00).
3. Average. ($25.67 + $27.00) / 2 = $26.34.
4. Result. Against $21.50 that is 122%. Against $31.70 it is 83%.
5. Selling. Both outcome prices are lowest listings, which is what a buyer pays. To turn the Covert back into money you list it for sale and pay a fee. Our fee calculator shows what you keep on each market.

The Gallery row shows the other trap: float. Its average leans on the M4A1-S | Vaporwave landing in Well-Worn ($48.51) rather than Battle-Scarred ($31.10). The Vaporwave's range stops at about 0.60, so it only lands in Well-Worn if your ten UMP-45 | Neo-Noir inputs average under about 0.75. Cheap Battle-Scarred listings often sit near the top of the band. Check each float with the float checker, and see float capping explained for how to aim for a wear.

What are the cheapest purple (Restricted) skins?

Source: CSRated price snapshot, 2 October 2026.

Purple prices are packed tightly. The ten cheapest all sat between $0.25 and $0.28, so collection and float matter more than a cent or two of price. A ten-purple contract from a case collection cost about $2.60 to $3.10 at the lowest listings. For example, ten MP5-SD | Kitbash (Field-Tested) from the Fracture Collection cost $2.60 and could return a Glock-18 | Vogue ($2.98), an M4A4 | Tooth Fairy ($3.13) or an XM1014 | Entombed ($2.36), each a one in three chance, an average of $2.82. At the next market's price ($0.34 each) the same ten cost $3.40, an 83% return.

A purple contract is cheap practice. It teaches you the mechanics for a few dollars, and its pink output can become one input of a later pink to red contract.

How do you build a cheap trade-up without losing track?

1. Start from the red you want. Open its collection page and find the cheapest pink in that same collection.
2. Price ten, not one. Look at every market's lowest listing for that exact wear. Use the next market's price as your planning price.
3. Decide the wear you need. Work out which input float lands each outcome in the wear you priced, then check floats before buying.
4. Run it in the trade-up calculator. Add your real inputs and prices.
5. Wait out trade protection. Steam's Trade Protected Items page says traded items cannot be consumed for 7 days.
6. Check the outcome list in game, then confirm. Inputs are destroyed and there is no undo.

The method for weighing outcomes, fees and variance is in how to calculate trade-up EV. If you want to take the result further, our cheapest Covert skins guide covers the next step up.

Common mistakes with cheap pink and purple skins

• Buying the cheapest pink without checking its collection. Four of the six cheapest pinks were top grade in their collection.
• Trusting the paper return. It assumes ten copies at the single lowest listing.
• Forgetting the outcome float. A skin with a narrow range, like the M4A1-S | Vaporwave, can land a wear lower than you priced.
• Mixing StatTrak with normal. Valve's FAQ says a contract must be all StatTrak or all normal.
• Pricing outcomes at the listing price. You receive less when you sell, after a fee.
• Expecting a profit every time. Even a positive average comes with many losing contracts. Budget for the worst outcome, not the average.