What is a trade-up contract in CS2?

A trade-up contract lets you trade 10 skins of the same rarity for 1 skin of the next higher rarity.

Basic ladder:

  • 10 × Blue → 1 × Purple

  • 10 × Purple → 1 × Pink

  • 10 × Pink → 1 × Red

You can’t trade-up:

  • gold items (knives/gloves)

  • Souvenir items

  • stickers, agents, etc.

Step 1: Make sure your skins are the same rarity

All 10 must be the same tier.

If you mix tiers, CS2 won’t let you submit the contract.

Step 2: Understand “collection odds” (this is where the math happens)

Your output comes from the collections of your 10 input skins.

Rule: the more skins you use from a collection, the higher chance your result comes from that collection.

Example:

  • 6 skins from Collection A

  • 4 skins from Collection B

➡️ 60% chance the output is from Collection A

➡️ 40% chance it’s from Collection B

Step 3: Understand float averaging (quality is not random)

The float of the output skin is basically:

(float1 + float2 + … + float10) / 10

So if you want a clean Factory New output, you need clean inputs.

“I have 5 Dragonfire… how do I build a contract?” (example)

Because skin names vary across cases/collections, let’s treat “Dragonfire” as one skin you own 5 copies of, and you want to complete a trade-up.

Scenario A: Your “Dragonfire” is a PINK (Classified) skin

If your Dragonfire is pink, then:

  • you need 10 pink skins total

  • trade-up result will be 1 red (Covert) skin

Step-by-step:

  1. Open CS2 → Inventory

  2. Click Trade Up Contract

  3. Add your 5× Dragonfire (pink)

  4. Add 5 more pink skins (same tier) to reach 10

  5. Check which collections those 10 skins belong to

  6. Confirm the contract

What can you get?

You will get one red skin from the next tier.

But which red skin? That depends on which collections your 10 inputs came from.

  • If all 10 inputs are from the same collection → the output pool is the red(s) from that collection.

  • If you mix collections → you get a weighted chance across those collections.

Example outcome logic (simplified):

  • 5× Dragonfire from Collection X

  • 5× other pink skins from Collection Y

➡️ 50% chance your red is from Collection X

➡️ 50% chance your red is from Collection Y

Within the chosen collection, the game rolls between possible red outcomes (some collections have more than one possible red result).

What about the wear (Factory New / Field-Tested)?

Your output wear is driven by the average float of the 10 inputs.

So if your 5 Dragonfires are clean but the other 5 pink skins are super scratched, your output will likely be worse.

Scenario B: Your “Dragonfire” is a RED (Covert) skin

If your Dragonfire is red, you can’t trade-up using it to get a gold knife/glove.

Red is the top weapon-skin tier. Trade-ups stop there.

What you can do instead:

  • sell/trade the red

  • use cheaper pinks to attempt another red contract

Best beginner tip for trade-ups

Before you click “confirm”, always ask:

  1. Which collections am I feeding into the contract?

  2. What are the possible outputs and their prices?

  3. What float range will I likely get?

If you can answer those three, you’re already doing trade-ups smarter than most players.
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