How to Use TradeUpBot to Find Profitable Trade-Ups

TradeUpBot is a CS2 trade-up scanner that builds contracts from real CSFloat, DMarket, and Skinport listings and looks for ones with positive expected P/L after fees. The board ranks them by Score, and you can sort by Expected P/L, ROI, Cost, or Above cost %. Above cost % is the probability-weighted share of outcomes worth more than your total cost. Use it to verify listings, claim opportunities, and compare outcomes before you buy inputs. Every profit figure is an estimate after fees, and a trade-up can lose money.

Start with the live trade-up board, then check account limits on TradeUpBot pricing before using Verify / Claim trade-up on real listings.

Getting Started

Head to the TradeUpBot CS2 trade-up scanner. Guests can browse without an account. Free has no row limit and runs 3 hours behind. Sign in with Steam when you want an account. There's no registration form — Steam authentication is the only login method. No credit card required.

The board is a list of cards. A Tier menu offers All, Knife / Gloves, Covert, Classified, Restricted, Mil-Spec, and Industrial. Choose a tier to filter.

Reading a Trade-Up Card

Each card is one executable trade-up built from real listings. Expand it and the readouts are:

Cost — Total cost to buy all input listings, including marketplace buyer fees.
Expected value — The probability-weighted average output value after fees.
Expected P/L — Expected value minus total input cost. Green means positive expected P/L. The same readout shows ROI. A 25% ROI on a $40 cost means $10 expected P/L.
Median P/L — The 50th percentile.
Above cost — The probability-weighted share of outcomes worth more than your total cost. A trade-up can have positive expected P/L with an Above cost % of only 30%, if the outcome above cost is rare but very valuable.
Worst case — The lowest outcome. Best case — The highest outcome. P10 tail — The 10th percentile.

The default sort is Score. You can sort by Above cost % or by Expected P/L. One contract can show an Above cost % of 90% and $5 expected P/L. Another can show an Above cost % of 15% and $40 expected P/L.

Expanding a Trade-Up

Click a card to expand it. The expanded view shows the readouts, two charts, Top EV drivers, Largest drags, and Listings. The charts are EV contribution (p × P/L) and Probability of clearing a P/L. Listings show each input's skin name, marketplace, float, and price. DMarket links open a filtered search, so they are not direct listing links.

Subscription Tiers

Free gives you every trade-up, with filters, search, and sorting, and listing links on trade-ups that run 3 hours behind. That delay is enough to explore the platform and understand how trade-ups work, and not enough to act on opportunities before they disappear.

Pro ($6.99/mo) adds real-time data with no delay — you see trade-ups the moment they're discovered. The Claim system lets you lock a trade-up's listings for 30 minutes so no other TradeUpBot user can see them while you're purchasing. You get 20 verifications per hour, 10 claims per hour, and up to 5 active claims at once.

Using Verify

Before buying anything, use Verify / Claim trade-up. Verify calls each marketplace's API to check whether the input listings still exist and at what price. The trade-up's cost, expected value, and expected P/L update from that check.

This matters because marketplace listings are live inventory. A listing that existed 20 minutes ago when the discovery engine found it might already be sold. Verification catches this before you commit money. If a listing is gone, the trade-up is flagged so you know it's no longer executable as shown.

Pro users get 20 verifications per hour. Use them on trade-ups you're seriously considering, not as a browsing tool.

Using Claim

Claim is Pro-only. When you claim a trade-up, its input listings are hidden from all other TradeUpBot users for 30 minutes. This gives you an uncontested window to purchase each input from the marketplace.

Claims are limited: 10 per hour, with up to 5 active at once. They expire automatically after 30 minutes. The claim doesn't reserve the listing on the marketplace itself — other buyers outside TradeUpBot can still purchase them. But it eliminates competition from other TradeUpBot users, which is the primary threat for high-profit trade-ups.

The workflow: find a promising trade-up, verify it to confirm availability, claim it, then go buy each input from the linked marketplace listings.

Tips for Finding the Best Trade-Ups

Sort by Above cost %. On trade-ups with an Above cost % of 80% or more, most of the probability lands above cost, though the outcomes below cost can lose more than the others make. Expected P/L per trade-up is usually modest ($5-20).

Sort by Expected P/L for the largest expected P/L. The top expected-P/L trade-ups often have a lower Above cost %, maybe 30-50%, and the outcomes above cost are large. That only averages out if you do enough volume for expected P/L to show up over many attempts.

Check Best case, Worst case, and P10 tail together. A trade-up where the worst outcome still breaks even is fundamentally different from one where the worst outcome loses 80% of your cost. The Above cost % number alone doesn't capture this. Look at the actual downside.

Verify before every purchase. Prices move. Listings sell. A trade-up that was +$15 expected P/L when discovered might be +$3 expected P/L by the time you verify it. Verification takes seconds and saves you from buying into a trade-up that's no longer worth it.

Use filters to focus. If you have a budget of $50, filter by cost range. If you only want knife trade-ups, use the Tier menu. If you're interested in a specific collection, search for it. The less noise in your view, the faster you find actionable opportunities.

For more detailed answers to common questions, check the FAQ page.

FAQ

What does TradeUpBot do?

TradeUpBot scans real marketplace listings and ranks executable CS2 trade-ups by expected P/L after fees, ROI, share of outcomes above cost, input cost, and output distribution.

Should I verify a trade-up before buying inputs?

Yes. Verification checks whether each marketplace listing still exists and updates prices before you commit money to the contract.

What does claiming a trade-up do?

Claiming hides the trade-up inputs from other TradeUpBot users for 30 minutes, giving Pro users time to purchase the linked listings.

Published 2026-03-18 by TradeUpBot Team.