Most Steam accounts collect cards nobody plans to craft: half-sets from games you finished years ago, duplicates, whole sets for a badge you've already maxed out. All of them can be sold, but the three ways of doing it pay in different things, and that matters more than the headline price.
We buy complete sets ourselves, so read this knowing that. Below is what each route pays, where each one wins, and where ours is the wrong choice. (If you're after levels rather than getting rid of cards, start with the complete guide to leveling up on Steam.)
How do you sell Steam trading cards?
There are three ways. List cards one at a time on the Steam Community Market and receive Steam Wallet funds, less a fee of about 15%. Turn them into gems, at whatever Steam gives for each item. Or sell complete sets to a buyer like us for TF2 keys or gems, in a single trade offer.
| Route | You're paid in | What it costs you | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam Community Market | Steam Wallet funds | ~15% fee, one listing per card | Valuable sets, foils, single cards |
| Turn into gems | Gems | Nothing, but it can't be undone | Cards worth too little to list |
| Sell complete sets to us | TF2 keys or gems | A flat rate, below our own selling price | Piles of ordinary complete sets |
Route 1: the Steam Community Market
- Open your Steam inventory and select a card.
- Click Sell and set a price.
- Repeat for the next card, and the next.
Every card is its own listing. A set is usually 6 to 9 cards, so selling one set means up to nine listings, each waiting for its own buyer.
Two things decide whether that's worth doing. The fee: roughly 15% comes off between Valve's cut and the game's, so what a buyer pays is not what you receive. And what you're paid in: Steam Wallet funds, which you can spend on games or other Market items but can't withdraw.
Most cards are cheap. In a snapshot of 13,966 card sets taken on 20 October 2026, the median complete set cost $0.72 and 64% of sets cost under $1. A typical card works out at about 11 cents before the fee, earned one listing at a time. What your own cards are worth covers how to check a specific set.
Where the Market earns its fee is the expensive end: sets worth several dollars, and foils, which form a separate set of their own and sell for far more than normal cards.
Route 2: turn them into gems
Any tradeable card, background or emoticon can be turned into gems from your Steam inventory. How many you get depends on the item, and the conversion is final: once a card is gems, it's gone.
Gems then do three things:
- Buy booster packs. A pack costs 6,000 ÷ the number of cards in that game's set, so 400 to 1,200 gems, for three random cards. You can buy one pack per game per day.
- Pack into a Sack of Gems. A sack holds 1,000 gems, can be traded, and sells on the Market. That's the only way to put a dollar figure on gems, and selling a sack puts you back on Route 1: wallet funds, less the fee.
- Pay for card sets wherever gems are accepted, including here.
Gems are the right answer for cards you'd never sell anyway, the two-cent leftovers that aren't worth a listing. The maths of gems and booster packs shows why spending them on packs is mostly a slow way to collect random cards.
Think twice before grinding a complete set, though. Compare what its cards turn into with what the whole set sells for: we paid 658 gems per set as of September 2026.
Route 3: sell complete sets to a buyer
This is what our sell page does, and the terms are short:
- Complete sets only. A set is every distinct card for one game. Duplicates of one card are not a set, and foils are a separate market we don't trade in.
- Paid in TF2 keys or Steam gems. Not refined metal, and not cash.
- One trade offer. Your cards and our payment move together, or nothing moves.
- One rate for every game. You get a fixed share of what we sell sets for, so which games we take doesn't change what you earn.
- Keys come whole. We take only the sets those keys cover, and the rest stay in your inventory.
- More than one account is fine. Add each one with its trade URL and sell from them one at a time.
As of September 2026, our bot's !rates showed 7 sets per TF2 key and 658 gems per set. Rates move, so check the day's figure in the scanner before you decide.
How a sale works:
- Sign in with Steam on the sell page. It runs through Steam's own login page, and we never see your password.
- Make your inventory public if it isn't. In Steam, open Profile → Edit Profile → Privacy Settings and set Inventory to Public.
- Add a trade URL for each account you're selling from. Here's where to find yours.
- Scan. The scanner counts your complete sets and shows what we'd pay in keys or gems at today's rate. It's an estimate, and nothing is held until you confirm.
- Confirm, then accept the offer. One offer arrives with your sets going out and your keys or gems coming in. Read it, then accept.
Selling through our Steam bot
Prefer to stay inside Steam? Add our bot as a friend and it takes sell orders in chat:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
!sellcheck |
Shows what it would pay for the sets in your inventory |
!rates |
Lists its current rates, buying and selling |
!selltf2 3 |
Sells it enough sets for 3 TF2 keys |
!sellgems 20 |
Sells it 20 sets, paid in gems |
Start with !sellcheck to see the offer before committing to anything.
Which route pays most
It depends on the cards, so here is one ordinary case worked through. Say you hold 23 complete sets from ordinary games, each worth the October 2026 median of $0.72.
| Steam Market | Sold to us (September 2026 rates) | |
|---|---|---|
| Work involved | 138 to 207 listings, one per card | One trade offer |
| What you receive | About $14 in Steam Wallet funds | 3 TF2 keys, or 15,134 gems |
| Sets left over | None, if every card sells | 2 with keys, none with gems |
| What you can do next | Spend it on Steam | Trade them, or spend them on sets |
The Market figure is the best case: $16.56 at buyers' prices, less about 15%, and only once every card has sold. On our side, keys are whole, so 21 sets earn three keys and two stay with you. Five more sets would make 28, and a fourth key.
Which column is worth more in dollars depends on what a TF2 key and a Sack of Gems sell for that day, so check both on the Market before choosing. What doesn't change: one route is up to 207 listings paid in money that stays on Steam, the other is one offer paid in tradeable items.
In practice the split falls like this:
- Sell on the Market: expensive sets, foils and loose cards. Our rate is flat, so we pay the same for a $12 set as for a $0.50 one. If a set is pricey enough to make you hesitate, run it through the craft-or-sell check first.
- Turn into gems: leftovers too cheap to list.
- Sell to us: piles of ordinary complete sets, especially for games whose badge you've already crafted five times. A normal badge stops granting XP after its fifth craft, so those sets will never level you.
That last group has a use if levels are the point. Keys and gems both pay for sets on the level-up calculator, which works out which sets you're missing for your target level. You get back a little less than you sold, since we sell sets for more than we pay, but every set you get back is one you can craft.
Staying safe when selling
- Read the offer before you accept it. A sale is one offer with both sides in it: your cards going out, the keys or gems coming in. An offer that only takes is not a sale.
- We never send links. Our offer message names this site and your quote, nothing else. A Steam offer carrying a link is usually a scam, and these eight patterns cover most of the rest.
- Nobody needs your password. Selling takes a trade URL and a public inventory. That's all.
- Sort out trade holds first. Without the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator active for seven days, Steam holds trades for up to 15 days, and we can't buy from an account while that's in place. Why Steam holds trades, and the one fix.
Expensive sets and foils to the Market, junk to gems, the ordinary pile to a buyer in one trade: that order suits most inventories. Scan your inventory on the sell page to see how many complete sets you hold and what they'd fetch today.
Frequently asked questions
Can you sell Steam cards for real money?
Not through Steam. The Community Market pays in Steam Wallet funds, which you can spend on Steam but can't withdraw, and it keeps about 15% as a fee. Selling complete sets to us gets you TF2 keys or gems: Steam items, not cash.
How much do you get for selling a Steam card?
On the Market, the buyer's price less about 15%. On 20 October 2026 the typical set averaged about 11 cents a card. We buy complete sets rather than single cards, and as of September 2026 paid 658 gems per set, or one TF2 key for every seven sets, whatever the game. Today's rate is on the sell page.
Should I turn cards into gems?
For cards too cheap to be worth listing, yes: it turns dead inventory into something you can use. For a complete set, compare first. Add up what its cards grind into and set that against what the whole set sells for, because once a card becomes gems it can't be turned back.
Can you sell incomplete card sets?
Not to us. We buy complete sets only, and duplicates of one card don't count. Loose cards can go on the Market one at a time or into gems, and the inventory scanner shows which of your sets are only a card or two short.