Reading Float Before You Buy: A 5-Minute Pre-Trade Checklist
Float value quietly decides whether a skin is a steal or a trap. Run this five-point check before every purchase.
By Outplayed Team
Two listings for the same skin at the same price are almost never the same trade. Float — the 0.00–1.00 wear value baked into every item — is the variable most new traders ignore and most veterans obsess over.
Why float moves price
Float lands an item in a wear bracket (Factory New, Minimum Wear, and so on), but within a bracket the exact number still matters. Low-float Factory New examples and the rare sub-0.01 "blackpearl" floats trade at steep premiums because supply is genuinely scarce.
The five-minute checklist
- Confirm the wear bracket. Make sure the listing is actually in the tier you think you're buying.
- Check the float against the bracket edges. A 0.069 Factory New is one bad rounding away from being a Minimum Wear in a buyer's eyes.
- Compare to recent sales at the same float band, not just the lowest listed price.
- Note the pattern/seed if the skin has a pattern index (Case Hardened, Fade, Marble Fade). Pattern can outweigh float entirely.
- Decide your exit before you buy. If you can't name who you'd sell this float to, you don't have a trade — you have a bag.
A worked example
A 0.15 Field-Tested AK at the floor looks cheap until you notice the order book is full of 0.16–0.18 examples. You're not buying a discount — you're buying the most desirable float in the cheapest tier, which is exactly the item that resells fastest.
Float is not a tax you pay; it's information the market hands you for free. Read it before you click buy, and most "too good to be true" listings explain themselves.
If you want the deeper mechanics, our float value guide breaks down every wear bracket and how the brackets are calculated.