Cheapest Red (Covert) Skins in CS2: Every Weapon's Floor, by Wear (2026)
The cheapest red skin in CS2, meaning Covert rarity, was the AK-47 | Aphrodite: its Well-Worn, Battle-Scarred and Field-Tested copies were all under $20 on 10 October 2026. After that the floor jumps to the low $20s, where M4A4 | Full Throttle, AWP | Chrome Cannon, Glock-18 | Gold Toof and AK-47 | Head Shot all had a wear under $25. If you meant red-coloured skins instead, those start at a few cents, and they get their own section below.
Every price here comes from the lowest tradable Skinport listing on 10 October 2026, counting wears with at least three listings, and is shown as a band. Steam Market listings for the same items ran higher, because Steam funds can't be withdrawn. Covert prices also respond to trade-up demand, which changed in October 2025; that's covered in its own section. Check today's number before you buy.
The cheapest Covert skins right now
| # | Skin | Cheapest wear | Band | Field-Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | AK-47 | Aphrodite | WW | <$20 | <$20 |
| #2 | M4A4 | Full Throttle | BS | <$50 | <$50 |
| #3 | AWP | Chrome Cannon | FT | <$50 | <$50 |
| #4 | Glock-18 | Gold Toof | WW | <$50 | <$50 |
| #5 | AK-47 | Head Shot | BS | <$50 | <$50 |
| #6 | M4A4 | Temukau | BS | <$50 | <$50 |
| #7 | USP-S | The Traitor | BS | <$50 | <$50 |
| #8 | FAMAS | Commemoration | FT | <$50 | <$50 |
| #9 | MP7 | Bloodsport | WW | <$50 | <$50 |
| #10 | MAC-10 | Stalker | WW | <$50 | <$50 |
| #11 | Desert Eagle | Printstream | BS | <$50 | <$50 |
| #12 | M4A1-S | Vaporwave | BS | <$50 | <$50 |
| #13 | Five-SeveN | Angry Mob | WW | <$50 | <$100 |
Out of 111 weapon Coverts with steady listings, only Aphrodite had a wear under $20, 20 had one under $30 and 41 had one under $50. The rest start at $50 and climb fast; at the top sit skins like the AK-47 | Wild Lotus, whose cheapest copy was in the thousands. So "cheap red" in practice means a $20 to $50 budget, and the cheapest wear is usually Well-Worn or Battle-Scarred.
Aphrodite is pale cream and olive rather than anything you'd call red; the colour of its rarity tag is the red. It has no StatTrak version, and in the community item database it carries a Limited Edition label instead of a case collection. If you want a red-tier AK that also looks the part, Head Shot's busy multicolour art was under $50 in every wear from Minimal Wear down.
"Red skin" means two things: rarity or colour
In CS2 every skin has a rarity colour. From commonest to rarest the weapon tiers run Consumer (white-grey), Industrial (light blue), Mil-Spec (blue), Restricted (purple), Classified (pink) and Covert (red). Knives carry the Covert grade too and gloves are Extraordinary, both red-tagged, but they're the rare special items and cost far more. When players say "reds" they almost always mean Covert weapon finishes: the rarest weapon tier in cases and, since October 2025, the tier that feeds knife and glove trade-ups.
The other meaning is a skin painted red. That's a completely different shopping list, and much cheaper: most of the red-coloured finishes we found are Mil-Spec or Restricted. We cover both, and the tables say which is which.
The chart shows why reds feel expensive. The typical Classified finish's cheapest copy was $10.70; the typical Covert's was $73.65. Every tier below Classified had a median under $2. The last step up the ladder costs about seven times the one before it.
Floor price by weapon and wear
| # | Skin | FN | MW | FT | WW | BS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | AK-47 | Aphrodite | $100+ | <$50 | <$20 | <$20 | <$20 |
| #2 | M4A4 | Full Throttle | $100+ | <$100 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #3 | AWP | Chrome Cannon | <$100 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #4 | Glock-18 | Gold Toof | $100+ | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #5 | AK-47 | Head Shot | <$100 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #6 | M4A4 | Temukau | <$100 | <$100 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #7 | USP-S | The Traitor | <$100 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #8 | FAMAS | Commemoration | <$100 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #9 | MP7 | Bloodsport | <$100 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #10 | MAC-10 | Stalker | <$100 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #11 | Desert Eagle | Printstream | <$100 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 | <$50 |
| #12 | M4A1-S | Vaporwave | $100+ | <$100 | <$50 | <$100 | <$50 |
| #13 | Five-SeveN | Angry Mob | <$100 | <$100 | <$100 | <$50 | <$100 |
Read across a row and the pattern is consistent: Factory New costs roughly 1.5 to 6 times Field-Tested (Aphrodite is the outlier, at over 20 times), while Field-Tested, Well-Worn and Battle-Scarred sit close together. On a budget, Field-Tested is usually the best value. It costs little more than the bottom wears and looks noticeably cleaner on most of these finishes.
Float caps that make some wears impossible
Each finish has its own float range, and the range can delete wears entirely. Among the cheap Coverts, the FAMAS | Commemoration stops at 0.50 and the MP7 | Bloodsport at 0.65, so neither gets truly battered, and the M4A1-S | Vaporwave stops at 0.60. The AK-47 | Asiimov starts at 0.05, so Factory New copies exist but only in a narrow sliver. The AWP and M4A4 Asiimovs start at 0.18: no Factory New or Minimal Wear at all.
Caps matter for price as much as looks. A capped finish has fewer wears sharing the supply, so its cheap end can sit higher than you'd expect. If a listing's wear looks too cheap, check its float before assuming a bargain.
Why Covert floors moved after October 2025
Valve's update of 22 October 2025 opened the top tier to trade-ups. Hand in five Coverts and you get back a single knife or glove pair, drawn from a collection that one of your five came from; feed in five StatTrak Coverts and the result is a StatTrak knife. Before that, a Covert was the end of the line. After it, every case Covert also became a possible ingredient, so it gained a second set of buyers alongside the players who just like the look.
We're not printing a before-and-after price index, because we couldn't find a dated price history we'd stand behind. What we can say is what the floor looked like on 10 October 2026: almost nothing under $20, and a crowded band between $20 and $50. Souvenir items became valid trade-up inputs on 22 May 2026. Valve's 2026 notes made no change to drop rates.
A note on the trade-up itself. It consumes five skins and returns one random item from the eligible pool, so the result is luck, and the knife you get may be worth less than the five skins you gave up. Treat it as a game mechanic, not a way to make money. If you just want a red skin, buy the one you like.
StatTrak: what the premium costs
StatTrak usually costs more, but on cheap Coverts the premium is erratic. On our check date it ranged from 1.9 times the normal Field-Tested price down to 0.67 times. On MP7 | Bloodsport, AWP | Chromatic Aberration and AK-47 | Head Shot the StatTrak copy was actually cheaper. If the kill counter appeals, check both versions; sometimes it costs nothing extra.
Red-coloured skins on a budget (non-Covert)
If you want the colour rather than the tier, red is cheap. USP-S | Check Engine and USP-S | Bleeding Edge are both red pistols under $1 in Field-Tested. P250 | Nevermore, P2000 | Imperial, M249 | System Lock and Nova | Candy Apple were all under $1 too. Step up to under $5 and you get rifles: M4A4 | Evil Daimyo is bright red and black, and AWP | Exothermic is red with a pattern that reads as heat.
Between $10 and $20 the red finishes get more detailed. P250 | Muertos is the reddest pistol we checked, under $20 in every wear, and XM1014 | Tranquility and Desert Eagle | Crimson Web sit in the same band in Field-Tested. We sorted these by the share of red in the render, then checked each by eye.
| # | Skin | Rarity | Field-Tested |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Nova | Candy Apple | Industrial | <$1 |
| #2 | P2000 | Imperial | Mil-Spec | <$1 |
| #3 | USP-S | Check Engine | Mil-Spec | <$1 |
| #4 | M249 | System Lock | Mil-Spec | <$1 |
| #5 | P250 | Nevermore | Restricted | <$1 |
| #6 | USP-S | Bleeding Edge | Restricted | <$1 |
| #7 | MP9 | Ruby Poison Dart | Restricted | <$2 |
| #8 | MAG-7 | Core Breach | Restricted | <$2 |
| #9 | M4A4 | Evil Daimyo | Restricted | <$5 |
| #10 | AWP | Exothermic | Restricted | <$5 |
| #11 | XM1014 | Tranquility | Classified | <$20 |
| #12 | P250 | Muertos | Classified | <$20 |
| #13 | Desert Eagle | Crimson Web | Restricted | <$20 |
To buy, compare the same wear on Skinport, DMarket and CSFloat on the same day; with low-priced items the fee structure matters as much as the listing. For the rifle slot of a red kit, see our AK-47 budget guide; for pistols and AWPs, the budget gallery.
Edge cases
- Souvenir Coverts: some exist as tournament Souvenirs and price separately from normal copies.
- Trade-locked listings: often cheaper, still inside Valve's 7-day Trade Protection window; our bands ignore them.
- Limited Edition items: Aphrodite sits outside the case collections, so check in-game before planning anything collection-specific around it.
- Knives and gloves: red-tagged too, but they're rare special items far above this budget and aren't in this guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest red skin in CS2?
On 10 Oct 2026, the AK-47 | Aphrodite, with Field-Tested, Well-Worn and Battle-Scarred copies under $20 on Skinport. The next cheapest Coverts, such as M4A4 | Full Throttle and AWP | Chrome Cannon, started in the low $20s.
What is the cheapest Covert AK?
Aphrodite, under $20 in its three lower wears on 10 Oct 2026. Head Shot was the cheapest case-collection Covert AK, under $25 in Battle-Scarred and under $50 in every wear from Minimal Wear down.
Why did red skins go up in price?
We couldn't verify a dated price index, so we don't quote a rise. What changed on 22 Oct 2025 is that five Coverts can be traded up for a knife or gloves, so Coverts now have buyers who want them as inputs.
Are Battle-Scarred red skins worth it?
Sometimes. On many cheap Coverts, Battle-Scarred was only a few dollars below Field-Tested on 10 Oct 2026, so Field-Tested is usually better value. On capped finishes like FAMAS | Commemoration (float max 0.50), Battle-Scarred is only just past the Well-Worn line.
Can 5 red skins trade up to a knife?
Yes. Since 22 Oct 2025, five Coverts give one knife or pair of gloves from one input's collection, and five StatTrak Coverts give a StatTrak knife. The result is random and can be worth less than the inputs.
See how this stacks up against the field in our the budget gallery.