CS2 case calculator

Your odds of a knife from any case, what an opening really costs once you add the key, and what you get back on average. Live Steam Market prices for all 42 cases, and the official odds.

Case prices from the Steam Market, checked November 6 at 12:30 PM UTC

Kilowatt Case

Kilowatt Case

687,759 for sale on Steam

Case
The US price. Change it if yours differs.
Case on Steam Market
$0.12
Key
$2.49
One opening
$2.61
Chance of at least one knife23%100 cases. More likely none than one.
You spend$261$2.61 per opening
You get back, on average$92Steam Market value of the drops, 35% of what you spent
  • Knife23%
  • Covert or better59%
  • Classified or better98%

How many cases for a knife

50% chance271 cases$707
90% chance900 cases$2,349
95% chance1,170 cases$3,054
On average391 cases$1,021
Chance of at least one knife
0%25%50%75%100%05001,0001,5002,00050% at 27190% at 900You: 100

What's in the Kilowatt Case

Every item in a grade is equally likely. Open one for its odds and price in each wear, StatTrak™ included.

Rare special item: knives

0.256% for the grade, 1 in 391. 13 items, 1 in 5,083 each.

Covert

0.639% for the grade, 1 in 156. 2 items, 1 in 313 each.

Classified

3.20% for the grade, 1 in 31. 3 items, 1 in 94 each.

Restricted

15.98% for the grade, 1 in 6. 5 items, 1 in 31 each.

Mil-Spec

79.92% for the grade, 1 in 1. 7 items, 1 in 9 each.

What you get back per opening

The average Steam Market value of one unboxing, weighted by grade, wear and StatTrak™, against what the opening costs.

For every $1 you spend on a Kilowatt Case35¢ back

On average you lose 65 cents of every dollar, before Steam takes its fee on a sale.

Average value of what drops
$0.92
After Steam's 15% fee if you sell
$0.80
One opening costs
$2.61
Where that value comes from
  • Knife24%
  • Covert32%
  • Classified20%
  • Restricted13%
  • Mil-Spec11%

Four in five openings are a Mil-Spec skin worth about $0.13. The average is held up by drops most players never see.

Three ways to a knife

Since October 2025, five Covert skins from one collection trade up into that collection's rare item, a knife or a pair of gloves. Here is what each route costs today.

Open cases$1,021

On average. Half of players need 271 cases or more, and 1 in 10 need more than 900.

  • You can't pick which knife
  • Plus every skin you unbox on the way
Trade up 5 Coverts$142

Five of the cheapest Coverts from the Kilowatt Collection, from the Steam Market. No key needed.

  • You get a random knife from the collection
  • Worth $88 on average
Buy it outright$45Cheapest today

The cheapest on the Steam Market today, a Kukri Knife | Safari Mesh.

  • The only way you choose what you get
  • A traded item is under 7-day Trade Protection

Kilowatt Case price history

The daily median sale price on the Steam Community Market since the case could first be sold.

Today
$0.12
Last 30 days
-20%
Since its first week
-99%
All-time low
$0.11
Sold, last 30 days
2.2M
$0.10$0.30$1.00$3.00$10Feb 24Jul 24Jan 25Jun 25Dec 25May 26Log scale

Every CS2 case, cheapest first

The case price plus a key is what one opening costs. Pick a case to put it in the calculator.

Every CS2 case with its price and the cost of opening it
$0.12$2.61$1,02135¢ per $1687,759
$0.19$2.68$1,04838¢ per $1486,026
$0.28$2.77$1,08342¢ per $1177,139
$0.40$2.89$1,13056¢ per $172,673
$0.47$2.96$1,15737¢ per $1157,651
$0.53$3.02$1,18141¢ per $154,043
$0.75$3.24$1,26743¢ per $1266,293
$0.75$3.24$1,26753¢ per $150,504
$0.97$3.46$1,35349¢ per $125,933
$1.16$3.65$1,42742¢ per $1526,951
$1.30$3.79$1,48249¢ per $163,162
$1.32$3.81$1,49055¢ per $154,709
$1.34$3.83$1,49860¢ per $148,204
$1.78$4.27$1,67058¢ per $125,016
$1.95$4.44$1,73655¢ per $114,384
$1.97$4.46$1,74453¢ per $113,610
$3.29$5.78$2,26055¢ per $115,803
$3.51$6.00$2,34658¢ per $110,141
$3.53$6.02$2,35457¢ per $115,715
$3.60$6.09$2,38152¢ per $121,614
$3.71$6.20$2,42443¢ per $129,294
$3.85$6.34$2,47950¢ per $117,609
$3.86$6.35$2,48351¢ per $120,208
$4.65$7.14$2,79251¢ per $116,511
$4.75$7.24$2,83150¢ per $111,365
$4.90$7.39$2,88949¢ per $13,589
$5.90$8.39$3,28057¢ per $13,431
$5.98$8.47$3,31249¢ per $16,070
$6.60$9.09$3,55450¢ per $15,321
$8.57$11$4,32446¢ per $13,061
$10$13$4,89543¢ per $116,601
$10$13$4,89945¢ per $11,509
$11$14$5,40852¢ per $119,847
$12$14$5,61145¢ per $1977
$15$17$6,71060¢ per $12,043
$15$17$6,75646¢ per $11,806
$16$19$7,39055¢ per $11,123
$25$27$10,55350¢ per $1814
$35$37$14,65946¢ per $1744
$59$62$24,12124¢ per $1229
$75$78$30,34625¢ per $1365
$142$144$56,42128¢ per $1383

Common questions

What are the odds of getting a knife from a CS2 case?

0.256%, about 1 in 391 openings. Most sites say 1 in 385, which is 0.26% rounded. A StatTrak knife is about 1 in 3,910.

How many cases do you need to open for a knife?

On average 391, but averages hide a lot. Half of players have one by 271 cases and 9 in 10 by 900. After 391 cases, 37% of players still have none.

Where do the case odds come from?

From Perfect World, Valve's partner in China, which has had to publish them since 2017 under Chinese law and still updates the page. Valve has never published odds itself.

What is the cheapest CS2 case to open?

Today the Kilowatt Case at $0.12 on the Steam Market, so one opening costs $2.61 with a $2.49 key. The key is most of the cost for nearly every case.

Which CS2 case has the best return?

Today the Prisma Case, which gives back about 60 cents of every dollar in Steam Market value. Even the best case loses money on average.

Is there a pity timer on CS2 cases?

No. Every case is a fresh roll with the same odds, so a long run without a knife does not make the next case any likelier to have one.

Is it cheaper to trade up for a knife?

Often, yes. Since October 2025, five Covert skins from one collection trade up into that collection's knife or gloves. Buying the knife outright is often cheaper still, and it is the only way to choose which one you get.

Where the numbers come from

The odds are from Perfect World's published table. Each grade is five times as likely as the one above it, and a knife or pair of gloves is 2 for every 5 Coverts. The knife trade-up is in Valve's October 22, 2025 patch notes.

Prices are the lowest current listing on the Steam Community Market. Case prices are read every night, skin, knife and glove prices once a week, and the price history is Steam's own daily median. What is in each case comes from the game's item files.

Valve does not publish wear odds, so the value of a drop uses the float model players have measured, scaled to each skin's float range. Pattern and float premiums, like a Case Hardened Blue Gem, are left out. They can be worth far more than the average.

CS2 trading sites, ranked by player reviews