Selling

Selling is the inverse of buying: a user hands CS2 items to a SkinShark-operated Steam bot and their wallet is credited with a payout. You quote the user from our payout book, submit the sale at the exact quote, and the user accepts a single Steam trade offer from the bot. There’s no marketplace listing involved — SkinShark is the counterparty. All three endpoints are sub-user-context, so from a merchant key you send On-Behalf-Of: <subUserId | externalId>. The user must have a linked Steam account — selling always targets their own saved trade URL and can never redirect items elsewhere.

Mental model

The flow

Price the sale

Read GET /market/sell/inventory (with On-Behalf-Of) to get the user’s tradable items, each with our USD offer in price. Only items with accepted: true (a quote exists and the item is tradable) can be sold. To price without reading the inventory — e.g. to render a payout table — use GET /market/sell/prices, the raw payout book keyed by marketHashName.

Submit the sale

POST /market/sell with the items to sell. Reference each item by its encoded id (from the inventory read) or raw assetid — exactly one — plus the exact price you were quoted. The price is a cent-exact lock: if the quote moved, that submission fails with PRICE_MISMATCH, so re-read and retry. The Trade returns immediately with status initiated. No money moves yet.

User accepts the Steam offer

SkinShark picks an available bot and sends the user a receive-only Steam trade offer (the bot gives nothing, only receives). The user must accept it in Steam. Status moves initiated → active once the offer is live.

Hold, then payout

After the user accepts, the items sit in Steam’s trade-protection window and the Trade is hold. The payout — one sell_payout from house treasury — is credited once: at hold if your account’s instant-credit setting is on, otherwise at completed when the hold clears. Watch trade.* WebSocket events or poll GET /market/transactions/{id} for the transition.

Status lifecycle

A sell trade uses the same TradeStatus values as a buy, but travels a different path:

Status	Meaning
`initiated`	Sale created; the bot offer is being sent.
`active`	The receive-only Steam offer is live at the user — waiting for them to accept.
`hold`	User accepted; items are in Steam’s trade-protection window. Payout credits here if instant-credit is on.
`completed`	Hold cleared; payout settled.
`failed`	The offer couldn’t be sent/accepted (e.g. it expired). No money moved.
`canceled` / `declined`	The user canceled or declined the offer before delivery. No money moved.
`reverted`	Delivered then recalled by Steam/support. SkinShark absorbs the loss — the user’s payout is never clawed back.

Payout timing

The credit is a single ledger post and lands exactly once:

Instant credit on — the user is paid at hold, the moment they accept.
Instant credit off (default) — the user is paid at completed, when the trade-hold window clears.

settledAt on the Trade marks when the payout posted. totalPrice is the payout in the wallet currency, converted at an FX rate locked at submit time.

Code template

async function sellForUser(input: {
  subUserId: string;          // On-Behalf-Of target
  externalId: string;         // your correlation id
}) {
  // 1. Price the user's inventory
  const inv = await api<{ items: Array<{ id: string; price: number; accepted: boolean }> }>(
    "/market/sell/inventory",
    { headers: { "On-Behalf-Of": input.subUserId } },
  );
  const sellable = inv.items.filter((i) => i.accepted);
  if (sellable.length === 0) return null;

  // 2. Submit at the exact quoted price (cent-exact lock)
  return api<{ id: string; status: string; totalPrice: number; currency: string }>(
    "/market/sell",
    {
      method: "POST",
      headers: { "On-Behalf-Of": input.subUserId },
      body: JSON.stringify({
        items: sellable.map((i) => ({ id: i.id, price: i.price.toFixed(2) })),
        externalId: input.externalId,
      }),
    },
  );
  // 3. The user now accepts the Steam offer; watch trade.* events for hold → completed.
}

With the TypeScript SDK: client.as(subUserId).market.sell.inventory(), .sell.prices(), and .sell.create(items, externalId).

Errors

Beyond the shared error codes, selling can return:

Key	When
`STEAM_ACCOUNT_REQUIRED`	The user has no linked Steam account.
`USER_NOT_TRADEABLE`	The user’s Steam account can’t trade (ban, limit, restriction).
`INVENTORY_PRIVATE`	The user’s Steam inventory is private or unreadable.
`ESCROW_NOT_ALLOWED`	The user’s account has a trade hold (escrow) enabled.
`NO_OFFER_FOUND`	No payout quote for one or more of the submitted items.
`ITEMS_NOT_ACCEPTED`	An item isn’t in the inventory or isn’t tradable.
`PRICE_MISMATCH`	A submitted price no longer matches the live quote — re-read and retry.
`NO_BOTS_AVAILABLE` / `PRICING_UNAVAILABLE` / `STEAM_UNAVAILABLE`	Transient — retry shortly.

Get started

Core concepts

Integration

Real-time

Reference

Mental model

The flow

Status lifecycle

Payout timing

Code template

Errors

​Mental model

​The flow

​Status lifecycle

​Payout timing

​Code template

​Errors

Mental model

The flow

Status lifecycle

Payout timing

Code template

Errors