Team Fortress 2 Pricing Painted Items [2022]

What Is A Painted Item?

It is important to understand the difference between paints and warpaints/skins.

PaintsPaints, the point of this guide, are colors that can be added to cosmetic items (sometimes called 'Miscs') that change the color of the item in game. A list of the available paint colors can be found on the TF2 Wiki.

The paints are purchased in 'Paint Can' form, then applied to cosmetics via your inventory. Assuming the paint and cosmetic are craftable, the final product will be too.

For example, if you have a Paint Can in the color "The Bitter Taste of Defeat and Lime"

and apply it to an unpainted Frickin' Sweet Ninja Hood

you would receive a Lime painted Frickin' Sweet Ninja Hood

Unlike warpaints and skins, paints are all the same. They do not have grades (Mercenary Grade, Assassin Grade, etc) or wears (Factory New, Minimal Wear, etc). Every paint can of Lime is the same as every other.

How and Where do you get Paints?Paints can be;

Purchased from the Mann Co. Store for Steam Wallet Funds

Unboxed from Mann Co. Crates

Traded for from other players

Traded for from Legitimate Trading Sites (https://scrap.tf/buy/items, for example)

Warpaints and SkinsI won't go into what these are in detail here but these are for Weapons, not cosmetics. They are applied in a similar way but have different grades and wears.

Warpaints can be;

Unboxed from Warpaint Cases

Traded for from other players

Traded for from Legitimate Trading Sites (stn[stntrading.eu] is good for skins)

Here is a list of all available warpaints

Paint SpellsPaint Spells are items which have had a "Spell" added to them. Spells work in the same way as paints, they are items that are applied to Miscs (there are also spells for weapons). Spells are no longer distributed by TF2.

Paint spells do different things, for example the Paint Spell "Die Job" changes color during gameplay from Grey to Gold. This effect is only visible during Halloween/Scream Fortress or on servers running those events.

Introduction To Pricing Painted Items

Most Important Thing

Probably the most important thing to understand before we get into pricing painted items is this;

Applying a paint to a painted item will always reduce the value of selling the items individually.

What does this mean?Well let's take the example from before of the Ninja Hood and Lime Paint.

Item Name Price (as of 24/11/21, backpack.tf) The Bitter Taste of Defeat and Lime ~2 Keys The Frickin' Sweet Ninja Hood ~2 Refined Total of Both Items ~2 Keys & 2 Refined A Lime Painted Frickin' Sweet Ninja Hood As Cheap as 15 Refined (see image)

Why? Shouldn't it be the sum of the two items?There are several reasons but it mainly comes down to this;

People want the freedom to choose which item they want at which price and having the price be equal to the sum of the two items means it would be the same price just to make it yourself. Previously, prices were [Hat Price] + [1/2 Paint Price], but after the introduction of bots that undercut, all prices are a little lower than they should be. Some bots run on scripts to always bid one scrap/one refined lower than the other sellers. This drives prices down exponentially and is another reason painted items are selling for less than they used to.

Whatever the reason, just accept that this is how it is and someone out there is willing to sell it for cheap.

So How Do I Price my Item?

As you can see, backpack.tf doesn't exactly give you a usable price. This is because it needs to use a formula and the truth of the matter is that different paints are more or less desirable on different miscs and backpack.tf can't account for those discrepencies (see "Paint Tiers" section for more). So Rule 1 is to generally ignore backpack.tf's suggested price.

A more accurate guide on pricing specific items will be given after the How Do I Price my Item section, which is important for understanding pricing.

Paint Tiers

Paint Cans (and therefore painted items) are generally held in different tiers. These tiers don't have strict names but looking at any paint buyers on backpack.tf shows a similar ranking.

Paint Tier Paint Names The Big Four (highest tier) A Distinctive Lack of Hue (Black)

An Extraordinary Abundance of Tinge (White)

Pink as Hell (Pink)

The Bitter Taste of Defeat and Lime (Fluro Green) High Tier All Team Colors (See here

After 8 (almost black) Mid Tier Mann Co. Orange

Indubitably Green

A Deep Commitment to Purple

Color 216-190-216 (Off White)

Australium Gold (Yellow) Decent Paints The Color of a Gentleman's Business Pants (Pastel Yellow)

A Mann's Mint (Pastel Green) Low-Tier All other colors (see here)

NotesThese are guidelines but there are exceptions and discrepencies;

Team colors such as Team Spirit and The Value of Teamwork are low-tier on cosmetics that already appear in team colors, such as the Frickin' Sweet Ninja Hood.

The Decent Paints tend to float between mid-tier and low-tier depending on the traders

How Do I Find My Item's Value?

First off, like any item it's important to understand who you are selling to

End UsersThese are people who are buying the item because they want to use it/complete their loadout. These users are also the most profitable,

ResellersThese users plan on buying your item and selling it on. They want to make profit (some people weill do this for a scrap, some want more). They will not pay as much as end users but will buy your item quite quickly

QuickbuyersThese people usually own bots that sell their items. They don't care if it sits there for months unsold because they don't have to think about it. They usually buy bulk and try to pay as little as possible, they are often seen in the buy-orders sections and have discords/steam groups. This is the quickest way to make a couple of scrap off painted items or offload bulk items, but you won't make much profit off them.

A quick tip with these guys is that they will almost always say "I'll pay the most". Always look for these guys and send them an offer a little higher than the highest buyer and see if they bite.

Trade SitesMany trade sites do not pay extra for paints, or pay the least. This should be a last resort if you care about profit/trading #supporthumantraders

Now that you have decided who your market is, its time to price your item.

Go to the classifieds of your item, unpainted and look at the buy orders for painted versions. If you're looking to sell immediately, sell to one of these Quickbuyers and end here. Otherwise;

Filter the classifieds by your paint tier

Look at what other people are selling the hat for

Price yours at a similar point, or less if you want to sell to resellersIf there is no one with your specific paint, you can match to other paints in the same tier, but on the higher end. If there is no one with a similar tier, you should use intuition and buy order prices of the paint. Go above buy orders and monitor. Different hats/paints/combinations will have different margins so it's hard to say. If a buyer is open to negotiations, you might want to ask them what they can offer, politely. Backpack.tf's suggested prices are usually more than willing to pay but can be appropriate as a starting point if there are no other sellers to base your price off, just be ready to wait some time or slowly discount it if it doesn't sell.

Rarity/ScarcityBackpack.tf actually shows how many of a particular hat are painted a particular paint. This is found under the Stats page of an item.

Here we can see that most occurrences of this item are painted Black. This means it is a popular color for the cosmetic and this is evidenced by the buyers who are all paying higher for black painted versions.

CombinationsThere are certain combinations that yield higher prices, these change depending on the latest meme but here are some noteworthy ones;

Lime Cosmetics on Scouts (Scunts)

White cosmetics on Engineer (thanks Dane)

Pretty much any cosmetic combination from a famous Youtuber (LazyPurple, etc)

Grey paints (usually low-tier) on hair/beard cosmeticsBad Combinations are;

Team colors on already team colored cosmetics

Any paint on cosmetics which are small/unaffected by paints (explained later)

Green paints on The Cobber Chameleon, Triboniophorus Tyrannus or Birdman of Aberdeen

Black paints on Wilson's Weave, Cop Caller, etc

So, Should I Paint My Cosmetic?

In short, probably not.

If you are trading for profit, painting an item is not worth it. You are much better off selling the paint and the misc, then buying a painted version of that misc. In almost all cases, this is the cheapest way to get a painted cosmetic.

Is there any case for painting a misc?Yes, there are a few.

When you have a special cosmetic (i.e, low craft, special level, gifted by, etc)

When you have an unusual (although paints won't affect value by much, it can be hard to find the paint you are after)

You earn a paint from an event. In this case, you will never be able to trade the paint until it is applied to a tradeble cosmetic. Once applied, the "untradable" status will be removed. If the paint or cosmetic has a 7 day untradable status, you will have to wait for that to expire before trading. This cool down generally occurs when you have purchased an item from Many Co. Or the Steam Community Market.

There are exceptions to this list and they are miscs with small paint regions. A paint region is the area on a cosmetic that is affected by paint.

We saw earlier that the Frickin' Sweet Ninja hood didn't completely change color, only the headband and mouth covering. There are other miscs that completely change color (large paint region), then there are those that have almost unnoticeable changes (small paint regions).

Here are two examples;

You should always check by visiting the Wiki for the item you wish to buy or paint before painting. High-tier paints will be worth even less on small paint region hats.

Even if your cosmetic has a large paint region, you should check to see how a color will look. As mentioned previously, some items are already colored and adding a similar color will be underwhelming and worth less.

In this example, the misc has a reasonable paint region. But painting it Indubitably Green, A Mann's Mint or The Bitter Taste of Defeat and Lime barely change the appearance of the misc, especially in the middle of a battlefield where people don't have the time to observe nuance.

How To Buy And Sell Painted Cosmetics On Backpack.tf

Backpack.tf is arguably the most used (and best presenting) trade website for TF2. I would personally highly recommend using it to buy or sell your painted items. A lot of other websites (quicksell, sfuminator) also advertise through backpack.tf, although scrap.tf does not.

Finding Paint Buyers and SellersThis is how to find people who are buying and selling hats

Using FiltersFirstly, you should always use the Trading --> Classified Listings --> Search bar to perform searches. The search bar at the top of the site is clunky.

After you search for a hat, you will arrive at a page like this;

You will see all qualities of the hat, all paints and unpainted versions, etc. This is where we will use filters to refine. Filters are accessible by clicking the ... which I have highlighted in red.

Change the quality to whichever you're looking for (I changed to unique here) then make your way down to the paints section. Here you can choose which paint(s) you are after.

Finally accept down the bottom and you will see this;

Lowest seller first on the left and highest buyer on the right.

Using this we may think that 9.33 is the highest buy order, however, this is only because we selected only "Lime" as a paint. If we select the Big Four, we see;

There is another buyer who has chosen Black, but is paying more for Lime!

You should try and search more by tier than buy individual paints, especially when selling.

Selling Your Painted HatThere isn't too much to say here other than this;

Check all the buyers in the classifieds, there may even be sellers with "Beat better offers by a refined" in their descriptions, sell to these guys for more profit!

The paint on a hat is visible in the classifieds, you can comment which paint is on the hat but this is useless for anyone who knows trading basics or has read this guide.

The other, much more serious error, is visibility manipulation (has other names). This is where you promote your listing by setting a low price, the write in the description that you actually want more.

Here is an example;

This is against backpack.tf rules and you listing will be reported as soon as you try this.

Just go to your backpack, find the item you want to sell, hover over it and click 'sell'. List for your price and let people know if you're up for negotiation or want pure. Plain and simple.

Buying Painted HatsAgain, the first thing you should do is use filters like I suggested above to see if your paint is currently listed at a price you are willing to pay.

Creating a Buy OrderIf you can't find the hat you want, but want people to know you are looking for it, you can create a buy order.

Go to the "Stats" page of the item you wish to purchase (make sure you are looking at the right quality). Choose the "Create New Buy Order" button here;

Then make sure you specify the paint you are looking for here;

You can only apply one paint to a buy order, as the other buyers did you can comment the other paints you are looking for, or simply put that you are only looking for the specific paint.

Again, do not manipulate the classifieds by putting the highest price then putting a different price in your description. This is illegal.

Final step here is just to wait.

Terms/GlossaryThere are many terms used by paint traders, here is a list of the ones I know and use/see used

Term Meaning qs/quicksell Looking to sell at a discount to save me time qb/quickbuy Looking to buy at a discount to save you time CSP/CBP Common sell/buy price. Find the lowest seller/highest buyer and take their price. Common means there must be more than 1 seller/buyer at that price point. This stops fake listings and outliers.

Similar to b/o and s/o Overcut Beat the highest seller by ... Undercut Beat the lowest seller by ... Pure Metal and Keys Mixed Metal, keys and items Items Items only Overpay Paying more than the listed price in items Cleanswap + _________ Swapping a painted hat for the same hat (unpainted) + _______ refined/keys

Item Qualities (stranges, Vintages & Genuines)

This is probably the section I was least looking forward to writing...

Cosmetics Items usually come in one of four qualities; unique, strange, vintage and genuine. One would think paint values would be similar across all of them, but for some strange reason, this is not the case.

So far all of the information has been in regards to a unique quality item.

The other three qualities have some weird behaviours. Stranges seem the most well behaved and the information thus far will generally apply, vintages and genuines are generally considered a waste of money for non-collectors.

You often see things like this;

Explain that, athiests...

Jokes aside, what's happening here is that no one really wants these hats because they don't offer anything to the player and are indistinguishable from unique in game. Buyers don't want to pay much and sellers have no reason to lower their prices.

What's the point of me telling you all this?

Just know that painted versions of these hats tend to be a lot cheaper in relation to the sell orders, that's good if you're buying and not great if you're selling. Expect to hold on to that painted hat for a while.

FAQ's

Here are some frequently asked questions, I will update as questions come in.

Can I remove a paint?Yes. This can be done in your in-game inventory by selecting an item and choosing "Restore" from the drop down. This will remove the paint but will not refund you paint can. It will also remove custom names and descriptions.

Credits And Thanks

These people gave feedback and suggestions because they are lovely, helpful people!

RockSolidWood

ShadowClanZ

ConicalG

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2662623334

Pricing Painted Items [2022]