Cheapest knife in CS2: which models and finishes sit at the bottom

The cheapest knife in CS2 is almost never a flashy finish. It is usually a worn camo copy of one of a few unloved models, most often the Navaja or the Shadow Daggers. Prices move every day, so this guide doesn't quote today's figures; it looks at which knives and finishes dated lists have put at the bottom since 2023, and why.

Why some knives cost so little

A cosmetic knife doesn't change how you fight. The Counter-Strike Wiki notes that every one shares the default knife's range, whatever the length of its blade, so the price comes down to how many people want that shape and animation set.

Hotspawn's knife tier list from September 2025 files five models under "entry level": the Gut Knife, Navaja, Shadow Daggers, Survival Knife and Ursus. Its reasons are all about looks and feel. The Navaja is small and uses standard animations, the Shadow Daggers' shape is "ugly as sin", the Survival Knife's animations are clunky and the Ursus carries a large green hilt on every finish. Hotspawn's animation guide adds that the Shadow Daggers' strange shape makes them unpopular, "and they're often among the cheapest CS2 knives as a result".

Supply doesn't explain it either. The same tier list gives the Gut Knife exactly the same 11 cases as the Karambit, yet puts the Gut in the entry-level tier and calls every Karambit skin one of the most expensive knives in the game.

The cheapest CS:GO knife and how the bottom has moved

In CS:GO, Fragster's January 2023 check of the Steam Community Market found the Navaja cheapest, with a Minimal Wear copy at $64.91. Next came Battle-Scarred Boreal Forest Shadow Daggers, a Field-Tested Safari Mesh Gut Knife and a Battle-Scarred Safari Mesh Falchion.

Dexerto's guide, updated in July 2024, still named the Navaja the cheapest knife in CS2, citing its small blade and limited animations, with the Shadow Daggers close behind. Its table has no row for the Gut Knife. The Kukri, then five months old, started around $220 in that table, with 12 models below it.

By September 2025 the Kukri had reached the bottom group. Hotspawn's list of knives under $100 included a Battle-Scarred Safari Mesh Kukri, Shadow Daggers in Freehand and Autotronic, a Battle-Scarred Scorched Bowie, Paracord and Survival knives in camo and Night Stripe, and a Field-Tested Crimson Web Navaja.

On October 22, 2025, Valve let five Covert skins be traded up into a knife or gloves "from a collection of one of the items provided". PC Gamer reported the next day that knife and glove prices were dropping while some Covert skins rose sharply. Our article on the Covert trade-up update covers the rules.

Sorted by price on the Steam Community Market on 27 October 2026, the 40 cheapest knife listings were all Navajas, Shadow Daggers, Kukris, Paracord or Survival knives. One of them was a vanilla Navaja, with no finish at all.

Which finishes and wears are cheapest

The same finishes keep turning up in these lists: the five camos (Safari Mesh, Boreal Forest, Forest DDPAT, Scorched and Urban Masked), Night Stripe and Rust Coat. Dexerto describes knife finishes as running from plain dark ones such as Night Stripe to vivid ones such as Marble Fade, and says the more colourful ones typically cost more because more people want them. It also warns that vanilla knives are not automatically cheap.

Float ranges decide which wears exist. In the game's item definitions, the camo finishes and Night Stripe run from 0.06 to 0.80, so Battle-Scarred covers everything from 0.45 to 0.80. Rust Coat on knives runs from 0.40 to 1.00, so it only exists in Well-Worn and Battle-Scarred.

Gamma finishes can be budget picks on the cheapest models too. Shadow Daggers in Bright Water and Black Laminate were among those 40 cheapest Steam listings, and Hotspawn's 2025 list had Freehand and Autotronic Shadow Daggers.

Wear isn't always a downside on a plain finish. Hotspawn argues that a Battle-Scarred Safari Mesh Kukri and a Battle-Scarred Scorched Bowie look better than cleaner copies, because the wear gives an otherwise plain finish more pattern.

The cheapest Butterfly Knife in CS2

The Butterfly sits at the opposite end of the market. Dexerto's July 2024 table ranked it the most expensive knife model, with its least expensive copies around $800 at the time, and Hotspawn's tier list puts it in its top tier for its animations.

Its cheapest copies still follow the same rule. Sorted by price on the Steam Community Market on 27 October 2026, the ten cheapest Butterfly listings were all Safari Mesh, Scorched or Forest DDPAT, in Field-Tested to Battle-Scarred, and four of them were StatTrak.

Those camo finishes come only from the Operation Breakout Weapon Case, the Butterfly's 2014 case. The Spectrum cases gave it Chroma finishes and the Operation Riptide and Dreams & Nightmares cases Gamma ones. Our Butterfly Knife guide covers its cases and animations in full.

Before you buy a budget knife

• Inspect the exact copy in first person. Battle-Scarred covers any float from 0.45 to 0.80 on a camo, so judge the copy rather than the label.
• Compare models, not just finishes. Our knife types guide shows how the 20 models differ in shape and animation, and the knife finishes guide lists every finish's float range.
• Count the inputs before a trade-up. A Covert trade-up takes five Covert skins and returns a knife or gloves from the collection of one of them, so the cases behind your inputs decide which models are possible.

On CS2Sell, Buy can filter by weapon, price, wear and float range, which makes it quick to line up the cheapest copies of one model.

Sources

• CS2 Knife Animations - All Knives Explained — Hotspawn
• CS2 Knife Tier List - Best CS2 Knives Ranked — Hotspawn
• Best Cheap CS2 Knives Under $100 — Hotspawn
• All CS2 Knives: Best Counter-Strike knives and how to buy them — Dexerto
• The cheapest knives in CS:GO — Fragster
• Latest CS2 patch has skin collectors in meltdown — PC Gamer
• CS2 knives — Steam Community Market
• items_game.txt — GameTracking-CS2 on GitHub