#backpack.tf

Backpack.tf is one of the most well known resources in the TF2 economy for trading and selling items within the TF2 community. This is only one of the many resources, but it’s still widely used. 

So the first thing you need to do is log in through steam, there will be a place to sign in at the upper right corner. You can see this pointed to here in this photo where my username / profile is.

After you get yourself logged in, you can go about selling and trading your items. This is the first step, but other than that there are multiple different aspects of backpack.tf you should know about first.

The Current Value of Keys, Refined Metal, and Earbuds as currency in TF2:

The main 3 forms of currency that exist on backpack.tf although earbuds have gone down incredibly and for majority of the community are no longer considered currency. Most people don’t accept it anymore and they are not worth as much so you should definitely avoid using them.

Otherwise, refined metal and keys are regarded as the main currency. Refined metal is usually used for things like cosmetics and other items that don’t cost more than a key. Keys are used for things like unusuals, strange cosmetics, and expensive weapons.

The three meters on the front page are what backpack.tf uses and represent the current TF2 economy. You can use this to get an idea of how much your items should sell for, although backpack.tf can do that for you from your inventory. You can also look at similar classifieds.

Here’s what the three meters look like (as of 5/10/2016).

The Classifieds: (Searching for what you want)

To look at the listings on Backpack.tf if you want to trade for something, then you can go through the classifieds. The easiest way to access them is like this from the front page:

You should click on the view more button and you’ll be shown more of the classified ads. From there, you can search a specific item. Either you can search the item in the search bar or go through the special search option.

The basic search will not accept “The” or any item qualities in the name. So for example of you were to look for a “The Ward” cosmetic you would only type in Ward. Additionally, if you wanted a strange weapon you would just type the weapon name. 

The first pages of the offers will be the cheapest, so it goes in order of increasing price. So if you wanted an Unusual of a Hat or a Strange, you would want to go toward the last few pages of the offers or there’s a few other options you can take which I’ll get to in a minute.

Other than the basic search which works for your basic needs and most things you’ll be looking for like cosmetics and whatnot. You can also use the advanced search.

This is where the advanced search is located, you can see the three dots “...” highlighted and the “Advanced” label popping up? That’s where you’ll want to click. Once that pops up you can narrow your search through multiple different ways. Here’s what comes up:

When you click on these different boxes you can choose different qualities such as “Unusual” or “Strange”. You can even look at which Killstreaker sheen, effect, level, etc you want. This is really useful for specific weapon searches or unusual searches. Weapon searches don’t go very well through the basic search option so you’ll want to use this feature.

So now that you know that option which will get you to most everything you need, you can also look specifically at unusuals by either hat or effect. This can be done here:

This is pretty self explanatory. You can click on the item or effect option and a grid showing the different hats or effects will appear. Backpack.tf also gives a way to look at the Steam Community Market as seen on the drop down menu if you cant reference directly to steam. 

So that’s the basics of searching for things on Backpack.tf that are already listed: let’s look at listing items.

Listing Items on Backpack.tf to sell/trade:

See the drop down menu for your steam profile? (Presumably its not r2mich2 since that’s mine). Well from here you can go to your profile on Backpack.tf which lists your listings and stats about your trading history. Or, you can go to your backpack. 

From your backpack you’ll see a grid of items in your backpack. Now here I’m going to go through putting something up for trade on Backpack.tf. As an example, I’m going to list a robotic cosmetic in my backpack for trade. This way you can know how the process generally works.

So if you hover over an item in your backpack you get this little menu that suggests exactly how much it should be sold for on backpack. Usually this is a bit of an overestimate (you can also see it listed on the item in the backpack). So what you’ll want to do is look at the classifieds already on Backpack.tf to compare prices and see what the general price is. Sometimes it’s different from the suggested, sometimes its not.

Additionally on this menu you can look at what the listings are on different TF2 resource websites for trading and whatnot. (Bazaar.tf and Tf2Outpost are listed as seen above). 

From the hover menu, you should select the Sell button. The sell button will bring you to this menu:

As you can see here, you can list in two different forms of currency: Refined Metal and Crate Keys. For a guide to how to understand the Refined Metal currency: please reference my other guide here. Follow the general suggested value for which kind of currency to use.

See the drop down menus for Trade Offer and Allow Negotiation? You have multiple options here.

Sending A Trade Offer or Add to Trade are the two options for the people responding to your offer in getting the item from you. They can either send an offer directly to you or they can add you as a friend before you trade with them. 

The drop menu for Allow Negotiation can either be Negotiable price (so you don’t mind if they offer around your listed price) or Exact listed Value. Choose these options at your leisure.

So that’s the basics of how to make a sell order. This shall get listed immediately and people can see it in the classifieds.

Other small things to know:

There are multiple different aspects to Backpack.tf and I won’t be covering all of them here. I’m only covering the practical knowledge so you can start trading as easily as possible. But I’m going to throw in a few things about classified offers. 

This is what a listing can look like. The Green Button or Blue Button next to the green flag is what you click on to open up the offer. A trade offer will open up in a new tab for you and you can make the offer there. That is pretty self explanatory and I won’t go into that.

This specific green button above has a lightning bolt. This means its an automatic trade offer so the person who listed the sell order will have a bot automatically accept the offer if it’s the exact trade amount. This won’t work for item overpay and whatnot but does work otherwise. 

If its a green button with arrows, that means they need to respond to it but it’s exact value. The blue version of this button is negotiable and they need to respond to it. 

So that’s opening up the trade offer. Now I’m also going to mention Buy Orders. Buy orders work in reverse and in the basic menu are listed on the right side rather than the left. Buy Orders are people looking to buy something so if you are looking to sell, you could also trade them.

A buy order looks exactly the same, the trade is just the other way around where you give the item instead and they pay you. 

There’s also such a thing as “Rep” or reputation. This is based off of whether or not you’re a reputable trader. If you scam people, you’ll get less rep. If you’re a good trader, people will give you good rep. This is why you see +Rep on profiles on steam. 

So! That’s about it.

If you all have any questions or more about Backpack.tf, I’ll be glad to answer them. I can add more to this post at any time. If there’s anything you feel I left out, didn’t cover, should’ve covered differently, or if you have any corrections for me please let me know.