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Selling and Trading Items on Steam

TBH lets you move high-rarity items into your Steam inventory and sell them on the Community Market for Steam Wallet funds. This guide covers the mechanics of getting items in and out. It does not track prices, which swing hard and have been frozen before.

Getting items onto the market

Open the in-game menu and click the boat icon, which is the Steam trade seat. Drag in the items you want to sell, or use the option to auto-load high-tier items. Stick to high rarities like Immortal and above; common and rare items sell for so little that the listing time is not worth it. When you drop an item in, it leaves your character's bag and may not appear right away. The game serializes it on Steam's side first, so a 'processing, come back later' message is normal. Refresh your inventory and it will show up.

Listing and buying

Once an item is in your Steam inventory for the game, open it on Steam, hit Sell, and set your price. Anything that sells pays out to your Steam Wallet. You can buy other players' items from the Community Market the same way.

Getting purchases back into the game

Items you buy, or listings you cancel, do not drop straight back into your bag. They land in the in-game mailbox, usually at the top of the screen. Open it, wait about ten seconds for the server to sync, and click receive. A lot of players think a purchase vanished when it is just sitting in the mailbox unclaimed.

The seven-day cooldown

Anything that touches the market carries a seven-day trade cooldown before you can resell it. That covers items you bought, gear you crafted from market-bought materials, and even gear you synthesized with a market-bought item in the mix. Items you looted yourself have no cooldown. Plan around this if you intend to flip anything: buy early, sell later.

Why prices are not listed here

The market has been closed and reopened before, and bot activity has frozen new listings for stretches of time. Live prices are unreliable enough that building your plans around them is a trap. Check the current Steam Market in-game when you are ready to list, and treat selling as a bonus rather than a strategy.

Trading unlock and the mid-2026 rules

Trading does not open until your Cube Alchemy reaches level 10 or higher, so push Alchemy first if you want market access at all. As of mid-2026 (this changes with patches), an anti-bot patch reshaped what you can actually sell on the Steam market. Only gear of Immortal grade and above can be listed. Common, Uncommon and Rare gear can no longer be sold at all. Crafting materials are the exception: materials of any grade stay fully tradable. Treat market access as on-and-off. The same bot problems have, at times, led to the Trade Ship being closed entirely, so do not count on trading being available on any given day.

Fees, holds and collecting items

As of mid-2026 (subject to change with patches), expect friction on both ends of a trade. New listings are held for roughly 15 days. Running a Steam Mobile Authenticator (Steam Guard) that has been active for 7 or more days speeds your trades up and removes much of that delay. Steam takes a cut of about 28% on each sale. In practice a 7-cent sale nets you only around 5 cents, so plan your prices around that. Collecting items has its own quirk. Anything you buy, and any listing you cancel, does not drop back into your bag. It goes to the in-game mailbox instead, where you click refresh to receive it. Set your expectations honestly. Prices here are measured in cents, so what you earn is pocket money in Steam Wallet credit, not real cash you can withdraw.

Sources

Data updated 2026-06-22