# cs2.sh vs Pricempire for CS2 Price Data

> Choose cs2.sh when the product depends on CS2-specific history depth, completed-sale series, structured variants, liquidity with estimated sale time, BUFF range markets, or full Steam orderbooks. Choose Pricempire when 40+ marketplace coverage, multi-game support, portfolio data, or built-in comparison tooling matters more.

## The products optimize for different breadth

[Pricempire](https://pricempire.com/api) is a broad market and trading platform. Its official page advertises 40+ marketplaces, one-minute price updates, CS2 plus other game economies, and APIs for prices, items, indexes, inventory, and comparison.

cs2.sh covers six CS2 marketplaces: BUFF, Youpin, CSFloat, Skinport, Steam, and C5Game. Its narrower marketplace list is paired with sell listings (`asks`), buy orders (`bids`), active-order counts, completed sales, ask and bid OHLC, variants, liquidity, BUFF range buckets, and Steam depth.

## Current differences

| Decision factor | cs2.sh | Pricempire |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Marketplace breadth | 6 CS2 sources | 40+ markets |
| Game scope | CS2 | CS2 and several other Steam economies |
| Current prices | Marketplace asks, bids, active-order counts, and timestamps | Provider prices, counts, updates, averages, medians, and numeric liquidity |
| Historical API | Intraday ask and bid OHLC plus separate long-term and sale archives | Enterprise price-history endpoint with a maximum 180-day request range |
| Completed-sale data | CSFloat daily averages, Steam native medians, and sampled Youpin sales | Market volume and statistics are advertised; verify what each sale field means per endpoint |
| Liquidity | Named class plus estimated sale time | Numeric liquidity field |
| Specialized depth | BUFF float and fade buckets; Steam full-depth latest and history | Broad comparison, inventory, item, and marketplace-id APIs |
| Paid entry | $75 current or $200 all endpoints | $119.90 API or $239.90 Enterprise |
| Usage model | Unlimited requests at 10 per second | 10,000 or 100,000 monthly API calls |

Pricempire's [current API documentation](https://pricempire.com/docs) labels item price history as Enterprise-only and limits each requested date range to 180 days. Its marketing page separately advertises more than five years of historical data. If a project needs a backfill longer than 180 days, verify how successive ranges and retention work before purchase.

## What cs2.sh returns for a CS2 item

One request carries all six marketplaces under a single `market_hash_name`, each with its own collection time:

```bash
curl -X POST https://api.cs2.sh/v1/prices/latest \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <<YOUR_API_KEY>>" \
  -H "Accept-Encoding: gzip" --compressed \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"items": ["USP-S | Printstream (Factory New)"]}'
```

```json
"buff": {
  "updated_at": "2026-07-26T18:50:53Z",
  "collected_at": "2026-07-26T18:53:10.67Z",
  "ask": 109.72,
  "ask_volume": 463,
  "bid": 106.17,
  "bid_volume": 41
}
```

`ask` is the lowest sell listing, `bid` the highest buy order, and `ask_volume` and `bid_volume` the active order counts behind them. `updated_at` is the marketplace's own timestamp and `collected_at` is when cs2.sh read it, so freshness is checkable per source rather than per response.

For history, `POST /v1/prices/history` returns OHLC per bucket with `sample_count`, `open_time`, and `close_time`. Request ranges are bounded per request rather than per account:

| Interval | Maximum request range |
| --- | --- |
| `5m` | 14 days |
| `30m` | 90 days |
| `1h` | 365 days |
| `1d` | Unlimited |

A `1d` request has no range limit at all, so a multi-year backfill is one call rather than a sequence of capped windows.

## Pick cs2.sh when

- The same product needs current prices, intraday OHLC, and completed-sale archives.
- Steam daily sale history back to 2013 or CSFloat daily sales from 2022 matters.
- Doppler, Gamma Doppler, or Case Hardened variants must stay structured across sources and history.
- A liquidity class and estimated sale-time range is more useful than a relative numeric score.
- BUFF float or fade ranges and Steam full-depth orderbooks are product inputs.
- A high-volume backfill would exceed a monthly call allowance.

## Pick Pricempire when

- The application needs far more than six marketplaces.
- Rust, Dota 2, TF2, or other game economies share the same integration.
- Portfolio pricing, marketplace comparison, inventory, indexes, and trading data should come from one broader platform.
- A numeric liquidity field and provider-level current pricing are sufficient.
- A metered monthly request plan fits the expected workload.

## Validate before deciding

Run the same exact items through both providers, including an illiquid skin, a Doppler phase, and an item missing on one source. Compare returned source identity, timestamp meaning, null handling, variant selection, and the historical series you will actually use.

Disclosure: this comparison is published by cs2.sh. Pricempire features and prices were checked against its official API and documentation pages on August 4, 2026.