How to Check the Pattern Index of a CS2 Skin

The fastest way is right inside the game: inspect the skin in your inventory and hover the small info icon on the preview. It shows the pattern index directly, no link-copying involved. Don't have the game open, or checking a listing instead of your own item? Copy the inspect link and run it through a checker such as CSFloat's instead, which labels the same number "Paint Seed."

Knowing the number is the easy part. Whether anybody will pay extra for it depends on the finish, which is what the second half of this guide covers.

hover the info icon in-game

This is how most players actually check a pattern, since it doesn't require a browser at all. Open your inventory in the CS2 client, select the skin, and click Inspect to bring up the 3D preview.

In the corner of that preview panel is a small circular info icon (ⓘ). Hover it (or tap it on the Steam Deck / mobile app) and a card pops up with the item's details: Finish Style, Finish Catalog, Pattern Template, and Wear Rating. Pattern Template is the same number as the pattern index and paint seed.

This only works for items sitting in your own inventory. For a listing you're thinking about buying, or an item you don't own yet, skip to Step 3.

check whether the seed matters

For most skins it doesn't. A Redline with seed 12 and a Redline with seed 812 look the same to everyone, and the Steam price for your wear is a fair guide.

A short list of finishes is different. On these, the seed decides where the colours land, and the market pays for it:

Open your skin from the weapons directory, look through its groups and search for your seed. Say you checked an AK-47 Case Hardened and the checker said 661. That seed sits in the Tier 1 Blue Gem group, one of seven. If your seed isn't in any group on the page, you have a regular copy.

For an AK-47 Case Hardened you can check it right here:

A matching seed isn't a price yet

Finding your seed in a group tells you it's in the right room. Where it lands in that room is down to three other things.

Wear, for one. A Battle-Scarred copy of a good seed can sell for a fraction of a Factory New one (float values explained has the table). Then there are stickers, which can inflate a single sale so much that it tells you nothing about the seed (how stickers affect skin prices). And groups are top-heavy. The best seed in a tier often sells for several times what the fifth best does, so read the price for your seed's own page, not the group average.

Here's what a larger group looks like in live data:

Every price on this site comes from completed CSFloat cash sales, recorded per pattern index. Steam Community Market prices aren't used, since Steam never records the seed.

For more on what the number does, read what is a CS2 pattern index. Terms you haven't seen before are in the CS2 pattern glossary.