Butterfly Knife in CS2: Price Bands, Cases and Finishes (Sep 2026)

The Butterfly Knife is the most expensive knife shape in CS2 before any finish is applied: a worn Safari Mesh copy cost $408–428 on 9 September 2026, against $365–380 for a Karambit and $259–276 for an M9 Bayonet. Everything above that floor is the finish talking, and this file prices the ladder per wear, with dates.

What a Butterfly Knife costs in CS2 right now

On 9 September 2026 a Field-Tested Butterfly Knife Safari Mesh was listed from $408–428, a Factory New Fade from $2,100–2,250, and a Factory New Gamma Doppler Emerald from about $7,800, with Emerald listings reaching $17,300. Those three numbers bracket the whole shape.

The floor moved a long way this year. Factory New Safari Mesh copies ranged $690–910 over the ninety days to our check-date while worn copies sat at $408–428 on the day, so the only reason to pay for Factory New on a mesh finish is a collection with a float rule. The all-time low for the finish is dated 24 October 2025 at $554 — two days after the trade-up update — and the all-time high $1,831 on 23 February 2025.

Which cases drop the Butterfly Knife

Five cases, and they are not equal. The Operation Breakout Weapon Case introduced the Butterfly in 2014 and is the only container whose rare-item pool is Butterfly-only. The Spectrum Case, Spectrum 2 Case, Operation Riptide Case and Dreams & Nightmares Case share a pool of five shapes — Butterfly, Huntsman, Falchion, Bowie and Shadow Daggers — so a gold from those four is a one-in-five roll for the shape before the finish is rolled.

That distinction became a price mechanism on 22 October 2025, when five Covert skins from a case started trading up into that case's gold pool. Five Breakout Coverts guarantee a Butterfly; five Spectrum Coverts give you a 20% shot at one. A guide published the week of the update put the Breakout input cost at almost $500, which is above the worn floor and only pays off if the random finish lands well. The full mechanics and the receipts are in how the trade-up update changed CS2 knife prices.

The finishes, by float

The Butterfly has 35 finish entries in the community catalogue, counting Doppler and Gamma Doppler phases, plus the vanilla knife. The finish decides your wear options before price does. Fade, Doppler, Gamma Doppler, Marble Fade and Tiger Tooth are capped at 0.08 float — Factory New or Minimal Wear only, so there is no cheap worn copy to find. Slaughter runs 0.01–0.26. Lore reaches 0.65 and Autotronic 0.85, which is why worn Lore and Autotronic copies are the cheapest way into a premium-looking Butterfly.

The common finishes — Safari Mesh, Scorched, Forest DDPAT, Boreal Forest, Urban Masked, Night, Crimson Web, Ultraviolet — all run 0.06–0.80 and set the floor. Case Hardened, Blue Steel, Stained and Black Laminate go the full 0–1.00. Rust Coat is 0.40–1.00 and never exists above Well-Worn. Every Butterfly finish has a StatTrak variant.

Fade versus Doppler on this shape

Buy the Doppler if you want liquidity and the Fade if you want the Butterfly-specific look. On 9 September 2026 the two were within $100 of each other in Factory New — Fade $2,100–2,250, Doppler $2,000–2,230 — but the Doppler had 496 active listings to the Fade's 277, which means tighter spreads when you sell. The Fade on a Butterfly is unusual among Fades because the gradient runs across the wide blade and the handles, and full-fade percentage copies carry a further premium the table above does not capture.

Both peaked on 5 May 2025 — Fade at $5,633, Doppler at $5,426 — and both bottomed at $1,310–1,404 in the days after the trade-up update. At the check-date each had recovered roughly 55% from the low and remained about 60% below the peak. The Karambit file shows the same finishes on the shape with the next-highest premium, if you are choosing between the two.

Where to buy a Butterfly Knife

A cash marketplace, in worn condition unless the finish is float-capped. Skinport charges buyers nothing and sellers 8%; CSFloat charges sellers 2% and lets you filter by float and Doppler phase, which matters on a knife where phase moves the price by thousands; DMarket runs around 2% on liquid items like this one. Steam's market takes 15% and cannot pay out, so it is the wrong venue for a $400–2,000 item you may sell later.

Cash listings: SkinBaron, DMarket, Skinport, white.market, CSFloat, Lis-Skins. If you are trading skins in rather than paying cash: Tradeit, SkinSwap, Swap.gg, CS.TRADE. Some of these are affiliate links and may earn us a commission at no cost to you; they never move a band. None is a case-opening site. For where the Butterfly sits against the other nineteen shapes, see all CS2 knives ranked.