How to Save and Earn Money with Steam Inventory Helper (SIH)?

The Steam Inventory Helper extension offers an extensive range of features that significantly enhance the default functionality of Steam, simplifying many processes. While it primarily helps save a lot of time, today we’ll focus on its financial benefits. With the various tools it offers, you can save a substantial amount of money, avoid unnecessary expenses, and even prevent losses you might not have been aware of. Many investors and collectors actively use these methods to build their inventories, so you should definitely follow their lead.

Use Buy Orders Wisely

For some, this might be an obvious tip, but many users tend to ignore this function. Remember, the Steam Marketplace is essentially an auction where anyone can not only sell items at any price but also place a buy order for an item at a set price. To place a buy order, go to the item’s page and scroll to the section called “Listings.” You’ll notice that the price difference between buy orders and listed items is often quite significant. This is especially true for expensive items, which are rarer on the marketplace. Sellers may prefer to accept a reasonable offer rather than waiting indefinitely for a buyer on the shop page.

While it’s possible to create a buy order without SIH, the extension allows you to:

Place buy orders without leaving the page and avoid endless “confirmations.” This helps you make the order faster than other users, which can be crucial since speed is key here. If multiple users place the same order, Steam will prioritize the earliest one. This is especially relevant when new items appear on the marketplace, where everyone rushes to place their order first and win the “arms race.” So, install the extension, wait for the release of items from the Arsenal operation on the marketplace, and place profitable buy orders ahead of others.
View an extended list of placed orders. This feature provides detailed information on existing buy orders, including the price and quantity. By default, Steam only shows the first five orders, which aren’t always the best deals.
Monitor Price Changes in Real-Time
If your buy order is set too low, SIH will notify you. Sometimes buyers set unrealistically low prices, making the likelihood of success almost zero. The extension alerts you if your offer is too far off the mark, ensuring that you don’t waste time on unreasonable prices without first checking the market.

Compare Prices on Other Marketplaces

SIH also allows you to compare prices for an item across different marketplaces without leaving the Steam page. SIH will automatically show the most favorable offer, saving you the trouble of manual comparison. If you have a preferred marketplace, such as one that supports a specific payment method, you can compare the price difference with others.

This price difference can also be a source of profit. You can buy an item from a third-party marketplace and resell it on Steam. Until recently, this was also a popular method for topping up your Steam Wallet. It’s still a viable option, except now you’ll have to wait for the 7-day trade hold after receiving the item. However, this can be risky—imagine buying a skin for resale, and then an update drops, causing the market to crash. It’s better to use this method for items you plan to play with or hold as a long-term investment.

Additionally, SIH has its own marketplace where you can purchase items. You can fund your balance using items from your inventory, cryptocurrency, or bank cards from certain countries.

Buy Items with Profitable Floats and Patterns

This SIH feature is one of the most useful, and you can use it for two main purposes:

Buy cheaper items with lower quality but an excellent appearance.
Find rare floats and patterns being sold by inexperienced users and resell them for a profit.

In both cases, you can save money, and SIH helps you do this in just a couple of clicks. Our recommendation for finding items “for yourself” is to look for the lowest possible float in the Field-Tested condition, close to 0.15. You’ll get a good price, but the item will look like it’s Minimal Wear or even Factory New.

Such skins can fetch a nice premium on other marketplaces, but it’s best to verify these nuances yourself. Meanwhile, use SIH to find rare skins. It’s also worth going through your inventory to check if you already have such items among your skins.

Major sales and game updates can also impact the price of items on the marketplace. When players need to buy a game or gain access to an in-game event, they often sell their inventory at lower prices to make a quick purchase. This is where your knowledge of buy orders and SIH functionality comes in handy, allowing you to offer your price and make a quick deal with a “rushed” seller. If you have extra balance, this is the best time to buy popular skins, as they will return to their original prices once the hype dies down.