Shared strategies

A strategy (the Strategies page in the sidebar) is one set of trading rules and an item list that you keep once and run on several Steam accounts. Tune one account, copy it into a strategy, and apply the strategy to the others instead of repeating the same settings by hand.

A strategy belongs to your user and covers one game (Rust or CS2). It holds:

• rules — the shared part of the trading settings (see what is shared); they apply to every item of the strategy;
• items — catalog items of the game, each with its Buy / Sell flags.

A strategy has one set of rules. When some items need other rules — for example cheap liquid items and expensive slow ones — make a separate strategy for them and run it on the same accounts next to the first one (see Several strategies on one account). Older strategies and copies of an account may still hold groups with rules of their own: see Split a strategy.

A strategy is required to trade

Trading settings — prices, algorithms, filters, trends, maintenance — are edited only in strategies, and the runner does not start on an account without one (see On the account). To start from scratch, create a strategy from the Platform template or copy an account, and apply it.

Accounts never read a strategy live

Applying a strategy copies it into the account: the account's own settings, groups and item flags are rewritten, and the trading engine keeps reading only the account. Editing a strategy therefore changes nothing on any account until you apply the new version there. Each account shows which version it runs.

Profit on strategy cards

Last 30 days shows realized profit after Steam fees, return on the cost of sold items, and the number of sales. Target profit is the configured threshold, separate from this result. Each wallet currency is shown separately; account percentages are combined using their cost basis, not averaged.

A sale belongs to the strategy assigned to the item when the sale occurred. Later reassignment or detachment does not move past profit. Earlier ownership can be recovered from recorded strategy applications and their saved item lists, including item takeovers between strategies. The card shows the earliest confirmed assignment date. Only periods without sufficient historical evidence are excluded. Purchases before that date still provide cost basis. Sales with incomplete cost basis or unknown currency are identified separately and do not appear as zero-cost profit.

The Strategies page

Each strategy is a card with its game and version, Not applied: N when some accounts run an older version, and its main rules: the Buy and Sell algorithms, Profit (Target margin) and Sales a month ("from N", Min monthly sales). A rule the strategy leaves empty shows "—": the account's own setting is used for it. Below them — "Items: N · buying: N · selling: N", the accounts that run the strategy (the dot is green when an account runs the latest version) and, while the strategy still has groups, Groups to split: N.

Create a strategy

On Strategies, click New strategy, give it a name (unique among your strategies) and choose what to start from:

Start from	What is copied
Copy an account	The account's effective settings (only the shared keys) and all its tracked items of the game with their buy/sell flags. Its groups of the game with their overrides and the overrides of its Inbox are copied too, so that you can split the ones with rules of their own into separate strategies. Group overrides stored in an older format are converted to the current field names. The game is the one you pick, otherwise the account's runner game, otherwise the game it tracks most items of.
Platform template	The conservative default settings for the game. No items.
Copy a strategy	An independent copy of another strategy: its rules and items, plus the groups and Inbox values it still has to split. Changing one later does not affect the other.

Creating a strategy does not touch any account. Its tabs:

• Rules — the trading settings a strategy owns (described in Trading settings). They apply to all its items; a field left empty falls back to the account's own default for it.
• Items — search, add items from the game catalog (Add items), pull them from an account (Import from account: the account's tracked items of this game that the strategy does not have yet, with their flags), turn Buy / Sell on or off, or remove them — one by one or in bulk. A Group column is shown only while the strategy still has groups to split. Once the strategy runs on accounts, On accounts shows each item there: a dot per account (green — as the strategy says, amber — other buy/sell, hollow — not added yet, red — owned by another strategy of that account) and how many units the accounts hold, list and bid for. Clicking it lists every account with the item's status there and opens it on that account's Items tab. Differs on accounts: N leaves only the items some account does not hold as the strategy says.
• Accounts — which accounts use the strategy, their mode and BUY budget, and applying, updating and detaching them.
• History — every stored version of the strategy and the difference between any two.

Split a strategy

A strategy is one set of rules, but strategies made earlier, copies of an account and copies of such strategies can still hold groups with rules of their own and values of their own for the Inbox (the items without a group). They keep working as before — applying still writes them to the accounts — but they can no longer be edited. Such a strategy shows a Split this strategy card above its tabs, and while it has groups its card on the Strategies page shows Groups to split: N.

The card lists each group with its number of items. How it differs (N) opens a table with the strategy's value on the left and the group's on the right. The account-wide settings (Reprice deviation, Cancel buy orders after (days), Remove listings after (days), Remove even with an open order, Keep sticker items, Auto-undercut guard) are not counted: the engine reads them for the whole account and never took them from a group. A group without differences is marked Same rules as the strategy — the group changes nothing.

Make a strategy

Make a strategy is offered for a group whose rules differ. It asks for the name of the new strategy (by default strategy · group; it must be unique among your strategies) and then:

• creates a new strategy of the same game with the strategy's rules and the group's values on top — except the account-wide settings, which keep the strategy's values (the strategies of one account must agree on them);
• moves the group's items into it with their Buy / Sell flags;
• removes the group from the original strategy and raises the original's version.

Nothing changes on the accounts at this point: they keep trading the version they applied. The new strategy opens on its Accounts tab with a guide for the accounts that run the original strategy:

1. Assign the new strategy to those accounts. The assign dialog opens with Add next to them and Take these items over already chosen: the group's items move to the new strategy with the same rules and flags, and their open buy orders are not cancelled. In the preview, Settings lists the items by where they trade now, for example Group "Fast Cheap" (60) — trade the same.
2. Then apply the original strategy's new version on the same accounts. The guide links to it, and Apply to all outdated works there.

The order matters. Applied first, the original strategy's new version no longer contains the group's items, so they lose buying (their open buy orders show up in its preview as orders to cancel) until the new strategy is assigned. Until both steps are done the accounts trade as before; afterwards the guide reads Done: the accounts run this strategy and "…", each with its own items. Every item keeps its buy/sell flags and the rules it traded on.

The guide belongs to the page that opens after the split. If you come back later, do the same steps by hand: on the new strategy's Accounts tab, Add or switch on each account → Add next to them and Take these items over, then apply the original strategy.

Remove a group

Remove group deletes the group and raises the strategy's version. Its items stay in the strategy, and once you apply it they trade on the strategy's rules instead of the group's. Use it for a group with the same rules as the strategy, or when you no longer need the group's rules.

Inbox values

If the strategy has values of its own for items without a group, the card also shows Items without a group (Inbox) with how those values differ. Move into the rules writes them into the strategy's rules and clears them from the Inbox, so that all its items share one set of rules; apply the strategy afterwards. The button is available once no groups are left: the groups' items inherit the strategy's rules, and moving the values first would change them too.

Through the API

• POST /strategies/{strategyId}/groups/{groupId}/extract with { "name": "…" } makes a group a separate strategy and answers 201 with it (409 STRATEGY_NAME_TAKEN, 404 STRATEGY_GROUP_NOT_FOUND).
• DELETE /strategies/{strategyId}/groups/{groupId} removes a group; its items stay in the strategy without a group.
• PATCH /strategies/{id} with settings and inboxTradeSettings (a key set to null is cleared) moves Inbox values into the rules.
• Groups can no longer be created or edited, and items are added or updated without a group. GET /strategies/{id} returns each group with differences: [{ key, strategyValue, groupValue }]; in GET /strategies, groupCount counts the groups left to split and settings holds the rules.

What a strategy shares and what stays per account

The strategy owns exactly these settings (the list is also returned by GET /strategies/setting-keys); everything else stays with each account.

Section	Shared settings
Pricing	Target margin, Min margin, Min profit, Sell algorithm, Sell price multiplier, Buy algorithm, Buy price multiplier, Price-history days, Outlier filter %
Order size	Bid offset (order book), Order size % of sales, Order percent (legacy), Order size mode, Items per order (fixed), Max items per order, Position limit
Liquidity and queues	Min monthly sales, Buy depth vs sales, Max units ahead in buy queue, Max gap below top buy order, Sell queue depth, Sell depth in %
Trends	Monthly / weekly / daily drop limit, Monthly / weekly / daily rise limit
Maintenance	Cancel on oversupply, Cancel order if profit above, Reprice deviation, Cancel buy orders after (days), Remove listings after (days), Remove even with an open order, Keep sticker items, Auto-undercut guard

Always per account, never part of a strategy. The ones you can edit in the cabinet are on the account's System tab → Account settings (see Trading settings):

• money and risk ceilings — Max total exposure (maxOrderExposure) and orderSumMultiplier;
• trading speed — Items per cycle (maxCandidates), Delay between actions (requestDelayMs), queryDelayMs;
• the runner — the Game it trades (appid), autoStart, runnerJobs;
• the live order-book check — Validate buy orders (checkHistogramBeforeBuy);
• CS2 sticker and float guards — Block sell if sticker $ >, sticker streak, Float guard and its bounds;
• Recheck open buy orders (autoCancelUnprofitableBuyOrders).

Applying never touches the wallet, open buy orders, listings, inventory or trading history either.

Apply a strategy to an account

On the strategy's Accounts tab, each account has a button: Assign (no strategy yet), Add or switch (it runs other strategies), Review and apply (it runs an older version) or Check (it is up to date). The button opens a preview — nothing is written until you confirm.

The preview lists:

• Settings — every shared setting whose effective value changes, before → after. On an account with several strategies it lists instead this strategy's items already on the account by where they trade now and what changes for them — for example Group "Fast Cheap" (60) — trade the same, or From "Inbox" (2056) with a before → after table;
• Groups — groups to create, groups whose name or settings change (the Inbox included), groups that stop being managed;
• Items — how many items start being tracked, move to another group, and get buying / selling turned on or off;
• cautions — open buy orders of items the strategy stops buying (they are cancelled on the next runner tick), items losing buying that still have open orders the account placed on its own (those are not cancelled), items losing selling while the account holds or lists copies, and items of the game that are not in any strategy;
• with other strategies on the account — where the strategy goes, item conflicts and account-wide settings;
• warnings — see below.

Apply writes everything in one database transaction; when the account already matches, the button reads Link without changes and only records the version. What applying does:

• Settings. Shared keys get the strategy's values. A shared key the strategy leaves empty is removed from the account, so the account falls back to its own default strategy profile for it. Per-account settings are kept.
• Groups. Groups a strategy still has to split are written to the account too: each is matched to the account group it was applied to before, otherwise to a group with the same name, otherwise a new group is created. It gets the strategy's name, order and overrides; the account's own per-account fields in the group are kept. A group that was managed by a strategy group that no longer exists (split off or removed) is released: it stays on the account and becomes an ordinary group.
• Inbox. When the account runs only this strategy and the strategy manages the Inbox, the Inbox of its game gets the strategy's Inbox values for the shared keys; a shared key without such a value is cleared there, so those items trade on the strategy's rules. The Inbox's per-account fields and its name stay. Nothing happens when the account has no Inbox for that game.
• Items. Missing strategy items are added to the account and get the strategy's Buy / Sell flags. An item of a group the strategy still has goes into that group. Any other item stays where it is if it is ungrouped or in the Inbox; a new one goes to the Inbox. Items of the same game that are in no strategy of the account only get buying turned off — selling what the account holds keeps working. Items of other games are not touched. Each strategy item now belongs to the strategy on this account: it is its BUY owner.
• Orders the strategy stops. When an item the strategy bought stops being bought by it (its Buy is off in the new version, it left the strategy, or the strategy was replaced), its open buy order is cancelled on the next runner tick.
• Prices and eligibility of the account are recalculated right after the apply; newly added items are not bought before that.

Apply to all outdated accounts

When at least one account runs an older version, the Accounts tab shows Apply to all outdated (N). It previews every such account in one dialog — a compact summary per account (settings, groups, items, buy/sell changes, cautions and warnings, Details for the full preview) — and after one confirmation applies them one after another. Each account is applied with the version its preview showed. If one fails (for example, the strategy was edited in the meantime), it is marked and the others continue; Review opens that account's own preview.

Preview warnings

Warning	Meaning
The account now uses another strategy	You chose Replace: the other strategy is detached and stops buying its items (open orders are cancelled). Its groups are taken over by name or released.
Runner game differs	The account's runner trades another game than the strategy: its items will not trade until you change the game on the account.
Different wallet currencies	Money settings are in each account's own currency — see limitations.
Group moves	The account moves items between groups (temporary → main promotions). A strategy does not carry these moves: applying puts the items back into their strategy groups, and the next apply undoes later moves too. The warning lists those groups and how many items leave them.
Settings in an older format	Some account groups keep overrides in an older format that applying does not overwrite. Where the strategy leaves such a field empty, the old value keeps applying to the group.

Several strategies on one account

An account can run several strategies at once — for example a fast cheap one and a slow expensive one of the same game, or one per game. This is also how some items get other rules: a strategy has one set of rules, so give those items a strategy of their own and add it next to the first one. Each item belongs to one strategy only: that strategy is its BUY owner, and its settings, mode and budget apply to it.

Adding. When the account already runs another strategy, the preview asks where this one goes:

• Add next to them — both keep their own items; nothing of the other strategy changes.
• Replace — only when the account runs exactly one other strategy: it is detached with Stop buying its items (its open orders are cancelled, selling goes on) and this one is applied. Accounts that run a single strategy keep this as the default for API calls without a choice; re-applying a strategy the account already runs never replaces the others.

Item conflicts. An item of this strategy that already belongs to another strategy of the account is a conflict. The preview lists them and Apply refuses until you tick Take these items over (they move into this strategy's groups and get its flags) or remove them from this strategy. The other strategy sees the conflict in its own next preview.

How the settings are laid out. The account's own trading settings can hold one strategy only, so with several strategies:

• each strategy writes its rules into its own groups: a group named after the strategy holds its items (instead of the shared Inbox), and the groups it still has to split get account groups of their own;
• the account settings keep only the account-wide keys — Reprice deviation, Cancel buy orders after (days), Remove listings after (days), Remove even with an open order, Keep sticker items and Auto-undercut guard — because the engine reads them for the whole account. They must be the same in every strategy of the account (a key left empty counts as a value); otherwise the preview flags them and Apply refuses;
• items that belong to no strategy trade on the account's own settings. The preview shows what changes for them (Items outside every strategy (N) then trade on the account's own settings) only when the account has such items.

Adding the second strategy re-lays out the first one from what the account runs now (never from a newer version of it): the preview shows, for each group of items, whether their effective settings stay the same — they do for its groups.

Modes

Each strategy on an account has a mode, set on the strategy's Accounts tab (the account's Items tab shows it next to the strategy name when it is not Active):

Mode	Buying	Its open buy orders	New listings	Listing maintenance (remove old, competitor)
Active	yes	kept	yes	yes
Stop BUY	no	cancelled on the next runner tick	yes	yes
Sell only	no	cancelled	yes	no — held copies are listed, existing listings are left alone
Stopped	no	cancelled	no	no — listings already on Steam stay

The mode changes nothing in the strategy's settings or item flags: switching back to Active resumes buying on the version the account runs. Cancellations go one by one through the same safe path as maintenance (a cancel counts only when Steam confirms it; a refused one is retried next tick). They happen on runner ticks, so while the runner is stopped the orders stay open — Cancel now queues them immediately. An order placed a moment ago whose Steam id is not synced yet is cancelled after the next market sync.

BUY budget

A strategy on an account can have a BUY budget in the account's wallet currency: a ceiling on the value of its items' open buy orders plus the orders a buy cycle plans. It limits new buy orders only — orders already open above a lowered budget are not cancelled — and never touches selling. The account limits still apply on top: Max total exposure and the wallet balance × 10 rule are shared by all strategies of the account, and nothing is reserved for a strategy. An empty budget means no extra limit. The strategy's Accounts tab shows how much of the budget open orders use.

Versions and history

Every change that applying would write — rules, Inbox values, groups (splitting one off or removing it), items — raises the strategy's version (v2, v3, …) and stores it; renaming the strategy does not. Accounts keep running the version they applied: the strategy page and the account show "Runs v2, latest is v3" until you apply again. Applying always uses the version you previewed: if the strategy changed after the preview, nothing is written and you see the new preview instead.

The History tab lists the stored versions with the accounts running each, and compares any two: settings, items without a group, groups (added, removed, renamed, changed) and items (added, removed, group or buy/sell changed). What changed next to an outdated account opens the comparison from the version it runs. Versions applied before history existed are listed as not recorded.

Changing a strategy on an account (apply, mode, budget, detach) also stops trading actions that were planned for the previous state: a buy, sell or maintenance cycle queued before the change is not run, and one in progress stops before its next Steam action. The next runner tick plans again with the new state.

On the account

The runner starts only on an account with at least one strategy. Without one, Start trading is disabled with the hint "Assign a shared strategy to this account to start the runner", the System tab shows Assign a strategy instead of Start, and the Items tab shows No strategy on this account with Go to strategies. Through the API, POST /steam-accounts/{id}/trading/start answers 400 with error.details.code = strategy_required.

When an account uses a strategy:

• The Items tab starts with one line about the strategies of the game the account runs: each name (it opens the strategy's Accounts tab, where this account's mode and BUY budget are set), the version it runs — Apply opens the preview when a newer one exists — and buy orders waiting to be cancelled (Cancel now).
• Everything the strategy owns is edited in the strategy and applied. The account's own settings — the runner game, Max total exposure, trading speed, the live checks and the CS2 guards — are on the System tab → Account settings; applying a strategy never changes them.
• Groups that come from a strategy (a strategy's own group included) are read-only on the account: they cannot be renamed, reconfigured or deleted there.
• If the account's only strategy manages the Inbox, the Inbox's shared settings also come only from the strategy.
• Each item on the Items tab names the strategy that owns it (or No strategy), and the Strategy filter shows one strategy's items. Add items there adds to a strategy of the game, not to the account: the account catalog picks the items with its price and sales filters (in the account's currency), they join the strategy with the Buy / Sell you choose, and the account gets them when the new version is applied. Items the chosen strategy already has are marked; an item another strategy owns on this account says so — you can still add it, but the apply preview shows it as a conflict until you take it over.
• You can still switch Buy / Sell of an item on the account, as a temporary change: the next apply sets strategy items back to the strategy's flags and turns buying off for items of the game outside every strategy. Such items are marked: an amber dot on the switch (its tooltip says what the apply will do) and Differs from the strategy: N at the top of the tab, which also filters the table to them. An item differs too when the strategy changed since it was applied.

Detach or delete

Detach on the Accounts tab unlinks an account. Its settings, groups and items stay exactly as they are, so it keeps trading the same way, and the strategy's groups become ordinary account groups again. Start trading needs a strategy, so an account left without any cannot be started again after a stop until you apply one. With Stop buying its items ticked, buying is turned off for the strategy's items and their open buy orders are cancelled on the next runner tick; selling what the account holds goes on. Other strategies of the account are not touched. A strategy can be deleted only when no account uses it.

Errors

Code	When
409 STRATEGY_REVISION_CHANGED	The strategy changed after the preview. Nothing was written; review the new preview.
409 STRATEGY_MANAGED_SETTINGS	A shared setting was changed on an account that uses a strategy. Change it in the strategy.
409 STRATEGY_MANAGED_GROUP	A strategy group was renamed, reconfigured or deleted on the account, or a shared field of a strategy-managed Inbox was changed.
409 STRATEGY_IN_USE	Deleting a strategy that accounts still use. Detach them first.
409 STRATEGY_NAME_TAKEN	The name is already used by another of your strategies (creating, renaming, or making a strategy from a group).
409 STRATEGY_PLACEMENT_REQUIRED	The account runs other strategies: choose to add this one or replace the other one.
409 STRATEGY_REPLACE_AMBIGUOUS	Replace on an account that runs several strategies: detach the one to replace first.
409 STRATEGY_ITEM_CONFLICTS	Items of the strategy belong to another strategy of the account and were not taken over.
409 STRATEGY_ACCOUNT_WIDE_CONFLICT	An account-wide setting differs between the strategies of the account.
404 STRATEGY_GROUP_NOT_FOUND	The group is not in the strategy (already split off or removed).
404 STRATEGY_VERSION_NOT_FOUND	The version was never stored (applied before history existed).
404 ASSIGNMENT_NOT_FOUND	The account does not use this strategy.
400 UNKNOWN_STRATEGY_SETTINGS	A per-account setting was sent to a strategy.

Limitations

• Money settings are in each account's currency. Min profit is stored as a number in the major unit of the account's wallet: 0.03 is 3 cents on a USD account and 3 kopecks on a RUB account. Keep accounts with different wallet currencies on different strategies; the preview warns when they are mixed.
• Manual flag edits are overwritten. Buy/sell flags and the item list come from the strategy; changes made on the account last until the next apply.
• Group moves are not part of a strategy (see Group moves).
• Older-format group settings are not rewritten (see Settings in an older format).
• A strategy created before Inbox values existed leaves the accounts' Inbox settings alone: what an account's Inbox overrides keeps applying to its items there. Through the API, PATCH /strategies/{id} with "inboxTradeSettings": {} makes such a strategy manage the Inbox from the next apply.
• One game per strategy, one strategy per item on an account. An item the account already tracks under another catalog entry of the same name is skipped.
• Sell only and Stopped switch off listing maintenance for the strategy's items: a listing stuck at an old price is not re-listed.
• Buy orders of a stopped strategy are cancelled only while the runner is running — use Cancel now otherwise.
• Budgets, like other money settings, are in each account's wallet currency.

For the meaning of each setting see Trading settings.