CS2 weapon rankings usually argue about damage. The argument that actually decides rounds is about money: the AK-47 costs $2700 and kills with one headshot through a helmet, an AWP costs $4750 and pays back $100 a kill, and a MAC-10 costs $1050 and pays $600. This list ranks every buyable gun against its price, its kill reward and the round it is bought in, using the prices from the CS2 buy menu and the reward table from the wiki.
The state of the game it describes: Premier Season Five, live since 8 July 2026, with Cache in the Active Duty pool and Overpass out.
Short answer
- S row: AK-47 ($2700), M4A4 and M4A1-S ($2900), AWP ($4750). Everything else is a compromise with a budget.
- The kill reward decides the eco rows: SMGs pay $600, shotguns $900, rifles $300, the AWP $100.
- On a broken economy buy armour and a P250 ($300), or a MAC-10 / MP9 and commit to the round. Not a rifle.
- Valve has shipped no weapon damage or price changes in the public update feed since late May 2026, so this list ages slowly.
- Rank it yourself: the tier list maker has a CS2 preset with all 34 buyable guns loaded.
Why is a CS2 gun list really about money?
Because the guns do not change and the round does. Between late May and early September 2026 Valve's update feed shows the bomb damage rework, Season Five with Cache replacing Overpass, several Workshop scripting releases and a long list of map fixes — and not one weapon damage or price change. The weapon balance you are ranking has been stable for months.
What moves every round is what you can afford. The loss ladder pays $1400 after your first loss and climbs $500 a step to $3400 after five, plus $600 for a planted bomb as T. Winning by elimination pays $3250; winning by the bomb pays $3500. A rifle costs most of one of those numbers.
So a weapon's row is a question of price against payout, and the reward table is the part most lists leave out.
| Weapon killed with | Reward in Premier and Competitive |
|---|---|
| Knife | $1500 |
| Shotgun (except XM1014) | $900 |
| XM1014 | $600 |
| SMG (except P90) | $600 |
| Pistol, P90, rifle, machine gun, grenade | $300 |
| AWP, Zeus x27 | $100 |
Read that table once and half the tier list writes itself. Two SMG kills return $1200 on a round where you spent $1050. Two AWP kills return $200 on a round where you spent $4750.
Rifles and snipers
| Weapon | Price | Row | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| AK-47 | $2700 (T) | S | One headshot through a helmet at any range, cheaper than the CT rifles. The reason T-side full buys are stronger than they look. |
| M4A4 | $2900 (CT) | S | More bullets before you reload, easier spray control at distance. The default CT buy. |
| M4A1-S | $2900 (CT) | S | Quieter, tighter, fewer rounds in the magazine. A holding weapon rather than a pushing one. |
| AWP | $4750 | S | Wins the round it does not lose. $100 per kill means it never rebuilds an economy. |
| Galil AR | $1800 (T) | A | The backbone of a T force buy: a rifle at SMG money. |
| FAMAS | $1950 (CT) | A | Same job on CT, $150 dearer, and the burst mode is a real option at range. |
| SSG 08 | $1700 | A | Scope for the price of an SMG, $300 per kill, and it punishes anyone crossing a long angle. |
| SG 553 | $3000 (T) | B | A scoped AK for $300 more. Strong in the hands of a player who holds; a waste in the hands of one who entries. |
| AUG | $3300 (CT) | B | The best scoped rifle in the game and the most expensive non-AWP buy on the CT side. |
| G3SG1 / SCAR-20 | $5000 | C | Autosnipers win rounds and lose games. At $5000 a single bad round takes two more to recover from. |
The AK versus M4 gap is the single most important price in the game. The T side gets its best rifle for $200 less than the CT side gets either of theirs, and that difference compounds across a half.
If you would rather test that on a map you did not pick, the CS2 map randomiser will hand you one, and the role you should be buying for is worked out by our CS2 role quiz.
What do you buy when you cannot afford a rifle?
| Weapon | Price | Row | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAC-10 | $1050 (T) | A | The best force-buy gun in the game: cheapest SMG, full $600 per kill, deadly at the range T-side force buys happen. |
| MP9 | $1250 (CT) | A | The CT version of the same argument, $200 dearer. |
| UMP-45 | $1200 | A | Hits harder than the MAC-10 further out and still pays $600. The thinking player's anti-eco. |
| XM1014 | $2000 | A | Ends close rounds, but the reward was cut to $600, so it no longer pays like a shotgun. |
| MAG-7 | $1300 (CT) | B | $900 per kill on the maps with short CT angles. Nothing on the maps without them. |
| Sawed-Off | $1100 (T) | B | Same trade, cheaper, and even more dependent on the corner you chose. |
| P90 | $2350 | B | Priced like a rifle, pays $300 like a rifle, and does not shoot like one past twenty metres. |
| MP7 / MP5-SD | $1400 | C | Neither is bad. Both are a MAC-10 that costs $350 more. |
| PP-Bizon | $1400 | C | Sixty-four rounds and not enough damage to spend them on. |
| Nova | $1050 | C | The cheapest shotgun. Works exactly once per site, then everyone knows. |
| Negev | $1700 | C | A comedy gun that is genuinely lethal once it settles. Buy it when you cannot lose the round anyway. |
| M249 | $5200 | C | The most expensive weapon in the buy menu, and it is not the best one. |
The whole mid-tier row exists for one purpose: converting a lost round into money. That is why the MAC-10 outranks guns that beat it in a straight fight — you are not buying a gun, you are buying the next round's rifle.
Pistols
| Weapon | Price | Row | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desert Eagle | $700 | A | Kills through armour with one hit to the head. Punishing to use, unbeatable when it lands. |
| P250 | $300 | A | The default eco buy: cheap enough to lose, strong enough to trade with an armoured rifler. |
| Five-SeveN | $500 (CT) | B | Forgiving, accurate and expensive for a pistol round where armour matters more. |
| Tec-9 | $500 (T) | B | Rewards movement and volume. The T-side answer to a CT stack on a pistol round. |
| CZ75-Auto | $500 | B | Twelve rounds and a reward that CS2 raised to the standard $300, up from $100 in CS:GO. |
| Glock-18 / USP-S / P2000 | $200 to replace | B | Free at spawn. The Glock's burst is the only reason a T pistol round is winnable at all. |
| R8 Revolver | $600 | C | The slow draw is the price of the damage, and the draw loses more duels than the damage wins. |
| Dual Berettas | $300 | C | Two guns, one purpose, no range. |
The pistol round decision is the same one every time: armour plus a P250, or a lighter buy plus a utility grenade. There is no third option that survives contact with a competent opponent.
What usually goes wrong
The AWP is bought on a rebuild round. Symptom: you win the round, the team is still broke. Cause: $4750 out and $100 a kill back. What to do: buy the AWP when the economy is healthy or when the round is decisive, not when you are climbing out of a hole.
Force buys land on rifles. Symptom: a half-buy Galil round is won and the team still cannot afford utility next round. Cause: a rifle at $1800 with a $300 reward does not rebuild anything. What to do: force with SMGs when the plan is to fight, and save fully when it is not.
The XM1014 is bought on old information. Symptom: a shotgun round that was meant to pay for the next buy and did not. Cause: its kill reward is $600 in CS2, not the $900 the other shotguns pay. What to do: treat it as a weapon, not as an economy tool.
The kill reward is left out of the tier list entirely. Symptom: a beautiful ranking that loses matches. Cause: ranking guns by how they shoot in a vacuum. What to do: put the price and the reward in the table, as above. The general version of this mistake — a ranking with no stated criterion — is dissected in our guide to tier lists people argue with.
A CS:GO-era list is reused. Symptom: prices that do not match your buy menu. Cause: several numbers moved in the transition, including the CZ75 reward and the planted-bomb loss bonus, which is $600 in CS2 against $800 in CS:GO. What to do: check one price against your own buy menu before trusting a page, including this one.
Build the version for your team
The row worth arguing about is the mid-tier, because that is where a season's worth of round losses is either converted into rifles or thrown away. Load the CS2 preset in the tier list maker — 34 buyable guns, no knives or grenades — rank them for the way your team actually plays, and put the price next to each row so the argument stays about money.
Once your buys are settled, the settings that decide how often you hit are in the launch options guide and the crosshair codes page, and if you are moving between shooters, the cm/360 calculator keeps your aim consistent. The character version of this exercise lives in the Valorant agent tier list and the Apex legend tier list.
FAQ
What is the best weapon in CS2?
The AK-47 at $2700, because it kills with one headshot through a helmet at any range and no other rifle does. The AWP wins more rounds outright, but it costs $4750 and pays only $100 per kill, so it is the better weapon and the worse purchase. Which of the two belongs at the top of your S row depends on how much your team can afford to lose it.
Why is the AWP kill reward so low?
Because the gun is already worth the round. Rifles pay $300 per kill, SMGs pay $600, shotguns pay $900 — the AWP pays $100. The reward system is a subsidy for the weapons that need one, and the AWP does not. That is also why an AWPer who dies early hurts a team twice: the gun is gone and no money came back.
Is the XM1014 still worth buying in CS2?
Situationally. It costs $2000 and its kill reward was cut to $600, so it no longer pays like a shotgun. On a close-quarters CT hold it still ends rounds; as a general-purpose buy it is competing with an M4 that costs $900 more and works everywhere.
What should you buy on an eco round?
Usually armour and a P250 at $300, or nothing at all. The one real exception is a cheap SMG on a round you intend to fight: a MAC-10 at $1050 for T or an MP9 at $1250 for CT pays $600 per kill, so two kills rebuild the buy. Force-buying a rifle on a broken economy is how teams stay broken.
Have CS2 weapon stats changed recently?
Not in the public update stream from late May to early September 2026. Valve shipped the bomb damage rework, Premier Season Five with Cache replacing Overpass, and a long run of Workshop scripting additions — no weapon damage or price changes. A CS2 gun tier list ages slower than any other game on this site.
Sources
- Counter-Strike Wiki: CS2 buy menu prices (CC BY-SA, read 6 September 2026)
- Counter-Strike Wiki: kill rewards, loss bonuses and round rewards (CC BY-SA, read 6 September 2026)
- Liquipedia: AK-47 price, kill award, damage and armour penetration (CC BY-SA)
- Counter-Strike 2 update feed on Steam: Season Five, Cache and the bomb rework (July-August 2026)