Getting Started with SteamApis: The Complete Developer Guide

SteamApis is a comprehensive API service that provides real-time access to Steam platform data. Whether you're building a trading bot, price tracker, inventory manager, or any Steam-integrated application, SteamApis gives you the data layer you need with high availability, rate-limit bypass, and clean response formats.

In this guide, you'll learn how to set up your API key, authenticate requests, and start fetching data from the most commonly used endpoints.

Why Use SteamApis?

Before diving into the technical details, here's what makes SteamApis valuable for developers:

• Real-time market data — Current pricing, order books, and historical price trends for thousands of items across CS2, Rust, Dota 2, TF2, and more
• Inventory access with rate-limit bypass — Fetch user inventories without hitting Steam's aggressive rate limits
• Profile data — User information, VAC status, trade restrictions, and inventory contexts
• Image CDN — Direct access to item images without complex asset lookups
• 99.99% uptime — Built to handle millions of daily requests with consistent performance

Getting Your API Key

To start using SteamApis, you need an API key for authentication.

1. Sign in with Steam — Visit steamapis.com and authenticate with your Steam account
2. Go to Settings — Navigate to your account settings page
3. Copy your API key — Your SteamID64 and API key will be displayed. Copy the API key and store it securely

Important: Treat your API key like a password. Never expose it in client-side code, public repositories, or share it with others. Always keep it on the server side.

Authentication

All API requests require your secret key as a query parameter:

https://api.steamapis.com/{endpoint}?api_key={YourSecretAPIKey}

The base URL for all requests is https://api.steamapis.com/. Every response returns JSON with a consistent structure, making it easy to handle across different endpoints.

Core Endpoints

SteamApis organizes its endpoints into three main categories: Steam (user data), Market (pricing and trading data), and Images (item visuals).

Fetching User Inventories

The inventory endpoint lets you fetch a user's Steam inventory with built-in rate-limit bypass using a proxy pool. This returns unmodified Steam data without caching.

GET /steam/inventory/{SteamID64}/{AppID}/{ContextID}?api_key={YourSecretAPIKey}

Parameters:

• SteamID64 — The user's 17-digit Steam ID
• AppID — The game's application ID (730 for CS2, 252490 for Rust, 570 for Dota 2, 440 for TF2)
• ContextID — Usually 2 for most games. If unsure, check the /steam/profile endpoint first

Example request:

const SteamID64 = '76561198012345678';
const AppID = 730; // CS2
const ContextID = 2;
const API_KEY = 'your_api_key_here';

const response = await fetch(
  `https://api.steamapis.com/steam/inventory/${SteamID64}/${AppID}/${ContextID}?api_key=${API_KEY}`
);
const inventory = await response.json();

console.log(`Total items: ${inventory.total_inventory_count}`);
console.log('Assets:', inventory.assets);
console.log('Descriptions:', inventory.descriptions);

Response structure:

{
  "assets": [
    {
      "appid": 730,
      "contextid": "2",
      "assetid": "123456789",
      "classid": "987654321",
      "instanceid": "0",
      "amount": "1"
    }
  ],
  "descriptions": [
    {
      "appid": 730,
      "classid": "987654321",
      "instanceid": "0",
      "market_hash_name": "AK-47 | Redline (Field-Tested)",
      "market_name": "AK-47 | Redline (Field-Tested)",
      "tradable": 1,
      "marketable": 1
    }
  ],
  "total_inventory_count": 150,
  "success": 1,
  "steamID": "76561198012345678",
  "appID": 730,
  "contextID": 2
}

Fetching User Profiles

Get comprehensive profile data including privacy settings, VAC status, and inventory contexts.

GET /steam/profile/{SteamID64}?api_key={YourSecretAPIKey}

Example request:

const response = await fetch(
  `https://api.steamapis.com/steam/profile/${SteamID64}?api_key=${API_KEY}`
);
const profile = await response.json();

console.log('Display name:', profile.name);
console.log('Online state:', profile.onlineState);
console.log('VAC banned:', profile.vacBanned);
console.log('Trade ban:', profile.tradeBanState);

The profile response includes identity information (name, avatar, custom URL), account status (VAC bans, trade restrictions, limitations), and a contexts object that lists all available inventory contexts for that user — useful for determining valid ContextID values.

Fetching Market Item Data

Get detailed pricing and market data for a specific item, including price history, buy/sell orders, and item metadata.

GET /market/item/{AppID}/{MarketHashName}?api_key={YourSecretAPIKey}

Parameters:

• AppID — The game's application ID
• MarketHashName — URL-encoded item name (e.g., AK-47%20%7C%20Redline%20(Field-Tested))
• median_history_days (optional) — Number of days of price history to return (default: 15)

Example request:

const itemName = encodeURIComponent('AK-47 | Redline (Field-Tested)');

const response = await fetch(
  `https://api.steamapis.com/market/item/730/${itemName}?api_key=${API_KEY}&median_history_days=30`
);
const item = await response.json();

console.log('Item:', item.market_name);
console.log('Lowest sell order:', item.sell_order_summary.lowest_price);
console.log('Highest buy order:', item.buy_order_summary.highest_price);
console.log('Price history entries:', item.median_history.length);

The response includes item metadata (name, image, description), price history with daily median prices and volume, current sell orders and buy orders with individual price points, and a timestamp of when the data was last updated.

Bulk Market Data

Fetch pricing data for all items in a game at once — perfect for building price databases or comparison tools.

GET /market/items/{AppID}?api_key={YourSecretAPIKey}

Optional parameters:

• format=compact — Returns simplified name: price pairs instead of full objects
• compact_value — Which price metric to return in compact mode: latest, min, max, avg, mean, safe, or median

Example request:

// Full data for all CS2 items
const response = await fetch(
  `https://api.steamapis.com/market/items/730?api_key=${API_KEY}`
);
const { data } = await response.json();

// Or compact format for quick price lookups
const compactResponse = await fetch(
  `https://api.steamapis.com/market/items/730?api_key=${API_KEY}&format=compact&compact_value=safe`
);
const prices = await compactResponse.json();
// Returns: { "AK-47 | Redline (Field-Tested)": 12.50, ... }

Each item in the full response includes multiple price metrics (latest, min, max, avg, mean, median, safe), sales volume for the last 24h, 7d, 30d, and 90d periods, and stability indicators flagging items with volatile or manipulated prices.

Item Images

Get direct links to item images without needing an API key.

GET /image/item/{AppID}/{MarketHashName}

This endpoint returns a 302 redirect to the Steam CDN image URL. You can use it directly in <img> tags:

<img src="https://api.steamapis.com/image/item/730/AK-47%20%7C%20Redline%20(Field-Tested)" alt="AK-47 Redline" />

Response Status Codes

All endpoints return consistent HTTP status codes:

Building a Simple Price Checker

Here's a complete example that fetches an item's current market price:

const API_KEY = process.env.STEAMAPIS_KEY;

async function getItemPrice(appId, marketHashName) {
  const encodedName = encodeURIComponent(marketHashName);
  const url = `https://api.steamapis.com/market/item/${appId}/${encodedName}?api_key=${API_KEY}`;

  try {
    const response = await fetch(url);

    if (!response.ok) {
      throw new Error(`API error: ${response.status}`);
    }

    const data = await response.json();

    return {
      name: data.market_name,
      lowestSell: data.sell_order_summary?.lowest_price,
      highestBuy: data.buy_order_summary?.highest_price,
      medianPrice: data.median_history?.[data.median_history.length - 1]?.[1],
      lastUpdated: new Date(data.updated_at)
    };
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Failed to fetch price:', error.message);
    return null;
  }
}

// Usage
const price = await getItemPrice(730, 'AK-47 | Redline (Field-Tested)');
console.log(price);
// { name: 'AK-47 | Redline (Field-Tested)', lowestSell: 13.50, highestBuy: 12.80, ... }

Best Practices

Cache responses appropriately. Market data updates periodically, so caching for 5-15 minutes reduces unnecessary requests without sacrificing accuracy.

Handle errors gracefully. Always check response status codes and implement retry logic for transient failures.

Use bulk endpoints when possible. If you need prices for multiple items, use /market/items/{AppID} instead of making individual requests.

Store your API key securely. Use environment variables and never commit keys to version control.

// Good: Environment variable
const API_KEY = process.env.STEAMAPIS_KEY;

// Bad: Hardcoded in source
const API_KEY = 'abc123...'; // Don't do this

What's Next?

Now that you're set up with SteamApis, explore the full API documentation for complete endpoint references, all available parameters, and detailed response schemas. Happy building!