Create Purchase

POST /api/v1/merchant/purchase

Creates a skin purchase. Skinslink sends a trade offer with the requested item to the specified Steam account.

Request

Headers

Header	Required	Description
X-Api-Key	✅	Your merchant API key
Content-Type	✅	application/json
Accept	—	application/json

Body

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
partner	integer	✅	Steam trade partner ID (minimum: 8)
token	string	✅	Steam trade token (exactly 8 characters)
game	string	✅*	Game code: csgo, rust, dota2, tf2
name	string	✅*	Item market name
asset_id	string	✅*	Catalogue item ID (items[].id from Available Items or Search Items) to buy exactly that item. Not a Steam asset ID, see Available Items
merchant_tx_id	string	—	Your unique transaction/order ID. Also the idempotency key — see Idempotency
max_price	number	—	Maximum price you're willing to pay (USD). Inclusive: an item priced exactly at max_price is bought. Use at most 2 decimal places

* Provide either (game + name) or asset_id (game is optional then).

Idempotency

merchant_tx_id is your idempotency key. If a purchase with that id already exists for your account, we return that purchase instead of creating a second one — the same response shape, carrying the purchase's current status.

Retries are therefore safe: repeating a request after a timeout, a dropped connection, or any answer you are unsure about can never create a duplicate purchase or charge you twice.

Requests sent without merchant_tx_id are not deduplicated — each one creates a new purchase.

WARNING

Use a fresh merchant_tx_id for every new order. Reusing the id of an earlier order returns that earlier order, even when the request body now asks for a different item.

Response

{
  "success": true,
  "message": "Purchase created successfully",
  "data": {
    "id": 178,
    "merchant_tx_id": "order-12345",
    "status": "pending",
    "steam_id": "76561198338314767",
    "date": "2026-03-24T10:30:00Z",
    "amount": 45.99,
    "item": {
      "id": "38029384123",
      "name": "AK-47 | Redline (Field-Tested)",
      "price": 45.99,
      "image_url": "https://steamcommunity-a.akamaihd.net/economy/image/class/730/..."
    }
  }
}

Response Fields

Field	Type	Description
id	integer	Purchase ID
merchant_tx_id	string	Your transaction ID (only present if provided in request)
status	string	Purchase status (see Purchase Status)
fail_reason	string	Failure reason (present when status is failed, canceled or reverted, see Fail Reasons)
steam_id	string	User's Steam ID (64-bit, as string)
steam_name	string	User's Steam display name (only present if available)
steam_avatar_url	string	User's Steam avatar URL (only present if available)
amount	number	Purchase amount (USD)
trade_offer_id	string	Steam trade offer ID (only present if available)
date	string	Purchase creation timestamp (ISO 8601)
item	object	Purchased item details (only present if available)
item.id	string	Catalogue item ID, see Available Items
item.name	string	Item market name
item.price	number	Item price (USD)
item.image_url	string	Steam CDN image URL

INFO

Optional fields (merchant_tx_id, fail_reason, steam_name, steam_avatar_url, trade_offer_id, item) are omitted from the response when not available — they will not appear as null.

Fail Reasons

Reason	Description
insufficient_balance	Not enough balance in your merchant account
price_changed	The item's price moved since your catalogue lookup, including above your max_price
item_sold	The specific item was sold or withdrawn after your catalogue snapshot — refresh the catalogue and buy another listing
item_not_available	No matching item is currently available to buy
duplicate_purchase	The same item is already held by another of your in-progress purchases
item_specified_price_not_found	No item found within the specified max_price
service_unavailable	Service temporarily unavailable

Example

curl -X POST https://api.skinslink.com/api/v1/merchant/purchase \
  -H "X-Api-Key: your-api-key" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "partner": 123456789,
    "token": "AbCdEfGh",
    "game": "csgo",
    "name": "AK-47 | Redline (Field-Tested)",
    "merchant_tx_id": "order-12345"
  }'

After Creating a Purchase

1. Track the purchase status via webhooks or poll Purchase Status
2. User accepts the trade offer in Steam
3. Purchase moves to completed once the trade is finalized

TIP

If the purchase fails immediately (e.g., insufficient_balance), the response will have status: "failed" with the fail_reason field populated.

Errors

Status	Message	Cause
400	invalid request body	Malformed JSON
400	validation error	Missing or invalid fields (see data array for details)
401	missing authorization header	X-Api-Key header not provided
401	invalid API key	API key not found or inactive
403	merchant account is disabled	Merchant account deactivated
403	IP not whitelisted: <ip>	Request IP not in whitelist
500	internal error	Something went wrong on our side

For trade link and Steam account validation codes, see Purchase Errors.