The M249 in Counter-Strike is a formidable weapon, designed for players who prioritize suppressive firepower and crowd control over agility. While it’s not the most popular choice due to its weight and recoil alongside the hefty price tag, the M249 can dominate in the right hands, particularly for players who excel in managing high-capacity weapons. Despite its niche appeal, the M249 still has a surprising range of custom finishes available, showcasing impressive designs and diverse themes that elevate its aesthetics without emptying your wallet.
The following M249 skins are both affordable and eye-catching, each priced under $10, making them ideal for players looking to enhance their loadout with unique styles on a budget.
1. M249 | Downtown
The M249 | Downtown captures an urban-inspired look that perfectly encapsulates the downtown vibe with its graffiti design. With a style featuring a smooth blend of the colors blue and pink, this skin mirrors the colors of a city’s street artwork you would find quite commonly. The graffiti drawn on the skin is a bunch of arrows pointing to random directions all across the main body of the machine gun.
The Downtown is particularly appealing because it offers quality design without the premium price tag—an extremely low price point for such a vibrant skin with a lot to look at. Priced at only around $1 regardless of float value, it’s a skin pretty much anyone can afford. Not only is it affordable, but it’s also resilient; the Downtown design wears well across all float values, with there also being an appeal for the graffiti design over a more worn-out gun background, similar to how one can find graffiti in the real world.
Price range: Around $1
2. M249 | Nebula Crusader
For players looking to add a retro, cartoonish touch to their M249, the Nebula Crusader is an inspired choice. Taking lots of inspiration from vintage video games of the 1980s, this skin offers a space-focused aesthetic with a dark purple and blue cosmic background featuring gamelike depictions of a spaceship and astronaut. The video game details range from the “1P” symbol to the amount of lives and even ammunition left. Priced between $1 and $4, the Nebula Crusader provides a unique, affordable skin for players who appreciate detailed artwork and a throwback to an iconic moment in the history of gaming.
Beyond its striking visuals, the Nebula Crusader has quite an Easter Egg when going up in float value. The more wear, the more the skin’s colors transition from what it usually looks like to a bright green that eventually runs across the entire length of the M249 at the Battle Scarred level.
Price range: $1 – $4
3. M249 | Spectre
The M249 | Spectre brings an understated elegance to the M249, with the paint style making it seem like the weapon holds a smooth marble texture with some yellow and dark purple accents. The skin’s soft white and dark tones give the M249 a sleek, professional appearance that suits more subdued loadouts, that focus less on artwork and more on simple color composition and minimalism. The Spectre’s restrained color scheme works well for players looking to create a seamless, refined setup without overwhelming their inventory’s color palette.
With an extremely low price range of around $0.20 for and below, the Spectre is one of the cheapest skins not only on this list but anywhere in Counter-Strike. Even its StatTrak variant won’t hit $1, further making it appealing for those who want to spend as little as possible while still obtaining skins worth talking about.
Price Range: Under $1
4. M249 | Impact Drill
The Impact Drill takes inspiration from industrial themes with its bold, cautionary yellow and dark base, lending the M249 a rugged, construction-like appearance. The skin’s design is not full of patterns or any symbolism, rather making its selling point the livery as it is. Its bright yellow barrel and magazine along with the dark body and brown stock give it a unique appearance to say the least.
With an affordable price between $2 and $4, the Impact Drill is already one of the more high-end skins on this list but still extremely within reach for pretty much anyone looking to buy skins in CS.
Price Range: $2 – $4
5. M249 | Emerald Poison Dart
Inspired by the vibrant colors of poison dart frogs, the Emerald Poison Dart skin features a bright green and teal color scheme with black spots and yellow stripes, much like the animal it is based on. The design is eye-catching and immediately recognizable, offering a nature-inspired theme that stands out among more traditional M249 skins. The Emerald Poison Dart is a perfect choice for players who enjoy adventurous aesthetics. Its vibrant colors and unique pattern create a lively, dynamic look that is still mostly retained even at Field Tested or Well Worn.
Typically priced between $1 and $3, it’s accessible for players looking to add a pop of color to their loadout while staying within a very thin budget.
Price Range: $1 – $3
6. M249 | Hypnosis
With its striking, hypnotic black-and-cyan swirl pattern, the Hypnosis skin offers an artful twist (literally) to the M249. The pattern resembles a mesmerizing, swirling vortex, lending a touch of psychedelic style to the weapon. For fans of basketball, it also looks a lot like one of the sneaker lines released by former NBA player Shaquille O’Neal decades ago. Being priced below $1, the Hypnosis is a highly affordable way to add a visually intriguing skin to your collection.
Even in lower wear conditions, the black-and-cyan contrast of the Hypnosis remains prominent, ensuring the skin’s hypnotic effect is visible during gameplay. This skin’s affordability and distinctive look make it an excellent choice for players who want to break away from traditional camo and military themes. The Hypnosis stands as a testament to creative design, bringing an eye-catching look to the battlefield that’s hard to forget and is a certified one-of-one as there isn’t anything quite like it in the entire game.
Price Range: Under $1
7. M249 | O.S.I.P.R.
The O.S.I.P.R. channels a simplistic aesthetic with a cool metallic gray base and detailed accents that hint at advanced technology. The design resembles high-tech military equipment, complete with markings and lines that give it a sleek, modern appearance. The weapon’s name is engraved on the magazine holder, hinting that it was created with the lore of being an advanced type of machine gun. Available at an extremely low price of $0.50 and below, the O.S.I.P.R. offers a professional look without hardly hurting the wallet, especially being a top pick for those who enjoy a black or dark colored loadout..
The O.S.I.P.R. skin gets gradually lighter as the float value reaches 0.70, but the majority of the available versions of the skin out there will hardly even give a difference to the next best or next worst thing.
Price Range: Under $0.50
8. M249 | Jungle
The Jungle skin sports a classic green paint job with no overlapping pattern that perfectly complements the brown barrel, magazine holder, and stock. Resembling a camouflage or jungle design in its colorway, the Jungle stands out in its simplicity despite the evident lack of drawings or other designs on the main body of the weapon. Often available between $3 and $5, it’s a top option for budget-conscious players who appreciate having a weapon finish that is simple yet easy on the eyes. For more serious collectors in terms of personalization, the Jungle is also a decent canvas for creating custom sticker crafts.
Despite its low price, the Jungle skin remains a fair choice for its simple yet effective design, providing players with an affordable yet classic aesthetic that has limitless customization possibilities.
Price Range: Around $3 – $5
9. M249 | System Lock
The staple red and black skin of the M249. The System Lock skin features a somewhat futuristic design, with bold red and black colors and intricate circuit-like patterns. The high-tech theme makes it an exciting option for players who enjoy sci-fi aesthetics, blending well with modern loadouts. Paired well next to the numerous custom finishes in Counter-Strike that feature the same livery scheme, especially the Redline family, the System Lock is a staple in any loadout where red will be the prominent color. Its design also makes it a great base for creating many different sticker combinations especially when making use of player autograph stickers from CS Major Championships.
Just like many skins on this list, the System Lock is an extremely cheap skin and will hardly ever break past the $0.50 price point. Available between $0.10 and $0.40, this skin is a no-brainer especially when every single penny starts to matter.
Price Range: Under $0.50
10. M249 | Humidor
The Humidor skin offers a classic brown, flowery design bringing an elegant and vintage style to the M249. With a rich, woody-looking finish that showcases various plants painted all across the entire gun, the Humidor is definitely a unique concept that not a lot of skins quite capture the same vibe of.
The Humidor is not available under $10 for its standard variant, however it is entirely available under $1 for the Souvenir versions the one can get through Souvenir packages from CS Majors. All of the Souvenir Humidor skins cost below $0.10, making it undoubtedly the cheapest skin on this entire list. The appeal remains the same, or arguably even better as Souvenir skins automatically come with gold stickers all over the weapon from a certain match of the Major it was redeemed from. Not too bad for a skin cheaper than $0.10.
Price Range: Under $0.10 [Souvenir Only]