What are the CS2 sticker grades in order?

CS2 uses four everyday rarity grades for stickers: High Grade, Remarkable, Exotic and Extraordinary, from most common to rarest. A fifth grade, Contraband, exists but applies to a single discontinued sticker. The finishes you actually see on the item names — Paper, Glitter, Holo, Foil, Gold and Lenticular — sit inside those grades rather than replacing them.

Is Holo rarer than Foil in CS2?

It depends on the capsule, which is why "Holo beats Foil" is not a reliable rule. In the Katowice 2014 team set, Holo is Remarkable and Foil is the rarer Exotic. In the Copenhagen 2024 autograph set, Holo is the Exotic tier and there is no Foil at all. Always check the grade CSDB lists on the individual sticker rather than assuming from the finish name.

What is a Lenticular sticker?

Lenticular is the newest finish. It adds a lens layer so the artwork shifts as you rotate the weapon, letting a sticker show two different images depending on viewing angle. It only appears on community-made stickers, and CSDB tracks it as the smallest finish group by a wide margin — a couple of dozen designs against thousands of Paper stickers.

What is the difference between autograph capsules and team capsules?

Autograph capsules hold individual player signatures; team capsules hold team and event logos. Each signature is printed in a ladder of finishes — typically Paper, then Glitter or Foil, then Holo, then Gold — so the same player exists at four different grades. Team logo sets use their own ladder, and which finishes appear has changed between Majors.

Do sticker grades affect gameplay?

No. Stickers are purely cosmetic in CS2 — no finish, grade or capsule gives any competitive advantage. The only thing a grade tells you is how rarely that version came out of its capsule, which is a market fact rather than a gameplay one.

Which sticker grade is worth the most?

Grade is only one input. Supply matters more: a sticker from a capsule that is no longer sold in-game cannot be printed again, so the pool only shrinks as people apply and scrape them. Team, player, event and condition all feed in too. A high grade from a still-available capsule can be worth less than a low grade from a long-retired one.

CS2 Sticker Grades Explained

Paper, Glitter, Holo, Foil, Gold and Lenticular — and the rarity grades sitting underneath them

TL;DR

CS2 stickers come in six finishes — Paper, Glitter, Holo, Foil, Gold and Lenticular — sorted into four rarity grades: High Grade → Remarkable → Exotic → Extraordinary. The catch is that the finish does not fix the grade. Which finish sits in which grade has changed from capsule to capsule, so a Foil can outrank a Holo in one set and not exist at all in another. Check the grade on the sticker, not the word in its name.

"Sticker grades" gets used to mean two different things, and that is where most of the confusion comes from. One is the finish — the visual treatment named in brackets after the sticker, like (Holo) or (Gold). The other is the rarity grade Valve assigns to the item itself, the same High Grade / Remarkable / Exotic / Extraordinary ladder you see elsewhere in CS2.

They correlate, but they are not the same thing, and treating them as interchangeable is how people end up paying over the odds. This page separates them properly.

The six finishes

CSDB's sticker database tags every sticker with one of six finishes. That list is the canonical set — there is no seventh:

Finish	What it looks like	Where you see it
Paper	Flat print, no effect. The base version, with no suffix in the item name.	Every capsule type. By far the largest group.
Glitter	A dense sparkle layer that catches light as the weapon moves.	Autograph sets from several recent Majors, plus community stickers.
Holo	Rainbow holographic sheen that shifts colour with viewing angle.	Team logo sets and autograph sets alike; the finish collectors chase hardest.
Foil	Reflective metallic foil — brighter and flatter than Holo, without the rainbow shift.	Older team sets, some autograph sets, and community stickers.
Gold	Gold-leaf treatment. The top finish in autograph capsules.	Autograph sets and some team sets.
Lenticular	A lens layer that swaps the artwork as you rotate it, so one sticker shows two images.	Community stickers only. The smallest group by a long way.

Lenticular is worth calling out because it is genuinely new and genuinely different — it is the only finish that changes what is drawn rather than just how it is lit. You will find it on community submissions such as the Character Craft and Elemental Craft sticker packs and the 2025 Community Sticker Collection, not on tournament stickers.

Grade is not finish

Here is the part almost every "sticker rarity" explainer gets wrong. The rarity grade attached to a sticker is set per capsule, and Valve has not used a single fixed mapping. Three real examples from CSDB's dataset make the point:

Set	High Grade	Remarkable	Exotic	Extraordinary
Katowice 2014 (team logos)	Paper	Holo	Foil	—
Berlin 2019 (autographs)	Paper	Foil	—	Gold
Copenhagen 2024 (autographs)	Paper	Glitter	Holo	Gold

Read across those rows and the folk wisdom falls apart. In the Katowice 2014 team set, Foil sits above Holo. In the Copenhagen 2024 autograph set there is no Foil at all and Holo is the Exotic tier. Berlin 2019 autographs skip Holo entirely for players and use Foil as the mid tier.

So the reliable move is to read the grade off the item itself — every sticker page on the sticker databaselists the grade CS2 actually assigns it, next to its finish. "It's a Holo, so it must be rare" is not a fact about CS2; it is a fact about one particular era of capsule.

One extra grade exists above the ladder: Contraband, the tier used for items pulled from circulation. Exactly one sticker carries it — Howling Dawn, withdrawn over the same artwork dispute that retired the M4A4 Howl.

Autograph capsules vs tournament capsules

Both show up in the capsule list, and they behave differently:

Autograph (signature) capsules contain individual player signatures from the players attending a given event. The same signature is printed across a ladder of finishes — Paper at the bottom, then Glitter or Foil, then Holo, then Gold at the top — so one player exists at four separate grades. Recent Majors have leaned on Glitter for the middle tier; Austin 2025 went back to Foil. Champion variants are issued separately for the winning roster after the event.
Team / tournament capsules contain team and event logos rather than signatures. Their finish ladders have varied more over time, and the earliest sets are the shortest — Katowice 2014, for instance, has only Paper, Holo and Foil.
Community capsules and sticker packs are Valve-published sets of Workshop submissions with no tournament attached. They are where the newer effects appear first, Lenticular included, and they are usually available in the in-game store far longer than a Major set.

The timing difference matters more than the format one. Major capsules are sold only around their event and then leave the store permanently, which fixes their supply forever. Community capsules typically stay purchasable.

What actually drives value between grades

Grade sets a floor for scarcity within a single capsule. Everything above that floor comes from elsewhere:

Whether the capsule is still sold. A retired Major capsule cannot print another copy. The supply of that sticker only ever falls, because every copy applied to a weapon or scraped away leaves the market for good. This is the single biggest factor and it has nothing to do with grade.
Who or what is on it. A legendary team or a still-active star pulls demand that an obscure qualifier team never will, at identical grade.
Era. The oldest sets have had the longest to be consumed, so their surviving pool is the thinnest.
Condition. An unapplied sticker in your inventory and a partially scraped one on a gun are not the same asset. Scraping is irreversible and it only ever costs value — see how scraping works before you touch anything rare.
Craft demand. Some stickers are prized because a specific combination on a specific skin is desirable, which is a taste-driven market of its own — browse sticker crafts to see what people actually build.

Because those forces pull in different directions, ranking stickers by grade alone will mislead you. The most expensive stickers ranking is sorted on live market data instead, which is the only ordering that reflects all of the above at once.

How to read a sticker name

Take the finish from the brackets. No brackets means Paper — the base print.
Take the event or collection from after the pipe. That tells you whether the capsule is retired or still on sale, which is your supply signal.
Look up the actual grade on the sticker database rather than inferring it from the finish, for the reasons above.
Only then compare prices — and remember an applied sticker is a different item from an unapplied one.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the CS2 sticker grades in order?: CS2 uses four everyday rarity grades for stickers: High Grade, Remarkable, Exotic and Extraordinary, from most common to rarest. A fifth grade, Contraband, exists but applies to a single discontinued sticker. The finishes you actually see on the item names — Paper, Glitter, Holo, Foil, Gold and Lenticular — sit inside those grades rather than replacing them.
Is Holo rarer than Foil in CS2?: It depends on the capsule, which is why "Holo beats Foil" is not a reliable rule. In the Katowice 2014 team set, Holo is Remarkable and Foil is the rarer Exotic. In the Copenhagen 2024 autograph set, Holo is the Exotic tier and there is no Foil at all. Always check the grade CSDB lists on the individual sticker rather than assuming from the finish name.
What is a Lenticular sticker?: Lenticular is the newest finish. It adds a lens layer so the artwork shifts as you rotate the weapon, letting a sticker show two different images depending on viewing angle. It only appears on community-made stickers, and CSDB tracks it as the smallest finish group by a wide margin — a couple of dozen designs against thousands of Paper stickers.
What is the difference between autograph capsules and team capsules?: Autograph capsules hold individual player signatures; team capsules hold team and event logos. Each signature is printed in a ladder of finishes — typically Paper, then Glitter or Foil, then Holo, then Gold — so the same player exists at four different grades. Team logo sets use their own ladder, and which finishes appear has changed between Majors.
Do sticker grades affect gameplay?: No. Stickers are purely cosmetic in CS2 — no finish, grade or capsule gives any competitive advantage. The only thing a grade tells you is how rarely that version came out of its capsule, which is a market fact rather than a gameplay one.
Which sticker grade is worth the most?: Grade is only one input. Supply matters more: a sticker from a capsule that is no longer sold in-game cannot be printed again, so the pool only shrinks as people apply and scrape them. Team, player, event and condition all feed in too. A high grade from a still-available capsule can be worth less than a low grade from a long-retired one.