NEW PLAYERS: This CS2 Economy Guide WINS GAMES!

This is a comprehensive guide on how the money reward is determined for CS2 and how to optimize your buying potential to help you win as many rounds as possible.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:18 - Win Reward
00:39 - Loss Reward
00:52 - Loss Bonus
01:17 - Example Round
01:55 - Additional Bonus
02:17 - Kill Rewards
02:47 - Economy Optimization
03:29 - CT Equipment Cost
04:03 - 2nd Round Force
04:31 - Dropping Guns
04:45 - When to Save

There is a base amount rewarded for winning a round. You get $3,500 for winning the round through a bomb explosion or bomb defusal. You get $3,250 if you win the round by eliminating the enemy team. The same reward of $3,250 is also given to the CTs if they win the round by running down the clock.
The reward for losing depends on how many rounds you have lost. The base reward for losing a round is $1,400, with the exception of pistol rounds, which start you off at $1,900. Afterwards, you start building on a persistent loss counter that increases by one on a loss and decreases by one on a win. It starts at 0 and maxes out at 4. Whenever you lose a round, you gain an additional $500 times the number in your persistent loss counter. The best part? The loss counter is displayed on the scoreboard and hovering over it shows the minimum reward you would receive if you lose the round.
This can get a little complex, so here is an example: You lose 5 rounds in a row, the first round not being a pistol round. Your persistent loss counter is at 4. Your base reward for the next round is $1,400 plus 4 times $500 for a total of $3,400. You win the next two rounds through elimination, so you gain $3,250 for each of those rounds. Your persistent loss counter is at 2. Then you lose the next round, so your loss reward will be $1,400 plus 2 times $500 equaling $2,400.
On top of the base reward, there are some additional factors that contribute.
The individual that plants or defuses the bomb will gain an additional $300, regardless of if it wins you the round or not.
If the T team plants the bomb and loses, every T gains an additional $800.
If you lose the round on time as a T, you forfeit your loss bonus, so make sure to not die after time!
The kill reward depends on the weapon used:
Getting a kill with a rifle, pistol, machine gun, or grenade nets you $300, an SMG gets you $600, a shotgun gets you $900, and a knife kill gives you the largest reward of $1,500. The exceptions are $100 for AWP or CZ-75 kills and $300 for P90 kills. A Zeus kill gives you an amazing reward of … $0??? Yea, I’m not sure what’s up with that either.
This is the main math behind the economy of CS2, so next let’s talk about what to do with these numbers and how to optimize your buying potential:
There are 3 types of rounds you will experience: full-buys, half-buys, and saves/ecos:
A full-buy is where you spend all the money you need to get the armor, weapons, and utility you need. You are fully invested in the round.
A half-buy is where you buy just enough to ensure that you still have enough money to full-buy for the next round. You are half invested in the round.
A save/eco is where you spend no/minimal money and try to build up your economy for the next few rounds. Your investment is minimal and you are more focused on damaging the enemy teams economy.
The economy is more unforgiving for the CT side, with fewer bonuses for losing and more expensive equipment. An AK-47 costs $2,700 while the M4A1-S costs $2,900 and the M4A4 costs $3,100. Furthermore, the T Molotov costs only $400 compared to the pricey $600 CT Incendiary Grenade. On top of the price differences, CTs also need to buy defuse kits, which is an additional $400 dollars they spend more. This means that you need to be especially careful with money management on the CT side.
If you lose pistol round as the T side, but you get bomb down, it may be a good idea to force buy! You will be getting $1,900 + $800 = $2,700 compared to the winning CT bonus of $3,500. This is enough to force buy SMG with armor and utility or Galil with armor, which is a very comparable buy to the CT side and can give you the opportunity to swing the momentum into your favor.
There is a correlation between the rank of players and how often they drop guns for their team. Better players tend to be more sharing because they understand that it helps the entire team. the max money you can have saved up is $16,000, so make sure you are the one dropping your teammates as you approach the limit.
If the round is unwinnable, it makes more sense to save your guns to bring into the next round. Think long term, a gun you save now is money you save to spend later. As previously mentioned, as a T, you get no reward for losing the round based on time, so it is sometimes better to die than to save a gun, especially if the kit you are saving is worth less than the reward you would be getting for dying.