The Steam Region World Cup: Crowning the Cheapest Place to Buy Your Games

Which Steam region is actually the cheapest? It's one of the questions we get asked most. So, we pulled real numbers from SteamDB across six popular games to finally settle the debate.

Let's get deeper into the answer, because at first glance, it isn't straightforward.

The Standings

Adding up six games at their current prices:

• Palworld (A$43.95)
• Halo: Campaign Evolved (A$89.95)
• Task Bar Hero - Trade Ship Pack (A$6.95)
• Battlefield 6 (A$54.97) -50% sale
• Marathon (A$41.96) -30% sale
• Cyberpunk 2077 (A$26.98) -70% sale

That cart will cost you A$264.76 on the Aussie storefront. But using SteamDB's own published converted prices, here are the top 5 regions for that exact same cart:

On paper, Ukraine comes out the winner—but that's not the end of the story.

Is Ukraine Actually Cheaper, Though?

Ukraine's edge only exists on Steam's own storefront. If you happen to be in Ukraine with local payment methods, you're fine. If you're outside the country without access to local payments, you have to buy through a gift card marketplace Here's where the numbers quickly fall apart.

Let's say we want to purchase our full list of games, which totals 4,801 ₴. To get those funds on a typical 3rd party market place site, you are forced to buy fixed denominations—specifically, one 3,500 ₴ card and one 1,500 ₴ card. This means you are buying 5,000 ₴ just to cover your cart, leaving a tiny 199 ₴ leftover.

Combine that forced overbuy with their marketplace service fees, and your actual checkout total hits $239.24 AUD. They do try to soften the blow by offering $17.55 AUD in "cashback," but that just locks you into their platform with store credit. Honestly? We'd rather just have the cash savings in our pockets from the start.

Now, let me show you how this plays out for Indonesia.

The Real Winner: Indonesia via NovexPlay

The exact same 6 titles in Indonesia total Rp 2,018,996.

On NovexPlay.com, you can hit that exact threshold with just 4 items:

• 3 x 600,000 RP cards ($59.00 AUD each = $177.00 AUD)
• 1 x 250,000 RP card ($26.50 AUD)

That brings your total checkout cost on NovexPlay to $203.50 AUD.

The Math:

• Steam AU Store Total: A$264.76
• Competitor Ukraine Checkout Total: A$239.24
• NovexPlay Indonesia Checkout Total: A$203.50
• Savings With Indonesia via NovexPlay: $35.74 Check Out Price or $18.19 if you factor in the store credit
• Leftover Wallet Balance: Rp 31,004 (~$3.00 AUD extra credit sitting in your account for your next purchase)

When you buy first-party inventory with no crazy marketplace markups, a region like Indonesia easily beats the "cheapest on paper" regions once you look at what it actually costs to fund your wallet.

(India and Ukraine are still on our roadmap, by the way. We're just holding off until we lock in a reliable supplier and obtain more feedback if these are the regions you are after.)

Stop overpaying for grey-market markups. Browse NovexPlay's Indonesia Steam Wallet codes today.

Appendix: Full Price Data

Prices are currently listed prices, pulled straight from SteamDB, sorted cheapest to priciest amongst our top 5 baseline regions.

Note: Battlefield 6, Marathon, and Cyberpunk 2077 are currently on sale as of this snapshot.

Palworld

Halo: Campaign Evolved

TBH: Task Bar Hero — Trade Ship Pack

Battlefield 6

-50% sale as of this snapshot.

Marathon

-30% sale as of this snapshot.

Cyberpunk 2077

-70% sale as of this snapshot.