You can download Valorant for free and play it for free for as long as you like. The only thing you can spend money on is looks. We go through how Valorant Points and Radianite work, what a skin costs and what a knife costs, what the Night Market is and how you can top up VP.
Free really means free here
Riot sticks to one clear rule for the store: skins are optional cosmetics and must never give a gameplay advantage. A gun with a skin shoots exactly like a gun without one, with the same damage, spread and reload speed. On top of that, your opponent only sees a different weapon model; the new animations, sounds and effects are just for you.
Money here buys looks and nothing else: weapon and knife skins, sprays, player cards, gun buddies, the battle pass and a shortcut to unlock an agent. Weapon stats are the same for everyone, and we break them down in the article about weapons and knives.
Valorant Points: the only paid currency
Valorant Points (VP) can only be bought with real money; you can’t win or farm them. They are sold in bundles, and the bigger the bundle, the more VP you get for your money.
| Bundle | Price in USD | Price in EUR |
|---|---|---|
| 475 VP | 4.99 | 5 |
| 1,000 VP | 9.99 | 10 |
| 2,050 VP | 19.99 | – |
| 3,650 VP | 34.99 | – |
| 5,350 VP | 49.99 | 50 |
| 11,000 VP | 99.99 | 100 |
The client shows you the exact amount before you confirm the payment, and it depends on your account’s currency and region. And keep an eye on one thing: VP are tied to your account and to the region you bought them in. You can’t move them elsewhere or to another Riot game.
Radianite Points and what they’re for
Radianite Points (RP) are the second currency, and people mix them up with VP all the time. On their own they don’t buy anything. They are used to upgrade skins that have levels: color variants, better animations and finishers, the effect that plays when you kill the last enemy in a round. Cheap Select skins usually don’t have upgrades.
You get Radianite in two ways. The first is the battle pass, where the free track alone gives you 30 of them over a season. The second is buying them with VP: 1,600 VP gets you 20 Radianite, and the biggest bundle is 4,800 VP for 80 Radianite.
What a skin costs and what a knife costs
Skin prices follow the edition of the collection. A knife costs roughly twice as much as a gun from the same edition, and knives are exactly why people talk about Valorant prices at all.
| Edition | Weapon | Knife |
|---|---|---|
| Select | 875 VP | 1,750 VP |
| Deluxe | 1,275 VP | 2,550 VP |
| Premium | 1,775 VP | 3,550 VP |
| Exclusive | 2,175 VP | 4,350 VP |
| Ultra | 2,475 VP | 4,950 VP |
In some collections the knives break out of this table and go up to 5,950 VP, so the most expensive knives in the game cost more than the full price of many big games.
Also watch how the prices line up with the bundle sizes. A 1,775 VP gun doesn’t fit into the ten-euro bundle, so in practice you buy the twenty-euro bundle and the leftover VP stay on your account. The store is built that way on purpose.
Night Market: a random discount you can’t choose
The Night Market is a temporary extension of the store that opens once per act, usually in its last weeks, and disappears again after a while. In the game it shows up as a card in the top-right corner of the main screen, and it works like this:
- You get six offers. Every player gets their own, picked at random. They don’t match even between people in the same party.
- The discount is 10 to 49%. The exact percentage is different on each of the six cards and also random.
- At least two of the six cards are a knife or a Premium edition weapon. Riot introduced this in patch v2.02 so the offers wouldn’t be just the cheapest items.
- Some things never show up there. Exclusive and Ultra edition skins, equipment skins, battle pass skins and knives priced above 3,550 VP.
- You can’t pick or reroll. You reveal the cards and either buy or leave them.
Riot announces when the Night Market opens next in the patch notes and directly in the client, and the timing varies from act to act. Anyone who answers “when is the next Night Market” with a specific date and no link to the patch notes is guessing.
The battle pass and what’s in it
The battle pass costs 1,000 VP and lasts one act, which is roughly two months. It has 55 tiers across eleven chapters, and unfinished tiers don’t carry over to the next act. Whatever you don’t get to is gone.
The free track gives you gun buddies, player cards, titles, sprays, one pistol skin and 30 Radianite. The paid version adds three weapon skin collections, a melee skin at tier 50 and a 3% progression boost from matchmade games. You can buy individual tiers for 300 VP each. That’s a last resort for the final week of an act, not a way to buy the whole pass.
What you unlock completely for free
Alongside paid VP, the game runs a second economy that doesn’t need any money. By playing you collect Kingdom Credits (KC): you earn them for rounds played and for daily checkpoints, of which you can complete four a day at 150 KC each. You can hold at most 10,000 at once.
With Kingdom Credits you unlock agents (8,000 KC) and older items from past battle passes: gun buddies, cards and sprays cost roughly 4,000 to 7,500 KC, titles 2,500 KC. You can also unlock an agent with a 1,000 VP shortcut, but it really is just a shortcut, since you get the same agent by playing. How agents unlock and who to pick first is covered in the article about agents in Valorant.
The agent gear system is also changing: patch 13.06 from 22 September 2026 reworks it so that unlocking is tied to how much you play that agent. Kingdom Credits stay, and nobody takes away the items you already have.
Gift cards and topping up VP
The easiest way is to buy directly in the client with a regular payment method. The other option is Riot Games prepaid cards, and they come with a rule that’s easy to get caught out by: the card’s region has to match the account’s region. A European card works on a European account, an American card on an American one, and there’s no other way, not even through support.
There are two kinds of cards. The universal Riot Games prepaid card can be redeemed across their games, while a card made specifically for Valorant only works in Valorant. You redeem the code on Riot’s website: you log in with your account, enter the PIN without spaces and, if needed, choose the game the credit goes to. Riot itself warns players not to buy cards from unauthorized sellers or auctions. If such a code doesn’t work or has already been redeemed, support can’t do anything about it.
FAQ
Yes. Downloading and playing are free, with no time limit and no subscription. You only pay for cosmetics, the battle pass or a shortcut to unlock an agent.
It depends on the edition. A weapon costs from 875 VP in the cheapest Select edition up to 2,475 VP in the Ultra edition. Knives cost roughly twice as much, so 1,750 to 4,950 VP, and in some collections they go up to 5,950 VP.
The Night Market opens once per act, usually in its last weeks, and the timing is different every time. Riot announces it in the patch notes and directly in the client, so nobody knows it reliably in advance.
No. A skin doesn’t change a weapon’s damage, spread or speed, and your opponent only sees a different model. Only you get the sounds, animations and effects.
Only if the card’s region matches your account’s region. A European card on a European account works, an American one doesn’t. And a card made for Valorant can’t be redeemed in other Riot games.
Information verified as of 7 September 2026; prices reflect patch 13.05 from 1 September 2026. How the individual skins and knives differ is covered in the article about weapons and knives, and unlocking agents with Kingdom Credits in the piece about agents. If you’re only just trying the game, start with download and installation, and find people to play with in the article about the Czech and Slovak community. The rest of the guides are in the Valorant section.