G2A vs Kinguin vs Eneba: which keyshop is safer?

If you’ve searched for a cheap game key for more than five minutes, you’ve hit the same three names: G2A, Kinguin, and Eneba. They get lumped together constantly, as if they were interchangeable, and treated as either all-safe or all-scam depending on which forum thread you land on. Neither is accurate. All three share the same underlying model and the same underlying risk, but they differ in size, reputation, and how aggressive the checkout gets — and those differences matter once something goes wrong. Here’s the honest comparison, no sugarcoating, no favorite picked. Further down you’ll also find the wider field — eleven stores in one table — and what our own tracking data shows.

Key facts (6 October 2026)

• 12 stores compared — 8 keyshops and 4 official stores — about 40,000 games and DLCs with a live offer, prices refreshed every day. Eneba is not tracked at the moment.
• Region locks are common: about 1 in 10 keyshop PC listings we track (9.7%) is locked to a region that doesn’t cover Europe — for example Asia, Latin America or RU/CIS. Global, Europe and Rest-of-World keys are not counted here.
• The cheapest listing can be the trap: for about 1 in 28 games that have a keyshop listing (3.6%), the single cheapest one is locked to such a region.
• Versus Steam: across 9,901 games with a Steam price of €5 or more, the cheapest Global or Europe keyshop key is listed a median 43% below the Steam price, and cheaper than Steam for 83% of those games.
• The listed price isn’t the final price on G2A, Kinguin or Eneba: payment surcharges and pre-ticked add-ons can appear only at checkout.
• Fraud is documented, not rumor: in 2020 G2A paid Factorio developer Wube Software $39,600 for 198 illegitimately obtained keys (PC Gamer).
• Ranking on ulov.gg is by price only — affiliate commission never changes the order.

The model is identical on all three

Before ranking anything, it’s worth being precise about what these platforms actually are: marketplaces, not stores. G2A, Kinguin, and Eneba mostly don’t sell keys themselves — independent third-party sellers list keys, the platform takes a cut, and you’re buying from that seller, not from the game’s publisher and not from the platform itself. This is the single fact that explains almost everything else in this guide.

Because of that, seller rating and sales history matter more than which of the three logos is at the top of the page — a five-star seller on G2A is a safer bet than a brand-new seller on Eneba, brand name aside. All three sit in what’s usually called the gray market, meaning the origin of any individual key (was it bought legitimately, region-locked stock, or sourced through a chargeback) isn’t guaranteed the way it is on Steam, GOG, or a publisher’s own store. If this distinction is new to you, it’s worth reading how official stores differ from marketplaces first, because everything below builds on it.

Reputation and buyer protection

This is where real differences start, though they’re differences of degree, not of fundamentally different systems.

G2A is the largest and the most controversial. It spent years under fire from developers over keys sourced through payment fraud — the most cited case is Factorio: in 2020 G2A paid developer Wube Software $39,600 for 198 keys that had been obtained illegitimately — the review was done internally by G2A, not by an independent auditor (PC Gamer). Verification has tightened since, but a reputation built over a decade doesn’t reset overnight. G2A also sells its own optional buyer protection add-on at checkout — more on that below. We cover this platform specifically in is G2A safe?.

Kinguin is the second largest and generally carries a calmer reputation than G2A, while running on the exact same third-party model underneath. It offers “Kinguin Buyer Protection” as an optional paid add-on that covers key problems. Outcomes split the same way as G2A’s: most purchases are uneventful, a minority end in a dispute. The full picture is in is Kinguin safe?.

Eneba is the youngest of the three and has grown the fastest in recent years, particularly in Europe. It tends to feel more polished — cleaner interface, frequent promotions — but it’s still a marketplace running the same logic, with the same gray-market exposure sitting underneath the nicer front end. More in is Eneba safe?.

The bottom line: none of the three is “safe” in the way an official store is safe, and none is automatically a scam. They differ in scale, in how aggressive the checkout upsells are, and in how reachable support actually is when you need it.

Checkout fees: where prices quietly move

This is the part where all three behave almost identically, and where you’re most likely to get caught off guard.

The price on the listing is almost never the price you pay. On all three marketplaces, the checkout total can climb for two separate reasons. First, payment-method surcharges — certain cards or payment services carry an extra percentage that only shows up on the final step, after you’ve already picked a key. Second, pre-ticked add-ons: buyer protection, a subscription trial, or similar extras sometimes arrive already in your cart, and you have to notice and remove them if you don’t want them.

G2A has historically been the most-cited example of this pattern, but neither Kinguin nor Eneba is immune — always review the cart before paying. The only fair way to compare an offer across all three is to run each one to the final checkout screen and look at the actual total, not the listed price. The same game can be cheapest by listed price and most expensive by final price, depending on which fees get added where. For a closer look at avoiding these traps generally, see safe payment on keyshops.

Region and activation: not a platform difference

One difference has nothing to do with brand, but it may matter more than any of the above: region locking. On all three you’ll find listings that only activate in a specific region (EU, or RU/CIS, for example) — and won’t work anywhere else. These are frequently the cheapest listings on the page, which is exactly why they’re a trap if you don’t read the fine print.

This isn’t a flaw of one platform — it’s a property of the individual listing, on any of the three. Check which region a key is locked to and whether it matches yours before buying, covered in more detail in game key regions explained. Also confirm the activation platform, since Steam, GOG, Epic, and Rockstar keys are not interchangeable even for the same game.

When each one actually makes sense

Honestly, the gap between individual listings on any one platform is often bigger than the gap between the three platforms themselves. Still, a few rules of thumb hold up:

• Widest selection, lowest listed price — G2A usually has the most listings simply because it’s the biggest marketplace. If you’re chasing an older or niche title, your odds are best here — paired with the most scrutiny on seller rating and fees.
• Cleaner checkout experience — Eneba tends to feel the most straightforward to use, with frequent promotions and a simpler interface. A reasonable starting point if a low-friction checkout matters to you.
• Middle ground — Kinguin offers a large catalog with a somewhat calmer reputation than G2A. A solid pick when you want breadth without G2A’s rougher edges.
• Expensive, brand-new, or a gift — none of the three. Use an official store instead. Gray-market risk matters least when the stakes are lowest, and most when the price tag is highest.

None of these three is the wrong choice on its own — the mistake is picking blindly. Seller rating, region, and the final checkout total matter more than which logo you started on.

The wider field: 11 stores at a glance

G2A, Kinguin, and Eneba are the names you hit first, but they aren’t the whole market — and the stores around them don’t all work the same way. Some are open marketplaces like the big three, some sell from their own stock, and some are authorized resellers that get their keys straight from publishers. That difference changes what can go wrong far more than the logo does. Here’s the field in one table, with our full guide on each store linked at the end of the row.

Store	Label on ulov.gg	How it sells	Watch out for	Our guide
G2A	Marketplace	Open marketplace: thousands of independent sellers list keys, G2A takes a cut	Seller rating; pre-checked add-ons in the cart; payment fees that only appear at checkout	Is G2A safe?
Kinguin	Marketplace	Third-party sellers (“merchants”) list keys; Kinguin hosts the listing and handles payment	Merchant rating; the optional paid Buyer Protection add-on; region-locked cheap listings	Is Kinguin safe?
Eneba	Marketplace · not currently tracked	Mostly third-party sellers, plus some first-party products	Seller rating; key region; fees or pre-ticked add-ons on the last step	Is Eneba safe?
Gamivo	Marketplace	Independent sellers list keys; Gamivo takes a commission	The auto-renewing Smart subscription; buyer protection sold as a separately priced add-on	Is Gamivo safe?
K4G	Marketplace	Keyshop selling outside the publisher’s official distribution chain; disputes go through the platform	Key region; fees and any paid protection add-on that only show up at checkout	Is K4G safe?
Driffle	Marketplace	Newer marketplace: independent sellers list keys, Driffle handles payment	Seller rating where shown; extras at checkout; support can be slow in a dispute	Is Driffle safe?
Instant Gaming	Marketplace	Sells from its own stock — one price, no list of sellers	Key region; fees or currency conversion at the last step; supply chain isn’t publicly documented	Is Instant Gaming safe?
CDKeys (now Loaded)	Marketplace	Retail-style: sells from its own stock, one seller, no seller ratings	Region, edition and platform; stock origin isn’t publicly documented	Is CDKeys legit?
Fanatical	Official store	Authorized reseller: keys directly from publishers and official distributors	Region lock on individual keys; what’s actually in a bundle	Is Fanatical legit?
Green Man Gaming	Official store · not currently tracked	Authorized reseller: official agreements with publishers and distributors	Key region; voucher codes mean the page price is often higher than what you pay	Is Green Man Gaming legit?
AllYouPlay	Official store · not currently tracked	Authorized reseller with a cashback-style scheme	The cashback terms — where it’s credited, when, whether it expires; key region	Is AllYouPlay legit?

A note on the label column: ulov.gg uses exactly two labels. Official store covers first-party stores and authorized resellers. Marketplace is our label for every gray-market keyshop — including the ones that sell from their own stock (Instant Gaming, Loaded) rather than hosting third-party sellers. The label tells you which side of the official supply chain a key comes from; the “How it sells” column tells you who you’re actually buying from.

Read the table by group rather than row by row. The three authorized resellers at the bottom are the only ones where a key’s origin isn’t in question — the risk of a revoked key there is practically zero, which makes them the default for a gift or an expensive new release. Instant Gaming and CDKeys sit in between: still keyshops, but you buy from the store itself, so there’s no seller to vet. The rest are gray-market keyshops, and on the open marketplaces among them — G2A, Kinguin, Eneba, Gamivo, Driffle — the seller’s rating matters more than the name at the top of the page.

What our own data shows

ulov.gg compares offers from 12 stores — four official (Steam, GOG, Epic, Fanatical) and eight keyshops, including most of the stores in the table above — across roughly 40,000 games that have at least one live offer, and prices are refreshed every day. Eneba, Green Man Gaming and AllYouPlay are not tracked at the moment, so they appear in our guides but not in the price comparison.

One caveat so that isn’t over-read: a store appearing in the comparison says nothing about where an individual key came from — that is what the label on each offer (Official store or Marketplace), the region and the seller are for.

One thing that doesn’t move: offers on ulov.gg are ranked strictly by price. Affiliate commission has no influence on the order — a store that pays us nothing is ranked exactly the same way as one that does.

The takeaway

G2A, Kinguin, and Eneba share the same model, the same gray-market exposure, and the same checkout fee patterns — they differ mainly in scale, reputation, and how the site feels to use. So “which is best” isn’t really the right question. The right question is “which specific listing, for this specific game, is actually cheapest once fees are counted — and does the region and seller check out?”

That’s the exact problem ulov.gg is built to remove. Instead of opening three tabs and running the same game through three checkouts, we pull offers from G2A, Kinguin, and the other stores we track — keyshops and official stores alike — into one page, each one clearly labeled Official store or Marketplace, so you can compare real prices side by side before you commit to any of them. Browse the full game catalog to see it in action, or check our methodology for exactly how we source and label every offer.