How do i level up without buying keys?

If you give away keys that are avaiable for free - such giveaways won't let you level up as they already (or eventually will be) set to 0 CV.

Many keys from random GAs like Lootboy or Indiegala still have CV, so you can do those for free. Also sometimes you can trade keys you got for free for things that do have CV.

Most well known freebies are noticed and have their CV set to zero, but there are also a handful of more obscure sites that still do freebies that have CV.

Sure there are but most of those wouldn't help you level up as lot of them would be 0 CV due to being given freely on somewhere.

That said, AWA is a solid choice if you want to get some keys but it'll take a while before you're earning enough to get some games from its vaults. Plus they vault games usually don't fall to 0 CVs so they're a good choice for giveaways if you want to level up.

Edit - And by a while I mean a few months at least before you have enough to spend on the vault.

Leveling up on site won't help you much anyway. I can recommend you to save money on games you want and just buy them in steam sale.

Many Steamgifts users purchase bundles of games from stores like Humble Bundle, Fanatical, etc. They buy those bundles for themselves (if they contain games that interest them and if the asking price is low enough) and then they make giveaways here with the leftovers of the bundle (other games that don't interest them or those they already had).

If you buy games for yourself from time to time, this is probably the solution that comes closest to your request in the sense that you are not buying games in order to do giveaways here (you are only giving away leftovers you don't want). Those bundled games will give you a reduced contributor value (see FAQ about that) but in the long run they will allow you to level up.

Also, as a new member, please make sure you have read the FAQ and Guidelines of Steamgifts.

do a region locked giveaway, add winner as friend and then send game as gift

I have the perfect resource for you!
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/cVY8v/no-more-excuses-getting-to-level-1-without-spending-money-if-you-cant-i-may-have-a-key-for-you

IMO its not worth the time and energy spent.
Keys are pretty cheap. I say that as someone from a not so rich country.
If you reeaaaally want to host a GA, just save a dollar or 2 over a week or so. And then go to greenmangaming or gamersgate, and check out their best deals. They might vary based on wherever you're from. With these you will easily reach level 3 in a matter of months.

But ofcourse, I highly doubt most people on SG frequent only the legit retailers as keys are even cheaper in other sources.
It is against SG rules to get keys from other sources or to discuss third party seller websites.

Use alienware arena and collect ARP to buy games in their game vault to give away here. It takes little effort to get 20-30 points each day, but you need several hundred to buy the games. Also need to hit 3,000 points to get to tier 2, and 7,000 to hit tier 3. Highest tier 5 takes 18,000 points. Games are locked behind different tiers, and there's not realy anything good at tier 1.

Watch hitsquadgodfather on Twitch to buy games with their clams at their store. I mute it and set it to lowest quality, then just let it run in the background. There's also a weird mini game on the channel you can play to get extra points, and an ongoing raffle as well for a couple hundred clams. Once you get 10k channel points you can trade them in for 2,000 clams.
Using an extension, i collect about 300 channel points an hour, so about 33 hours for each 2,000 clams.
One day i'll have 180k clams so i can buy 'Days Gone' and after that, i'll just get games to make giveaways for.

Save $10-15 and buy a HumbleBundle or Fanatical bundle to get a game for yourself, and make a bunch of giveaways here.

As mentioned before, the hitsquadgodfather stream on Twitch is a good way to do it. By watching it, you can get points and trade for game keys, then you can giveaway these here. That's the only way for me to get ROW keys.

That's a hard call: any steam keys you can get guaranteed with next to no effort will probably have 0 CV value, so won't level up your Steam account.

With some effort, you can get Steam keys around, that might add or not CV value for you to level your account. There are sites that make you do chores, and can reward you with keys. Not sure if it's allowed to say their name, to be honest I don't recall them, never really used them for long.

My recent giveaways here with keys I got for free being a content creator on Youtube, as sometimes devs/publishers send more than a key.

There're also other websites that host giveaways, I've also won a few keys on social media on giveaways by the devs and content creators, but chances are usually small due to lot of entries.

TLDR, you'll most likely always end up paying for a key, either with IRL money, or your time.

Have you considered just buying them like everybody else here?

you make your own garbage games on steam and sell them for 50$ well giving away keys you can make for free here....

If steam store is fine, get some game that have random drops that give money... Get drops, sell on Steam market, then either buy on steam or trade for TF2 keys or whatever and then trade for steam keys.

You don't. You have to give to level up...kind of the idea of the site. Giving > receiving. 🙂

But what you also find is that the more you get involved, and the more you give, the more connected you get to the community and you get better access to more exclusive giveaways for better games.

I strongly suggest you read the FAQ and the SG Guidelines. They'll help a lot. Welcome, and enjoy your time on Steamgifts!

There's a website called gamesbolt where you can do surveys and other tasks (e.g. playing mobile games) to earn points which you can spend on games. It's an honest way of getting free keys because I see it as equivalent to real work. Many people actually do surveys as a source of side income.

I haven't looked at the site in years, so don't know if it's worth your time or if you're better off flipping burgers at McD's :)

PS: I'm guessing that you're young and don't have a lot of money or access to a CC, hence your question. But based on your tone and how you phrased the Q, people here will assume that you're just trying to cheat the CV system using freebies. You probably earned some blacklists as a result :P