Comparison
Why pricing apps disagree — and what each one measures
This is not a hit piece. Collectr, PriceCharting, TCGplayer and Cardmarket are all measuring something real; they are just measuring different things, and almost none of them tell you which. Here is the honest breakdown.
The 60% problem
Published comparisons that valued one identical collection across several tools returned totals differing by around 60%. The cause was not bugs. It was method: a US marketplace market price, a European average, a long-window sold-price history and a live sold comp are four different numbers, and a total built from any one of them is only as useful as the question it answers.
The gaps widen exactly where collectors care most — thinly traded vintage, low-population slabs and regional printings.
What each source is actually good at
| Source | What it measures | Best used for |
|---|---|---|
| TCGplayer | Current US marketplace listings and recent sales | US raw prices and buying in the States |
| Cardmarket | European listings and sales in EUR | EU availability and pricing |
| PriceCharting | Completed-sale history over time | Long-term trend and historic context |
| Collectr / scanner apps | Catalogued collections priced from marketplace data | Fast cataloguing of a big collection |
| eBay sold listings | Raw, unfiltered completed sales | Ground truth, if you filter it yourself |
| COMPED | Weighted UK sold comps, condition- and edition-aware, outliers scrubbed | Deciding what to buy, sell or grade at in the UK |
How COMPED builds a number
- UK sold data first. Completed eBay UK sales in GBP are the primary evidence. If a card is thinly traded, the search widens to global sold data rather than falling back to a guess.
- Exact printing only. Set, number, language, finish and edition must match — 1st Edition, Shadowless, 4th print and Unlimited are priced as separate cards, as are reverse holos and regional printings.
- Outliers scrubbed. Digby drops damaged copies, lots, proxies, mislabelled graded sales and single freak results before the weighted comp is calculated.
- Condition-anchored. Vintage raw cards are anchored to realistic played grades rather than pretending every copy is Near Mint; modern cards anchor to NM.
- Community-verified. Vendors and collectors confirm prices in the Price Trainer, and that consensus nudges the headline comp on cards where sales are sparse.
- Uncertainty is shown, not hidden. When there is not enough comparable evidence, COMPED says so and shows a range with the sale count behind it.
The specific complaints we set out to fix
- “It can’t price vintage” — thin sales get a range with a sale count and community-verified input, not a stale average.
- “It mixes up printings” — 1st Edition, Shadowless, 4th print, Unlimited, reverse holos and regional releases are priced separately and labelled on the result.
- “It uses US prices” — UK sold data comes first, in GBP, widening globally only when the UK evidence is genuinely absent.
- “One weird sale wrecks the average” — damaged copies, lots, proxies and mislabelled graded sales are scrubbed before the comp is weighted.
- “It shows a number with no explanation” — the sales behind every comp, and the confidence in it, are on screen.
Use a stack, not a single source
No tool replaces the rest, including ours. If you are making a real money decision, take the COMPED comp, sanity-check it against recent sold listings and glance at the long-term history. When those three agree, you can act with confidence. When they do not, the disagreement itself is the information.
Keep reading
Common questions
- Why does my collection total differ between apps?
- Because each app measures a different price. Published side-by-side tests of one identical collection have produced totals varying by roughly 60%, driven by valuation method rather than by errors in the apps.
- Is PriceCharting accurate?
- It is a solid record of completed sales over time, which makes it good for history and trends. Its weakness is lag and market scope: a long-window average moves slowly, and it is not a UK-first, condition-by-condition read of what is selling right now.
- Is Collectr accurate?
- For cataloguing and liquid modern cards it is broadly in line with other sources. The reported gaps show up on thinly traded cards, where any tool leaning on marketplace prices has little to work from.
- Should I use more than one source?
- Yes, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Use COMPED for a UK sold-data comp, a marketplace for current US listings, and a history tool for long-term trend — then reconcile them.
- Which app handles vintage editions best?
- The test is whether an app prices 1st Edition Shadowless, Shadowless, 4th print and Unlimited as four separate cards. Where an app collapses them into one Base Set entry, its vintage numbers are an average of different markets.
- Why do slab valuations differ even more than raw ones?
- Some apps derive graded prices from a raw price multiplied by a grade factor. COMPED prices each grader and grade from its own sold history, which is why the two approaches diverge most on vintage and low-population slabs.
- Why does COMPED sometimes show no price where a competitor shows one?
- Because a number with no comparable sale behind it is a guess. Where evidence is missing COMPED says so; that is a deliberate accuracy choice rather than missing coverage.