The number everyone quotes. The number that's usually wrong.
TCGplayer is a great place to buy singles, and its Market Price is fine for a modern card that sells a hundred times a day. On the cards you actually check — vintage, chase, thin, anything below Near Mint — one site's handful of sales swings the number, and the whole hobby copies it.
Where TCGplayer's number comes from
“Compiled from recent sales completed on TCGplayer.com” — one marketplace, no window or formula published.
- What it is
- Marketplace average
- What it costs
- Free
Credit where due: Unbeatable inventory to buy from.
Where it breaks
- 01
Only 14.4% of Market Prices landed within 10% of the real sold median across 14,734 cards; 35.8% were off by more than half.
- 02
On $25–$500 cards — the middle of the hobby — only 5–7% landed within 10%, running 44–56% high on average.
- 03
Forum users documented a $30 card pushed to a $140 Market Price on fake ~$300 sales from zero-feedback accounts.
- 04
“There seems to be no safeguards or verification or correction” — refunds and cancelled orders stay on the graph.
Seven tests. Same for every app.
What a price should be able to tell you — and whether TCGplayer can.
Priced from what sold, not what's listed
TCGplayer: Sales — but from one site, so a few orders on that site move it.
Every condition priced from its own market
TCGplayer: Filters by condition, but thin conditions show a handful of sales or none.
Every grade, raw to gem mint
TCGplayer: Raw singles only; graded cards trade elsewhere.
Says how sure it is on every price
TCGplayer: A volatility label at most; no range, no grade.
Every major game at the same depth
TCGplayer: Every game it sells.
Shows where the price is heading
TCGplayer: History only.
The price itself is free
TCGplayer: Free to look up.
What you get on Forecast instead.
A fair value that one site's orders can't move
Every condition priced from its own market, always in order
A grade and range on every price, so you know when to trust it
Today's outlook on every card
Switch for free. Stay for the forecast.
Every price is free. Collector and Forecast Pro start with seven days on us.
Forecast Pro
For the move before the market makes it.
$143.88 billed yearly
Start 7-day free trialMore comparisons
Forecast vs
PriceCharting
A giant catalog with a shallow read of each card.
Forecast vs
Card Ladder
Great for slabs of two games. Forecast is every game.
Forecast vs
eBay Price Guide
Solds aren't a price. They're a pile.
Sources
- Catchinary: TCGplayer Market Price vs 1.9M real sales, May 21, 2026
- Elite Fourum: TCGplayer Kabuto manipulation (forum report), Dec 15–18, 2025
- Elite Fourum: TCGplayer price manipulation, Nov 2022
Competitor facts are as published or reported on the dates shown and may have changed since. Product names belong to their owners; Forecast isn't affiliated with them. How Forecast prices a card stays ours.