Card API Comparison
Updated . Plan numbers are the ones on the developers page that day; the live plans table wins if they ever disagree.
Quick answer
Six card data APIs compared on what they cover and what they cost, as of November 1, 2026 and taken from each vendor's public pages. HobbyCardIndex is the only one of the six whose pages list a cert lookup, and the only one that lists sold sales, raw and graded prices, photo identification and bulk files together across sports and TCGs; the others are cheaper to start or deeper in one game.
The matrix
| Feature | HobbyCardIndex | CardSight AI | The Card API | PokemonPriceTracker | Scrydex | Ximilar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Categories covered | 25-plus: sports cards and TCGs | Nine in their structured data: baseball, football, basketball, hockey, MMA, soccer, Pokémon, Magic, One Piece | "15 sports" for the catalog add-on; games not named | Pokémon only (English and Japanese, plus sealed) | TCGs only: Pokémon, Lorcana, Magic, Gundam, One Piece (beta), Riftbound (beta) | Sports cards, TCG cards and comics (identification) |
| Raw and graded prices | Yes: raw, PSA 10, 9, 8 and 7, BGS 9.5, CGC 10, SGC 10 | "Market pricing data"; raw versus graded not listed | Not listed | Yes: PSA, CGC and BGS graded prices | Yes: graded prices listed, PSA, BGS, CGC, TAG, ACE | "Price Search" at 10 credits; raw versus graded not listed |
| Individual sold sales | Yes, per card by grade, with sale type, bids and listing links | Not listed | Yes: "sold comps" with daily sales-row allowances | Yes: eBay sold listings | Not listed | Not listed |
| Cert lookup | Yes: PSA, BGS, CGC, SGC, every plan | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Pop reports | Yes: Platform, or $100 add-on | "Population data" mentioned | Not listed | Yes: PSA, CGC, BGS, SGC counts with gem rates | Yes | Not listed |
| Photo identification | Yes: raw cards and slabs, up to seven alternatives | Yes: "card identification" | Not listed | Not listed (matches listing titles by text) | Yes: "Vision: Image Analysis", 5 credits | Yes: card identification 10 credits, slab read 15 |
| Bulk files | Yes: Platform, or $450 add-on on Growth Lite and Growth | Not listed | Enterprise: one-time CSV or S3 drops | "Bulk data operations" on Business; files not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes | Yes, 5 tools | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| OpenAPI spec | Not published | Yes, OpenAPI 3.1 with Swagger playground | Not listed | Yes (per our audit) | Not listed | Not listed |
| SDKs | None; curl, JavaScript and Python examples | npm, PyPI, NuGet, Swift, Java | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Entry price | $99 a month | $14.95 a month | $9 a month | $9.99 a month | $29 a month | About $69 (EUR 59) a month for 100,000 credits |
| Free tier or trial | Free setup month by application, no card | Free: 750 calls a month | Free plan (5,000 sales rows a day, 3-day window); 7-day trial on paid plans | Free: 100 credits a day | Not listed | Free: 1,000 credits a month |
CardHedger isn't in the table because we couldn't verify its API pricing from a public page. PokemonPriceTracker's OpenAPI row comes from our own research notes rather than its pricing page. Ximilar prices by credit rather than by plan, so its entry price is the smallest paid block we saw.
How to read it
The six aren't the same kind of product, which is the main thing the table shows. HobbyCardIndex, CardSight AI and The Card API are general card data APIs; PokemonPriceTracker and Scrydex are built for one game or one family of games; Ximilar is an image recognition API that sells identification by the credit and has added price search. So "which is best" is really "which is best for the thing you're building." A Pokémon-only app with its own pricing can do well on PokemonPriceTracker or Scrydex and pay far less. A prototype can start free on CardSight AI or The Card API. A product that has to show sold comps, verify certs, price graded cards across sports and TCGs, or take a daily price file needs the rows only HobbyCardIndex fills, and pays $99 a month for the first rung.
Where HobbyCardIndex stands
Everything lives under https://hobbycardindex.com/api/v1/ and takes your key in an X-API-Key header (an Authorization: Bearer header works too). Every successful response is wrapped as {"success": true, "data": {...}}; the examples on this page show what sits inside data. Prices are US dollars with two decimals.
One key covers sports cards, Pokémon, Magic and the rest of the trading card games, with sold comps, cert lookups and pop reports, photo identification, a database-style search, a watch list webhook, bulk files on Platform and an MCP server. What we don't have, and the table says so: a free tier, SDKs and a published OpenAPI spec. The free setup month is the answer to the first; the other two are plain REST and three code samples away.
curl 'https://hobbycardindex.com/api/v1/prices/search?q=Charizard%20Base%20Set%204' \
-H 'X-API-Key: hci_live_...'{
"results": [
{
"id": 67890,
"externalId": "78901",
"name": "Charizard [Holo] #4",
"year": 1999,
"setName": "Pokemon Base Set",
"cardNumber": "4",
"printRun": null,
"category": "Pokemon",
"playerName": "Charizard",
"imageUrl": "https://hobbycardindex.com/api/v1/images/proxy?i=...",
"addedAt": "2024-01-09T12:00:00Z",
"prices": {
"loose": 310,
"psa10": 12500,
"psa9": 2400,
"psa8": 1150,
"psa7": 780,
"bgs10": 14000,
"cgc10": 6800,
"sgc10": 5200,
"volume": 3100
},
"hciUrl": "https://hobbycardindex.com/cards/67890"
}
],
"count": 10
}Example values, not live prices.
The other five, in a line each
- CardSight AI: card identification, market pricing data and an MCP server across nine listed categories, with a free tier of 750 calls and plans from $14.95; SDKs in five languages and a Swagger playground. Our full comparison: HobbyCardIndex vs CardSight AI.
- The Card API: sold comps metered by sales rows a day (5,000 on Free, 200,000 on the $199 Pro) and a Catalog API add-on listing 16.6 million-plus cards across 15 sports for $29 a month; webhooks are a $9 add-on; an MCP server with five tools on Free.
- PokemonPriceTracker: Pokémon only, English and Japanese plus sealed, with PSA, CGC and BGS graded prices, eBay sold listings, pop counts and price history whose retention grows with the plan (3 days free, 6 months at $9.99, 12-plus months at $99).
- Scrydex: TCGs only (Pokémon, Lorcana, Magic, Gundam, One Piece and Riftbound in beta), graded prices, price history, pop reports and image analysis, priced by credit: $29 for 5,000, $99 for 50,000, $399 for 250,000. It's the official successor to pokemontcg.io.
- Ximilar: visual recognition by the credit: identify a sports card, TCG card or comic for 10 credits, read a slab for 15, grade a card for 100, with a new price search at 10; free 1,000 credits a month, then 100,000 for EUR 59 or $69.
Plans and prices
| Plan | Price | Requests a month | Photo scans | Sold-sale lookups | Cert lookups | Lookups a second | Past the requests and scans (up to 3x) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lite | $99 a month | 25,000 | 25,000 | 5,000 | 150 | 10 | $1 per 250 more |
| Growth Lite | $249 a month | 125,000 | 125,000 | 25,000 | 750 | 15 | $1 per 500 more |
| Growth | $499 a month | 500,000 | 500,000 | 100,000 | 3,000 | 20 | $1 per 1,000 more |
| Platform | from $1,500 a month | 2,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 500,000 | 50,000, plus 50,000 pop reports | 50 | Set up with Sean, invoiced; bulk price files included |
Price history comes with every size. Sold-sale, cert and pop lookups stop at the plan's number and never run over. Two add-ons: pop reports plus cert lookups for $100 a month, which brings 32,000 of each to Lite, Growth Lite or Growth, and the daily price files for $450 a month on Growth Lite or Growth (included in Platform, not offered on Lite). Lite, Growth Lite and Growth are month to month by card, cancelled any time in Settings, API Access, and run to the end of the paid month.
The free setup month is 30 days on real data with no card: 1,000 requests and 1,000 photo scans a day, 500 sold-sale lookups and 100 cert lookups for the month. You apply in Settings, API Access once you're signed in, and Sean reviews each one. When the 30 days end, the first month of the plan you applied with is invoiced, and paying it keeps the key going. Full plan details are on the developers page.
Credit and data use
A commercial plan licenses the data for a product your users see. You can store the prices and price history you pull while the plan is active and use them on card pages, in charts, collection values and your own estimates. Sold-sale records can be shown to your users and kept in your product, but not turned into a standalone sales database, copied by the category or offered as a download. Card recognition stays with the scan endpoint: show our identifications, don't use them to build a recognizer of your own.
The terms ask for one link back to us somewhere on your site, such as "Prices and API supplied by Hobby Card Index". It does not need to be beside the prices or on your main page. When a plan ends, stored copies go within 30 days. The full wording is in the Terms of Service, section 8, and the shorter version is under Data use on the developers page.
Common questions
Which card API covers both sports cards and TCGs?
Of the six here, HobbyCardIndex (25-plus categories), CardSight AI (nine listed: six sports plus Pokémon, Magic and One Piece), The Card API (15 sports for its catalog add-on, games not named) and Ximilar (sports cards, TCG cards and comics for identification). Scrydex covers TCGs only and PokemonPriceTracker covers Pokémon only.
Which card APIs have a free tier?
CardSight AI (750 calls a month), The Card API (5,000 sales rows a day with a 3-day window, plus a 7-day trial on paid plans), PokemonPriceTracker (100 credits a day) and Ximilar (1,000 credits a month) list free tiers. Scrydex lists none. HobbyCardIndex has no free tier but offers a free setup month by application.
Which card API has a cert lookup?
Only HobbyCardIndex lists one among the six: GET /api/v1/certs/{grader}/{certNumber} for PSA, BGS, CGC and SGC, included on every commercial plan from 150 lookups a month. None of the other five pricing pages we read mention a cert lookup; Ximilar reads a slab's label from a photo, which is a different thing.
Which card APIs return sold sales?
HobbyCardIndex (per card, by grade, with sale type, bids and listing links), The Card API (sold comps with daily sales-row allowances) and PokemonPriceTracker (eBay sold listings for Pokémon). CardSight AI, Scrydex and Ximilar list market pricing or price search but not individual sold sales on the pages we read.
Which card APIs offer photo identification?
HobbyCardIndex (raw cards and slabs, with up to seven alternatives), CardSight AI (card identification), Scrydex (Vision image analysis at 5 credits) and Ximilar (card identification at 10 credits, slab reading at 15). The Card API and PokemonPriceTracker don't list photo identification; PokemonPriceTracker matches listing titles by text.
What is the cheapest card price API?
By entry price on public pages as of November 2026: The Card API at $9 a month, PokemonPriceTracker at $9.99, CardSight AI at $14.95, Scrydex at $29, Ximilar at about $69 (EUR 59) for 100,000 credits, and HobbyCardIndex at $99. Cheapest depends on what you need per call, since the allowances and features differ a lot.