10 Trading Card Game APIs Compared (2026)
A comprehensive comparison of every TCG pricing API available to developers in 2026 — coverage, pricing, features, and real-world limitations.
Building a trading card game app? You need pricing data — but choosing the right API matters. Some only cover one game, others have painful rate limits, and a few have shut down entirely.
We compared every TCG pricing API available to developers in 2026. Here’s the honest breakdown.
The Landscape
The TCG data API space is surprisingly thin. TCGPlayer’s API closure in late 2024 left a massive gap, and only a handful of alternatives have stepped in. Most focus on a single game (usually Pokemon or MTG), and very few offer multi-game coverage.
1. TCG API
Website: tcgapi.dev
- Games: 89+ (every game on TCGPlayer)
- Free tier: 100 requests/day
- Pricing: Free / $9.99 / $19.99 / $49.99 / $99.99 per month
- Update frequency: Daily for top 7 games, every 3 days for others
- Data: Market prices, per-printing (Normal/Foil), price changes, sealed products, search
- Auth: API key (Bearer token)
- Bulk endpoints: Yes (Pro+)
- Price history: Yes (Hobby+)
Pros: Widest game coverage of any API. Per-printing prices. Simple REST API with generous free tier. Active development.
Cons: Newer service. No webhook support yet.
2. TCGPlayer API (Legacy)
Website: tcgplayer.com
- Games: 89+ (if you have an existing key)
- Free tier: Application-based
- Status: Closed to new developers
- Data: Comprehensive pricing, product catalog
Pros: The original data source. Most complete catalog.
Cons: No new API access. Existing keys being deprecated. No timeline for reopening. Now owned by eBay with uncertain future.
3. Scryfall API
Website: scryfall.com
- Games: Magic: The Gathering only
- Free tier: Unlimited (community project)
- Rate limit: 10 requests/second
- Data: Card data, images, rulings, prices (from TCGPlayer/CardKingdom)
- Auth: None required
Pros: Excellent MTG data. Free forever. Great documentation. Card images included.
Cons: MTG only — no Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or other games. Pricing data is secondary to card metadata. Not suitable for building price-focused tools.
4. Pokemon TCG API
Website: pokemontcg.io
- Games: Pokemon only
- Free tier: 1,000 requests/day (with API key)
- Pricing: Free / $2.99 / $4.99 per month (Patreon)
- Data: Card data, images, prices (from TCGPlayer), HP, attacks, weaknesses
- Auth: API key (header)
Pros: Purpose-built for Pokemon. Includes card images and game mechanics. Free tier is generous.
Cons: Pokemon only. Price data lags behind market. No sealed product prices. No per-printing differentiation.
5. Yu-Gi-Oh! Prices API (YGOPRODeck)
Website: db.ygoprodeck.com
- Games: Yu-Gi-Oh! only
- Free tier: Unlimited
- Data: Card data, images, prices (from TCGPlayer/Cardmarket)
- Auth: None required
Pros: Comprehensive Yu-Gi-Oh! data. Completely free. Includes card images and game data.
Cons: Yu-Gi-Oh! only. Rate limits are strict. Price data may lag. API stability varies.
6. JustTCG
Website: justtcg.com
- Games: ~3 (Pokemon, MTG, limited others)
- Free tier: Limited
- Data: Search and price comparison across marketplaces
Pros: Compares prices across multiple marketplaces (TCGPlayer, eBay, etc.).
Cons: Very limited game coverage. More of a search engine than a data API. Limited developer documentation.
7. Card Trader API
Website: cardtrader.com
- Games: Multiple (MTG, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, others)
- Free tier: Marketplace sellers only
- Data: Marketplace listings, prices, inventory
Pros: Real marketplace data. Multiple games.
Cons: Designed for marketplace integration, not general pricing data. Requires seller account. Not a general-purpose pricing API.
8. MTGJson
Website: mtgjson.com
- Games: Magic: The Gathering only
- Free tier: Unlimited (data files)
- Data: Complete MTG card database, prices (aggregated)
Pros: The most comprehensive MTG database. Downloadable JSON files. Community maintained.
Cons: MTG only. Bulk data files rather than a REST API. Prices are aggregated snapshots, not real-time.
9. Cardmarket API
Website: cardmarket.com
- Games: Multiple (European market)
- Free tier: Application-based
- Data: European marketplace prices
Pros: The definitive source for European TCG prices.
Cons: European market only (prices in EUR). Application process required. Not suitable for US/global pricing.
10. BinderPOS API
Website: binderpos.com
- Games: Multiple
- Free tier: Requires BinderPOS subscription
- Data: Inventory management, pricing
Pros: Full POS integration. Multiple games.
Cons: Requires store POS subscription. Not a standalone pricing API. Designed for brick-and-mortar stores.
Comparison Table
| API | Games | Free Tier | Per-Printing | Price History | Sealed Products | Bulk Fetch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TCG API | 89+ | 100/day | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TCGPlayer | 89+ | Closed | Yes | Limited | Yes | Limited |
| Scryfall | MTG only | Unlimited | No | No | No | Yes |
| Pokemon TCG | Pokemon | 1K/day | No | No | No | No |
| YGOPRODeck | Yu-Gi-Oh! | Unlimited | No | No | No | Yes |
| JustTCG | ~3 | Limited | No | No | No | No |
| Card Trader | Multiple | Sellers only | N/A | No | N/A | No |
| MTGJson | MTG only | Unlimited | No | Snapshots | No | Yes |
| Cardmarket | Multiple | Application | Yes | No | Yes | Limited |
| BinderPOS | Multiple | POS sub | Yes | No | Yes | No |
The Bottom Line
If you need multi-game pricing data with a modern REST API, your realistic options in 2026 are:
- TCG API — Best overall for developers who need multiple games. 89+ games, free tier, active development.
- Scryfall — Best for MTG-only projects. Free, well-documented, but no pricing focus.
- Pokemon TCG API — Best for Pokemon-only projects. Free, includes card images.
For everything else — One Piece, Lorcana, Flesh and Blood, Star Wars: Unlimited, Digimon, and 60+ more games — TCG API is currently the only option with a developer-friendly API.
How to pick — a decision matrix
Rather than a straight “which is best,” choose the API that matches what your app actually does:
| Your use case | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Single-game MTG card database (no pricing focus) | Scryfall | Free, unlimited, amazing data quality, images included |
| Single-game Pokemon app with card images | PokemonTCG.io | Purpose-built, generous free tier, card art |
| Multi-game price tracker | TCG API | The only multi-game option with real-time pricing |
| Price-history charting / finance app | TCG API (Hobby+) | Only option with developer-accessible historical series |
| Store inventory / marketplace integration | Cardmarket (EU) or TCG API (US) | Cardmarket for Europe, TCG API for TCGPlayer-sourced US prices |
| Commercial app | TCG API (Pro) or Cardmarket | Only two options with explicit commercial licensing |
| Yu-Gi-Oh!-only hobby project | YGOPRODeck + TCG API (free) | YGOPRODeck for card data, TCG API free tier for prices |
Real-world integration notes
If you read nothing else, read this. Here are the non-obvious gotchas each API has hit developers with:
Scryfall requires a 100ms delay between requests (stated in their docs but widely ignored until people get 429s). They also honor If-Modified-Since — if you poll the same card, send the header and save yourself a round trip.
PokemonTCG.io price data is scraped from TCGPlayer and refreshed on a schedule that’s less frequent than the underlying marketplace. For an app that displays “live” prices, this gap occasionally matters. If users complain “your price is wrong,” check the updatedAt field before blaming them.
TCG API keys a card to its TCGPlayer ID. If you are migrating from a Scryfall integration, you will need to resolve the Scryfall card to its tcgplayer_id first (Scryfall returns this field on most MTG cards) and then fetch TCG API pricing. The /v1/cards/tcgplayer/{id} endpoint is purpose-built for this migration.
MTGJson is bulk files, not a REST API. You download ~50 MB of JSON and parse it locally. Great for analytics, not great for a server that needs to answer “what is this card worth right now.”
Cardmarket requires an OAuth 1.0 application flow that a lot of modern HTTP clients handle awkwardly. Budget an extra day to get authentication working versus any other API on this list.
Pricing, at a glance, normalized to “requests per dollar per month”
For cost-sensitive apps, what actually matters is efficiency. This table converts each paid tier into requests-per-dollar at the plan boundary:
| API / tier | Monthly cost | Daily requests | Monthly requests | Cost per 1K requests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TCG API Hobby | $9.99 | 1,000 | 30,000 | $0.33 |
| TCG API Starter | $19.99 | 2,500 | 75,000 | $0.27 |
| TCG API Pro | $49.99 | 10,000 | 300,000 | $0.17 |
| TCG API Business | $99.99 | 50,000 | 1,500,000 | $0.07 |
| Pokemon TCG Pro | $4.99 | Unlimited (soft) | ~unlimited | ~$0 |
| Scryfall | $0 | ~864,000 | ~26M | $0 |
| MTGJson | $0 | Unlimited (file-based) | ~unlimited | $0 |
The free options win on raw throughput. The paid options win on coverage and guarantees. For most production apps that depend on a single data source, the per-request cost of TCG API’s Pro or Business tier is an order of magnitude below what you would pay for a general-purpose data scraping service.
Which API we would actually build on
If we were starting a new TCG app tomorrow with no constraints, the default stack would be:
- Scryfall for MTG card metadata and images
- PokemonTCG.io for Pokemon card metadata and images
- TCG API for pricing across every game, including MTG and Pokemon
Two free sources plus one paid source. Clean separation of concerns — metadata from specialists, pricing from a specialist. No single vendor lock-in on either side.
Need help choosing? Join our Discord and ask the community.
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Free tier includes 100 requests per day. No credit card required.