How we compare prices

Where prices come from

Stores. The public product listings of every store on our stores page, read once a day in each store's own market and currency. A listing that has not been refreshed for 72 hours counts as sold out.
TCGplayer. Its catalogue (every printing, set and card detail) and two prices per printing and finish: the cheapest listing, shown as a US offer, and the market price, shown everywhere as a reference. Read daily from TCGCSV's public mirror of TCGplayer's data.
Scryfall. What each card is — its name, rules text and legalities — comes from Scryfall. Card data (names, rules text, legalities, set codes and collector numbers): Scryfall. Card images: TCGplayer, and Scryfall where TCGplayer has none and for the back faces of double-faced cards. Prices: TCGplayer market data and public store listings. For information only; Scryfall does not endorse MTG Compare.
eBay. A search of your own eBay for the card — we build the search link, and never show an eBay price we have not seen.

Matching a listing to a printing

One card name can be dozens of printings worth very different amounts — Lightning Bolt has been printed in set after set, in normal and foil, with borderless and showcase frames. A price belongs to a printing and a finish together. A store listing is matched only when exactly one printing and finish fit it: the set and collector number (from the SKU or the title), the card's name, the finish, and the treatment words in the title (borderless, extended art, showcase, surge foil, etched, prerelease and other stamps). Anything ambiguous is left out. Graded slabs, lots, sealed-product contents and non-English cards are never matched to a card.

A matched listing far under or far over the printing's TCGplayer market price is dropped as a probable mismatch, not shown as a deal.

Ranking

Offers are ranked cheapest first by item price. Postage is added at each store's checkout and is not included. A listing's condition is the best condition the store has in stock (Near Mint first). Sold-out listings are folded below the comparison and never set a headline price.

When things update

Code ships once a week (Tuesday 08:00 UTC). Prices, stores and history are published every day and never wait for a release.

Markets and currency

Each market shows its own stores in its own currency: US$, A$, £, S$, C$ and € (eurozone stores are one market). The only conversions are reference prices — TCGplayer's market price shown in another currency is marked “≈” and uses indicative rates (US$1 = A$1.5, £0.79, S$1.35, C$1.37, €0.92). A reference is never a price you can buy at.

History, movers and the index

Every printing's TCGplayer market price is recorded once a day. Weekly moves compare a card with itself about seven days earlier; the MTG Compare Index chains day-to-day changes across every single worth US$1 or more. A price that rests on a single thin listing is shown as “low only” and never ranked.