Quick answers about how Verdict works, where the numbers come from, and what to do when a search doesn’t return what you expect. If you don’t see your question here, send it over.
The Basics
What is Verdict?
Verdict is a trading-card decision tool. Type any card, TCG card, or non-sport card and get a read on what it’s worth right now — built from actual eBay sold listings, plus extra features for grading, flipping, lots, and collection tracking.
Where does the data come from?
Verdict draws from a stack of providers, each picked for what it does best:
- Verdict’s own card catalog — the primary resolution layer: 2.2M+ cards built from hand-curated hobby checklists, with subset, parallel, and print-run detail.
- CardSight — fallback catalog lookup when our checklists don’t cover a card yet, sold-comp and grade data for selected categories, and the vision provider for single-card AI Snap identification.
- Anthropic Claude — vision for the Grade Tool, Lot Calculator multi-card identification, and cert label scanning.
- GemRate — PSA / BGS / SGC / CGC / CSG grading population data and grade distributions.
- eBay sold listings — historical sales, cached in our database for long-term trend analysis.
- TCGplayer — ungraded (NM) market price for TCG cards in TCG mode.
- eBay’s official Browse & Taxonomy APIs — active-listing search and structured per-item data (player, parallel, grade) straight from eBay, live in production.
- Apify — how we retrieve eBay sold-listing comps for most categories (our four core sports are served by CardSight instead), plus listing retrieval for Lot Calculator URL imports. In late July 2026 eBay tightened anti-bot protection on its sold-listings page, which broke the previous retrieval path industry-wide; Apify restored real, current sold data. If a category is ever left without sold coverage, affected searches show a “Sold Comps Temporarily Unavailable” notice with active listings as a fallback instead of stale or wrong data.
See How It Works for the full pipeline and how these sources combine into a single verdict. The full sub-processor disclosure lives on the Sub-Processors page.
Is it free?
Verdict has a Free tier with unlimited pricing search, Compare, and Flip Calc, plus a daily quota of AI Snap identifies, AI grades, and Lot Scout runs. Pro unlocks unlimited AI tools, cloud Collection and Watchlist sync, CSV export, and watchlist email alerts. Founders is a limited locked-in lifetime rate for the first 100 paid customers. See the Pricing page for current rates and the full feature list. You keep your existing data either way.
Do I need an account?
Anonymous use is fine for one-off pricing searches, Compare, and Flip Calc. You need an account to save a Collection, Watchlist, or Player Collection, to use the Grade Tool history, or to subscribe to Pro. Sign in with email + password or a one-tap magic link — no third-party (Google/Apple) login required.
How do I cancel?
Visit your account page and use Manage Subscription. That opens the Stripe Customer Portal, where cancellation is one click. You keep Pro features through the end of the current billing period, then your data stays on the Free tier. See the Refund Policy for details.
Pricing & Verdicts
How is Fair Market Value calculated?
It’s a recency-weighted median of eBay sold prices from roughly the last two months, after a filter chain:
- Every word in your search must appear in the listing title (typo-tolerant fuzzy match).
- Sub-brand products that don’t match your query are removed (e.g., Chrome listings get stripped from a flagship Topps search).
- Non-card products (boxes, packs, lots, cases) are removed.
- Parallels and variants are separated when you’re searching a base card.
- Statistical outliers (wax boxes that slipped through, bizarre pricing) are removed using the IQR method.
The result is a median that represents a real, repeatable sale — not an inflated average pulled by one weird listing.
Why is your FMV lower than the last few sales I can see on eBay?
Because FMV isn’t an average of the last few sales — it’s a recency-weighted median over roughly two months. Recent sales count for more, but older ones still count. On a card that’s climbing, that makes our number read below the last week’s sales; on one that’s falling, above them.
That’s deliberate. A short window is easy to distort — one overpay, one thin day, or a brief hype run can move a small-sample card by a third. The wide window is what stops any single sale from setting your price. A card with a hot week might legitimately show a $320 plain median, $330 weighted, and $360+ sales in the last three days: all three are correct, they just answer different questions.
When you want the fast read, use the Trend badge and Last Sale alongside FMV, and open the comp table — every sale we used is listed with its date, so you can see the recent run yourself.
What’s “Weighted Recent”?
A version of the median that gives more weight to the most recent sales. If a card is trending up, Weighted Recent will show that before the straight median does.
What’s the Price Stability verdict (Stable / Volatile / Very Volatile)?
We look at how tightly the recent sale prices cluster. A card that sells every time between $45 and $55 is Stable. A card that sells at $40, $80, and $150 in the same week is Very Volatile — approach with caution.
Why are base cards sometimes grouped with a parallel?
When your query pins a specific insert (by card-number prefix like #SMLB-27or by the insert’s name like “Stars of the MLB”), we merge every matching listing into one bucket — because they’re all the same card. Splitting them into “Base vs Insert” would produce two prices for what is really one card.
Why do I sometimes see “No exact comps” with similar sales listed below?
For rare or obscure cards — a /5 auto, a one-of-one — eBay may have zero recent exact sales. Rather than leave you with a dead end, we walk a cascade of broader searches (drop the print run, drop the grade, drop the color modifier, etc.) and show actual eBay sales of similar variants. Each row is a real sold listing with a price, so you get a ballpark instead of nothing.
Pop Reports & Should I Grade
What’s the “Pop Report” block?
Whenever your search includes a grade (e.g., “PSA 10”), we pull a population report from GemRate that shows total graded population, gem rate, and 9+ rate across PSA, BGS, SGC, CGC, and CSG. Expand it for the full grader-by-grader breakdown. If population data isn’t loading, you may see a small “temporarily unavailable” notice — that’s a transient GemRate access issue and not a problem with your search.
I see a “Pop” button on some Collection / Watchlist rows. Why not all?
The Pop button only appears on rows whose card name includes a grade token (PSA, BGS, SGC, CGC, etc. + a number). Raw cards have no pop report to show — the button would be a dead end. Add the grade to your card’s name to enable it.
How does “Should I Grade” decide whether grading is worth it?
The Should I Grade panel on the Flip page combines CardSight’s pricing with GemRate’s grade-distribution probability data to compute a probability-weighted expected value:
EV = Σ (probability of grade i × net proceeds at grade i) − raw cost − grading fee
That math beats simply looking at the PSA 10 comp in isolation — a card with a small gem rate may still lose money on grading even when the gem-mint sale is huge.
The Grade Tool
How accurate is the AI grade estimate?
It’s an estimate, not a guarantee. The AI looks at centering, corners, edges, and surface in your photos and returns a projected grade band. It can’t feel the card, and it doesn’t know print defects only visible under specific lighting. Treat it as a data point, not a promise. See the disclaimer for details.
Why is adding the back of the card recommended?
For AI card identification (the “Snap a photo” button on the pricing page), the back is where the card number usually lives — dramatically improves accuracy on cards whose number isn’t clearly visible on the front. For the Grade Tool itself, we analyze both sides since centering and corner wear show up on both.
The auto-crop put the box in the wrong place — now what?
Tap where the correct corner should be and the nearest dot jumps there. Fine tune by dragging. If the auto-crop looks way off, tap Re-run with AI in the cropper header — that forces a full two-pass Claude Vision detection, which handles photos with messy backgrounds much better.
The Flip Calc
What’s the difference between the Flip page and the Grade & Flip panel on a search?
The Grade & Flip panel shows up automatically when you search a specific raw card that has a year and comps — it pulls PSA 9 and PSA 10 comps for that exact card and estimates grading profit. The Flip page lets you manually plug in a buy price and see how it compares to current comps at each grade tier.
Why doesn’t the Grade & Flip panel show on every search?
It hides when your query is too generic (no year specified) because the grade comps would be unreliable — you’d get PSA 10 “Chipper Jones 1/1” sales spanning 30 years of product. We only run the flip math when the card is pinned down enough to give meaningful comps.
Lot Calculator
How does the Lot Calculator price each card?
You paste a lot listing URL; we scrape the photos, AI-identify each card, and price each one through the same pricing stack as the main search — plus fallbacks: if a specific graded card has no comps, we try the raw equivalent, then a lower grade, then the base parallel, then similar cards. Each card is marked as an estimate when a fallback was used.
A lot card says “Not found” — why?
Every fallback in the chain came back with zero matches. Usually this means the AI misread the card (try cropping the photo tighter) or it’s an obscure parallel with no recent market. You can manually type the card to overwrite the AI’s guess.
Offer Evaluator
How does it decide between accept, counter, and pass?
Three inputs: what you net after fees and shipping versus what you’re in it for, the offer as a percentage of recent sold comps, and how fast the card actually sells. The third is the one people get wrong — the same 15%-under offer is worth countering on a card that trades weekly and worth taking on one that sells twice a year, because holding has a cost that never shows up on a fee line.
Why did it tell me to accept an offer below my cost?
Because the card is underwater, not the offer. If even a full-price sale at today’s comps wouldn’t clear what you paid, the loss is already in the buy — holding only helps if the market comes back. Taking a fair price and recycling the cash is usually the better move, and the tool says so explicitly rather than hiding it behind a “decline.”
Why won’t it counter on some low offers?
Countering is free on eBay, so a pass is rare — reserved for genuinely insulting offers. On the other end, if a counter would only add a dollar or two after fees, it recommends taking the offer instead of risking the sale over pocket change.
Collection Completion
What is the Completion view?
A third toggle in your Collection, next to Grid and List, showing what you’re close to finishing. Rainbows are every numbered parallel of one card — own one and the full ladder appears, the base card through the 1/1, with every rung linking to an eBay search for that exact version. Sets show progress on insert sets you’ve started, with the card numbers you still need and a copy-able want list.
Do I have to add a card to mark a parallel as owned?
No. Ticking a rung on a rainbow is just a tick — no price, no comps, no tile, and it doesn’t count against your collection cap. Add the card properly when you want it priced and tracked; tick the rung when you only want the ladder to be honest about what you own.
Why don’t I see my base set in there?
You will under the Base filter, but inserts lead by default. A 25-card insert is a realistic chase; a 300-card base run is better tracked on a dedicated checklist site. Sets also need at least two cards owned before they appear, otherwise every loose single would show up as a set in progress.
What does “unverified checklist” mean?
That the set’s checklist came from an automated source rather than one we’ve hand-checked, so it may be missing cards. A percentage is only as good as the checklist behind it — if we held 40 cards of a 50-card insert, owning all 40 would read as complete and you’d stop hunting. We’d rather flag the doubt than let the number imply you’re finished.
Collection & Watchlist
What’s the arrow next to the price?
That’s the trend arrow — green up or red down — showing the delta versus the last time you checked this card’s price. Tap “Check” on a card to refresh it; the next check after that will show whether the value moved.
What’s the difference between Collection and Watchlist?
Collection is stuff you own — track purchase price, current value, and gain/loss. Watchlist is stuff you’re watching to buy — set a target price and we’ll tell you when the market drops into range.
Can I sort or filter my Collection / Watchlist?
Yes — the sort + filter controls appear above the card list once you have more than one card. Collection sorts by name, paid, current price, gain $, gain %, or last checked; filters narrow to priced, unpriced, winners, or losers. Watchlist sorts by target, current price, distance-to-target (deals first), or last checked; filters narrow to at-target, near (within 10%), above target, or unchecked. Sort and filter are session-only — they reset on refresh.
Why did “Check All” skip some of my cards?
Check All intentionally skips any card you’ve checked within the last 7 days. This protects our paid-API budget — a 100-card collection clicked twice a week would otherwise burn 200 calls on data that’s effectively unchanged. The skipped count is shown in the progress message. If you need fresher data for a specific card, the per-row Check button always refreshes immediately. If every card was checked recently, Check All will ask before re-burning the budget.
Accuracy & Edge Cases
The FMV looks too low / too high for a card I know well. Why?
Usually one of three things:
- Your search was too broad or too specific — try adding a year, removing a grade, or vice versa.
- A specific parallel is being filtered in or out. Check the Variants & Parallels panel and tap the correct one.
- There just aren’t many recent sales. Low-volume cards bounce around — look at the Sales Volume chart to see how much data we have.
- The card is moving fast. FMV weights two months of sales, so a card mid-run reads below its last few sales. See Why is your FMV lower than the last few sales I can see on eBay? above.
Can I trust this for investment decisions?
No tool should be the only input to an investment decision. Verdict is a snapshot of recent market behavior. Use it as one data point alongside your own judgment. See the disclaimer.