How Prismint values cards

Version 5 (2026-10-04).

Prismint value is our estimate of what a card is worth. This page explains how we arrive at it in plain words. The exact recipe, including which data we use and how much each piece counts, is ours to keep, the same way a restaurant keeps its recipes. What we can promise is how we treat the evidence and how we check ourselves.

What Prismint value is

• Built from many sources, not one seller's listing. We gather prices from several independent sources, including real transactions where we can get them, and combine them into one number. A single listing, however loud, does not set the value.
• Not an offer. Prismint value is not what Prismint will pay for a card, and it is not a promise that someone will buy yours at that number. It is a planning guide for trades, collections and buying decisions.
• For a specific printing. A 1st Edition card, a reverse holo and a promo are valued separately, because collectors pay differently for them.
• The same everywhere. The value you see in search, on the card page, in your collection total, in a trade and on a shared trade page is the same number.

Freshness

Every value shows when the evidence behind it was last seen. That date comes from the newest piece of evidence we actually used, not from the last time our system recalculated, so a value that has not had new evidence in a while says so. If the evidence is more than a month old you will see "Value may be out of date". The value still shows and still counts.

Confidence and "Limited value data"

Some cards trade often and have plenty of evidence. Others rarely change hands. When we have only a little evidence for a card, you will see one short line under the value: "Limited value data". It does not hide the value, change its colour or stop you from using it in a trade. It tells you to treat the number as a rougher estimate.

A few rules keep thin or odd evidence from misleading you:

• Old evidence is set aside when newer evidence exists, instead of being averaged in.
• When two sources strongly disagree, we do not split the difference. We keep the one that is fresher and better supported, and we lower our confidence in the value.
• A sudden jump of more than three times a card's previous value waits for confirmation before it is published.
• A 1st Edition card is never valued below the matching Unlimited card.
• Round placeholder numbers that never move are flagged for review rather than trusted.

Conditions

Prismint uses five raw-card conditions: Near mint, Lightly played, Moderately played, Heavily played and Damaged.

• The headline value is for a Near mint copy.
• Each of the other four levels starts from a careful estimate based on cards of a similar age, value and rarity, and moves toward the card's own recent sales in that condition as they arrive.
• One sale moves a level only part of the way. The more independent recent sales we have for that condition, the further the value follows them, and with enough of them the value is based on the sales themselves. Sales older than our freshness window never move a value.
• A level can show how it was valued: from recent sales, from a mix of sales and the estimate, or from the estimate alone.
• A lower condition is never valued above a higher one. When recent sales disagree with that order, we even out the affected levels rather than show it.
• Very cheap cards have a small minimum value in every condition, because a played common still sells for a few cents.
• If you have not told us a copy's condition, it reads "Condition unknown" and its value is a range between the Lightly played and Near mint estimates, rather than pretending it is Near mint.
• Graded cards (for example PSA 10) will get their own values per grading company and grade. A grade is not a simple multiple of the raw value, so we do not treat it as one.

Channels: what a card is worth to you

The same card is worth different amounts depending on how it changes hands. The card page has a "What it's worth to you" panel under the value. It shows a range for each way a card can change hands, for the condition you pick. Every range is a planning guide, not an offer: Prismint does not buy or sell cards at these numbers, and nobody has promised to.

• Trade value: what the card counts for when you swap cards with another collector. It is the card's value for the condition you picked, and both sides of a trade use the same basis, so a fair swap compares like with like.
• Card-show cash estimate: roughly what a dealer at a card show would pay you in cash. Dealers pay less than a card's value because they take on the risk of reselling it and need to make a margin. Cheap bulk cards are bought by the stack, so their estimate is a few cents a card rather than a share of the value.
• Buying online (delivered): roughly what a copy costs to buy online once delivery and sales tax are added. It assumes an order big enough to qualify for free shipping and an average sales tax rate, and the panel states that order size and tax rate under the range. A single cheap card bought on its own usually costs much more once shipping is added.
• Store credit estimate: roughly what a local card shop would give you in store credit when you trade a card in. Shops pay more in credit than in cash because the credit is spent in their store, so the estimate starts from what a local shop pays in cash and adds about a fifth. It never goes above 85% of the card's value. Cheap cards get a small flat amount, like the card-show estimate.
• Selling online (after fees): roughly what you keep when you sell the card online yourself at its value for the condition. It takes off typical marketplace fees, the cost of shipping and packing supplies, and a small allowance for returns and problems. It assumes the buyer pays postage, as most online card sales do. Postage and supplies take a large share of what a cheap card sells for, so what you keep from a card worth a dollar or two can be close to nothing.

How fast a card sells

How quickly a card sells changes what a dealer will pay for it. A card that sells every day is easy to resell, so a dealer can pay closer to its value. A card that sells rarely may sit in a case for months, so a dealer pays less to cover that wait. Prismint sorts cards by how often they change hands and uses that to set the card-show cash range and the store credit estimate. When we cannot tell how often a card sells, we assume it sells slowly, so the estimate errs on the low side rather than promising cash a dealer will not pay.

How fast a card sells does not change its trade value, what it costs to buy online or what you keep selling online.

Known limits

• The card-show cash estimate rests on what dealers report paying, published buy rates and our own checks. Card-show deals are not recorded anywhere, so no audited sales stand behind it. Dealers at a show also differ from each other and from day to day.
• For cards that sell very often, we cannot yet tell from the evidence we hold how much faster they sell than steady sellers. Their card-show cash estimate may read a little low until we can.
• The online cost assumes an average sales tax rate. Your state's rate may be higher or lower.
• Graded cards and sealed product do not have channel ranges yet.
• The store credit estimate rests on published shop buy rates and the usual gap between a shop's cash and credit offers. Shops set their own rates, and many change them by card and by week.
• Selling online after fees assumes one typical marketplace fee schedule, standard postage and packing supplies. Fees, shipping and what a buyer will pay differ by where and how you sell. A card can also take weeks to sell online, and the range does not account for that wait.

When the method changes

The ranges come from a versioned rule set. Any change to the numbers behind a channel publishes a new version of that rule set, and this page gets a dated row under "What changed" saying what moved and why. We never change the ranges quietly.

Marketplace prices

On prismint.shop, Prismint sets what every card sells for. Sellers do not choose or change it.

• Each card sells at its Prismint value for its condition. A Lightly played copy sells at the Lightly played value, not the Near mint one. Prices are rounded to the nearest 5 cents under $20, 25 cents under $100 and whole dollar above that.
• Prices update once a day, after the nightly value run. A large overnight move waits for a person to check it before listings change.
• What you see is what you pay. When you add a card to your cart, the amount is held for 15 minutes, and for 30 minutes once you start checkout. If the daily update moves it in that time, you still pay the amount you saw.
• Not for sale when the evidence is thin. If a card has only limited or out-of-date evidence, or a value is waiting for confirmation, the listing is marked pending and cannot be bought until the evidence improves. Played copies whose value rests on our estimate alone, with only one source behind the card, are treated the same way.
• Cards worth less than 25 cents are not sold one at a time.

How we check accuracy

• Every change to a value is kept as history, so a moved collection total can be explained.
• Before we change how values are calculated, we test the change against past data to make sure it would have been more accurate, not less.
• As collectors complete trades on Prismint, the values people actually agree on help us check ourselves. That data is used only in aggregate and with identifying details removed. What we learn from it is proposed as a new version of the rules and reviewed by a person; it never changes values on its own.
• Every change to how played-condition values are calculated must do at least as well as the last check below, and better than a flat rule of thumb, before it ships.

How accurate is it

We check played-condition values the honest way: we set a value using only what we knew on a given day, then compare it with the played-copy prices that came in over the following 30 days. We repeat that every week across the period.

The latest check ran on 4 October 2026. It covered 88 popular cards from 42 sets and 1,247 later prices for Lightly played, Moderately played, Heavily played and Damaged copies seen between May and September 2026.

• A typical played-condition value landed about 47% above or below the later prices for that card and condition. Half of the comparisons were closer than that, and half were further away.
• A flat rule of thumb (80% of Near mint for Lightly played, 60% for Moderately played, 40% for Heavily played and 25% for Damaged) landed about 50% away on the same cards, so our values were a little closer.
• Lightly played values were the closest and Damaged values the furthest, because damaged copies vary the most from one to the next.
• On average our played-condition values ran about 6% low.
• Too few of these comparisons had a full range on our side to say yet how often our range holds later prices. We will add that here when we can.

These numbers are wide. Played copies sell less often than Near mint ones, and their prices swing with the exact wear on each copy, so treat a played-condition value as a starting point for a conversation rather than a quote. We will update this section after each check.

Checks before a value is published

Some values are held back before they reach you:

• A lower condition is never shown above a higher one.
• A 1st Edition card is never shown below the matching Unlimited card, for the Near mint value and for each played condition.
• A move of more than three times a card's last value, for the Near mint value or any played condition, waits for confirmation from newer evidence.
• Round placeholder numbers that never move are flagged rather than trusted.

When one of these checks fails, we keep showing the card's previous value and the case goes to a person to review. We never delete the evidence behind it.

Two more checks compare a raw card with its graded values. They send the card to a person to review and never change the value you see:

• A raw Near mint card valued above what grading it would usually return, after the grading fee.
• An older chase card whose raw Near mint value is below half of its PSA 1 value.

These checks only run when the card has enough recent graded sales to compare against.

Report a wrong value

If a value looks wrong, email support@prismint.app with the card (a link to its page is easiest) and what you expected. Reports go to a person who can see the evidence behind the value.

What changed