Hoard as a TCGplayer Pro alternative

TCGplayer Pro is TCGplayer's own seller tier, built into every seller account. No monthly fee, no contract, no setup step beyond opting in. It bundles MassPrice, a bulk repricing tool that lets you set rules across your inventory on a schedule. For a lot of sellers, it's the first repricing tool they ever touch, because it's already there.

Hoard is a separate paid product that sits on top of your existing TCGplayer account and reprices with market signal instead of static rules. The real question isn't "which tool is better" in the abstract. It's whether MassPrice's rule-based repricing is enough for your store, or whether you're leaving money on the table between its scheduled runs.

MassPrice's real advantage: it's already there

Pro is genuinely free in the sense that matters most: no signup fee, no contract, no separate account to manage. It's already integrated into the seller dashboard you're using today, so there's zero switching cost. If your store is small, your catalog doesn't move fast, and you're comfortable checking prices manually every so often, MassPrice's scheduled rules can cover the basics without adding another subscription. That's a real advantage, not a footnote.

The tradeoff is that MassPrice is coarse. It applies rules (undercut by X%, match the lowest price, floor at Y) on a fixed schedule, without reading the market between runs. It doesn't factor in cross-market signal, doesn't adapt to how fast a card is moving, and doesn't distinguish a card that's spiking from one that's flat. It reprices when you tell it to, the way you told it to, every time.

Where adaptive repricing catches what MassPrice misses

Hoard's pitch isn't "free vs. paid." It's what the Pro Fee is already costing you against what adaptive repricing gets back. Hoard runs on a schedule tied to your plan: Gold syncs weekly, Platinum daily, Diamond every four hours. The faster tiers exist because market movement between MassPrice's scheduled runs is exactly where a rule-based tool falls behind. A card can spike and settle before your next scheduled pass ever sees it.

Past the sync frequency, there's a set of features MassPrice doesn't have at all:

• An auditable log — what changed, from what price to what price, and which rule decided it
• Watch-only preview mode — see what a repricing run would do before any price actually changes, with rollback if you don't like the result
• Price floors and ceilings — set a floor from your own margin math, and see the reason logged when a guardrail holds a rule back instead of a silent stop
• Refund and return tracking tied to the order, buyer, and product line

What the Pro Fee actually costs

The Pro Fee is 2.5% on online sales shipped to a customer. In-store point-of-sale transactions aren't charged the Pro Fee at all. On its own, 2.5% looks small. SleeveIQ, a third-party pricing comparison site (we haven't independently verified their figures), rolls the Pro Fee into TCGplayer's standard marketplace commission and puts the effective all-in take rate at 13.25% (10.75% marketplace commission plus the 2.5% Pro Fee), citing an example of $662.50 in commission cost on $5,000 of monthly online sales. Take that example as SleeveIQ's math, not TCGplayer's own published figure — and it overstates the real number, since Pro sellers actually pay a reduced 9.25% commission plus the 2.5% Pro Fee, for 11.75% combined, not the standard 10.75% rate with 2.5% simply added on. It's a useful sanity check on the shape of the cost, but confirm current commission rates directly with TCGplayer before running your own numbers.

Hoard doesn't touch that commission structure at all. TCGplayer's marketplace fees and the Pro Fee are unaffected either way. What changes is whether your prices track the market between MassPrice's scheduled runs, and whether you can see what a repricing rule is about to do before it does it. Compare Hoard's plans against what your current sync frequency is costing you in missed movement.

If MassPrice's scheduled rules are keeping up with your catalog and you don't feel the gap between runs, there's no reason to add a second tool. If you're checking prices manually because MassPrice isn't fast enough, that's the gap Hoard is built for.

Common questions

How much does TCGplayer Pro cost?

There's no separate monthly fee for Pro itself, but online sales shipped to a customer carry a 2.5% Pro Fee (in-store point-of-sale sales are exempt). SleeveIQ, a third-party comparison site (unverified by us), rolls that into TCGplayer's standard marketplace commission and estimates an effective all-in take rate of 13.25% — though Pro sellers actually pay a reduced 9.25% commission plus the Pro Fee, for 11.75% combined.

Does MassPrice read the market between scheduled runs?

No. MassPrice applies rules — undercut by X%, match the lowest price, floor at Y — on a fixed schedule without reading the market between runs. It doesn't factor in cross-market signal or distinguish a card that's spiking from one that's flat.

How often does Hoard reprice compared to MassPrice?

Hoard's sync frequency is tied to your plan: Gold syncs weekly, Platinum daily, Diamond every four hours. MassPrice runs on a manual schedule you set yourself.

Does Hoard change TCGplayer's marketplace commission or Pro Fee?

No. Hoard doesn't touch that commission structure at all — TCGplayer's marketplace fees and the Pro Fee are unaffected either way. What changes is whether your prices track the market between MassPrice's scheduled runs.

Does Hoard take a percentage of my sales like the Pro Fee does?

No. Hoard doesn't take a cut of sales — it's priced flat monthly by sync tier. See Hoard's plans for the current tiers.

If I cancel TCGplayer Pro, does Hoard stop working?

No. Hoard only needs your TCGplayer seller account to be Level 4 or higher, which has nothing to do with Pro (see seller levels explained). Pro is what MassPrice requires, not Hoard. Cancel Pro once you've migrated off MassPrice and Hoard keeps syncing and pricing exactly the same.