Every API here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.
openapi: 3.2.0
info:
title: Hobby Card Index Data watch list and webhooks API
version: '1'
summary: Real sold prices, photo identification, cert lookups, pop reports, sold sales and price history for sports cards and trading cards.
description: 'Real sold prices for sports cards and trading cards: a catalog of more than 16 million cards across 25-plus categories (baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece and more) with more than 22 million raw and graded prices, refreshed daily, plus card identification from a photo, PSA, BGS, CGC and SGC cert lookups, population reports, verified sold-sale records, daily price history, set lists, market movers, a price watch list with a daily webhook, and bulk price files.
## Keys and plans
Every endpoint needs an API key, sent as the `X-API-Key` header (or `Authorization: Bearer`). Keys come from Settings, API Access, after subscribing. An **Enterprise** plan ($49.99 a month) includes a key for your own business''s internal use: 1 request a second, up to 100,000 a day. Apps, websites and products whose users see the data need a **Commercial plan** (a commercial data license, Terms of Service section 8):
- Lite (plan id `lite`): $99 a month; 25,000 requests, 25,000 photo scans, 5,000 sold-sale lookups, 150 cert lookups, 10 lookups a second, price history.
- Growth Lite (plan id `growth_lite`): $249 a month; 125,000 requests, 125,000 photo scans, 25,000 sold-sale lookups, 750 cert lookups, 15 lookups a second, price history.
- Growth (plan id `growth`): $499 a month; 500,000 requests, 500,000 photo scans, 100,000 sold-sale lookups, 3,000 cert lookups, 20 lookups a second, price history.
- Platform (plan id `platform`): from $1,500 a month; 2,000,000 requests, 1,500,000 photo scans, 500,000 sold-sale lookups, 50,000 cert lookups, 50 lookups a second, price history, bulk price files.
A **free setup month** is by application in Settings, API Access (one per company): enough to build and test against real data, with daily pools. Plans, prices and how to buy, including how an AI agent can buy a plan for its user with no account (GET /api/v1/agent/plans, POST /api/v1/agent/checkout): https://hobbycardindex.com/developers#commercial-plans. Questions or a bigger deal: sean@hobbycardindex.com.
## Credit the data (required)
Commercial plans ask for one link back to https://hobbycardindex.com somewhere on your site, such as ''Prices and API supplied by Hobby Card Index''; it does not need to be beside the prices. Every successful JSON object response carries an `attribution` object (text, url, html, required, terms) and an `X-Attribution` header with the same credit, so it can be rendered straight from the response. Put the credit beside the prices or anywhere on your website, such as the footer. Snippet: `Prices from Hobby Card Index`.
## Conventions
- Base URL `https://hobbycardindex.com`; every path starts with `/api/v1/`. Prices are US dollars with two decimals; a grade with no price is `null`. Grade keys: `loose` (raw), `psa10`, `psa9`, `psa8`, `psa7`, `bgs10` (BGS 9.5), `cgc10`, `sgc10`.
- Successful responses are `{ "success": true, "data": { ... }, "attribution": { ... } }`; errors are `{ "success": false, "error": { "code", "message", "details"? } }` with the HTTP status that fits (400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 409, 413, 429, 500, 503). Streamed downloads (CSV, bulk files, the watch-list prices) are not wrapped.
- Card ids: pass the integer `id` every response carries, or `ext-` plus the card''s `externalId`. Picture links (`imageUrl`) go through our image proxy and need no key; a link can answer 404 later if the picture is withdrawn, so show a placeholder on a 404.
- Rate limits: 1 request a second on an Enterprise key, the plan''s lookups a second on a commercial key, with `RateLimit-*` and `X-RateLimit-*` headers on the one-second window. Commercial plans also return `X-HCI-Plan` and `X-HCI-*-Used` / `X-HCI-*-Allowance` headers for the monthly counters.
- The same data through an MCP server for AI assistants: POST https://hobbycardindex.com/api/v1/mcp, manifest https://hobbycardindex.com/.well-known/mcp.json.'
termsOfService: https://hobbycardindex.com/terms/
contact:
name: Sean Charman, Hobby Card Index
email: sean@hobbycardindex.com
url: https://hobbycardindex.com/developers
license:
name: Hobby Card Index Terms of Service (section 8, Commercial Data License)
url: https://hobbycardindex.com/terms/#data-license
x-logo:
url: https://hobbycardindex.com/hci-logo2.png
altText: Hobby Card Index
href: https://hobbycardindex.com
x-attribution:
text: Prices from Hobby Card Index
url: https://hobbycardindex.com
html: <a href="https://hobbycardindex.com" rel="noopener">Prices from Hobby Card Index</a>
required: true
terms: https://hobbycardindex.com/terms/
servers:
- url: https://hobbycardindex.com
description: Production
security:
- ApiKeyAuth: []
tags:
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# Full source: https://artifacts.apis.io/hobbycardindex-com/openapi/hobbycardindex-com-watch-list-and-webhooks-api-openapi.yml