MTG Trades vs TCG Archivist
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MTG Trades
Manage your Magic: The Gathering card collection and trades with real-time pricing data. Evaluate trades, track loaned or borrowed cards, and maintain watchlists of desired cards. Access a comprehensive database with offline capabilities.
- Card price lookup by expansion/name
- Trade evaluation
- Trade history
- Watchlist of wanted cards
- Loan/borrow tracking
- Offline database access
- Foil and non-foil pricing
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MTG Trades gives you the tools you need for trading Magic cards, right at your fingertips. It includes card prices by expansion or card name, lets you evaluate trades and view your trade history, store a watchlist of wanted cards, and allows you to track cards you have loaned or borrowed. Features: • View price information for every physical Magic card by individual printings. • Supports non-foil and foil pricing for all cards, including many promo cards, tokens and emblems. • Download database and automatic prices updates from within the app, for offline use (requires Premium). • Save cards to various Want Lists so you always know what you're looking for during trades and how much they're worth (requires premium for multiple lists) • Want Lists show total value and can be sorted alphabetically, by price or by rarity. • Enter cards or cash in a new Trade to quickly evaluate the equity of the trade. • Store a history of your past trades along with current and at-the-time price information (requires premium for multiple trades) • Track cards you have lent out or borrowed from other people. • Prices are aggregated from a range of online stores courtesy of TCGplayer.com. • Complete iCloud syncing. • Supports Dynamic Type for altering text size. • Universal app for iPhone, iPad and Mac (as iPad app). • Supports iPad multitasking. This app has been carefully designed to be simple and fast to use. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please suggest them from within the app. Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ This app is not produced or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
TCG Archivist
Digitize and manage your Magic: The Gathering card collection effortlessly. Scan cards instantly, track their values, and locate any card in your storage. Keep your entire collection accessible anywhere.
- Digitize card collection
- Scan cards instantly
- Track card values
- Locate cards in storage
- Manage entire collection
- Accessible anywhere
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TCG Archivist is the ultimate collection management tool for Magic: The Gathering players. We believe sorting your collection is the wrong approach. Sorting is time consuming, impossible to maintain, and never actually gives you a clear picture of what you own. TCG Archivist is built around a better system. One that the world's most efficient warehouses and retailers have used for decades. Scan your cards into labeled storage locations. No sorting required. When you need a card search the app, find the location, and have it in your hand in under a minute. Your entire collection becomes fully searchable, filterable, and always up to date. Know exactly what you own. Track your collection value in real time. Build decks from cards you actually have. Find any card in seconds. For players with larger collections the CSC100 hardware scanner makes building your digital catalog dramatically faster, but any camera will get you started today. Your collection. Always searchable. Always in reach. Terms of Use : https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: MTG Trades at 4.6 against TCG Archivist's 4.1. MTG Trades also leads on monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases) and review sentiment (62% vs 40%). TCG Archivist's advantage is update cadence (every 9 days vs every 2 months) and iOS requirement (15.5 vs 17.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. MTG Trades sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month and TCG Archivist sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
MTG Trades holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MTG Trades has 1.1K ratings behind it against 24, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 62% of MTG Trades's written reviews are positive against 40% of TCG Archivist's.
MTG Trades ships an update every 2 months, TCG Archivist every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MTG Trades | TCG Archivist |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (1.1K ratings) — better | 4.1 (24 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 61.6% of reviews — better | 40.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1.1K — better | 24 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.5 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 54 MB | 498 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Michael Wybrow | TCG Archivist LLC |
Customer experience
MTG Trades
TCG Archivist
Bugs and requests
MTG Trades
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes when deleting cards from lists
- MKM card images not loading properly
- Incorrect pricing for some promo and special cards
Requested features
5 requests- Integrate with deck building and collection management
- Add more advanced search and filtering capabilities
- Implement market pricing options for trades
- Improve basic lands and foil card handling
- Provide more detailed price history and trending data
TCG Archivist
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
MTG Trades
- Premium Monthly1 Month trial$0.991 Month
- Premium Yearly1 Month trial$6.991 Year
TCG Archivist
- Monthly Sub$4.991 Month








