Full answers about scanning, prices, collections, and everything else that comes up — all on one page.
Tappr is available free on the App Store and Google Play. Search for "Tappr" in either store, or go to scanmtg.com/download/ for direct links to both platforms. Installation and setup only take a moment, just like any other camera-based app.
Open Tappr and tap the scan button, then point your phone's camera at any Magic: The Gathering card. Hold the card flat and steady under even lighting until the app locks on — within a couple of seconds it identifies the card's name, set, collector number, rarity, and foil status, and shows you a live market price. From there you can add it straight to your collection with a single tap.
You can scan and price-check cards without signing up, but creating a free account lets you save cards to a collection, track set completion, and keep everything in sync if you switch phones. Setting up an account takes under a minute with an email address or a social sign-in option.
Yes. Core features — scanning, live price lookups, and basic collection tracking — are free with no account required. Tappr Pro is an optional subscription that adds features like deeper collection analytics and full set-completion tools for players and collectors who want more.
Tappr covers Magic: The Gathering cards across the game's full history — from Alpha and Beta in 1993 through the newest releases such as Foundations, Bloomburrow, and Modern Horizons 3. That includes core sets, expansions, Commander precons, Secret Lair drops, and most promotional printings, so whether you're holding a decades-old card or something from last month's drop, Tappr should recognize it.
Scanning and price lookups need an internet connection, since card identification and live market pricing both run through Tappr's servers. Once cards are saved to your collection, you can browse what you've already added while offline, but new scans and price refreshes will need to wait until you're back online.
Just your phone's camera and a reasonably well-lit space — no lightbox, scanner attachment, or other accessories required. A plain, non-reflective background and even lighting (avoiding a single bright light directly overhead) will give you the fastest, most reliable scans, especially on foil cards.
When you point your camera at a card, Tappr's AI-powered recognition analyzes the artwork, set symbol, collector number, and text box to identify the exact card and printing. Within a couple of seconds it returns the card name, set, collector number, rarity, and foil status, along with a live market price.
Tappr is built to recognize the specific printing you're holding, not just the card name — so it can distinguish a Standard-legal reprint from a rare Reserved List original of the same card. Identification works best with clear lighting and a steady hand; if the app isn't fully confident, it surfaces the closest matches so you can confirm the correct one yourself.
Yes — Tappr can scan through clear penny sleeves and most top-loaders without you needing to remove the card. Heavily scratched, tinted, or matte-textured sleeves can obscure enough detail to slow down recognition, so for best results use clear sleeves and tilt the card slightly to avoid direct glare off the plastic.
Failed scans almost always come down to lighting, glare, or focus. Move to an area with even, indirect light rather than a single bright overhead source, make sure the full card is inside the camera frame, and hold the phone steady for a beat so the camera can focus before it captures. Foils and glossy sleeves are the most glare-prone — tilting the card a few degrees off perpendicular to your light source usually clears it up.
Yes. Tappr identifies foil status alongside the card itself, and it distinguishes between different treatments and frame types — including borderless, extended-art, showcase frames, and serialized cards — since these can carry very different market prices than a standard non-foil printing of the same card.
Tappr is built for fast, sequential scanning — after each card is identified and added, you can move straight to the next one without backing out to a menu. It's designed for going through a binder, a bulk box, or a freshly opened set of cards one at a time at a steady pace, rather than trying to capture multiple cards in a single frame.
Fill as much of the frame with the card as you comfortably can while keeping all four corners visible — that gives the scanner the clearest read on the set symbol and collector number. A slight tilt away from directly perpendicular to any light source helps avoid glare, especially on foils and glossy modern frames.
Tappr sources live pricing through Scryfall, which aggregates market data from TCGplayer and Cardmarket — two of the largest Magic: The Gathering marketplaces. That means the price you see reflects real listings and sales activity rather than a fixed or estimated value.
Pricing data refreshes on a regular basis to reflect current market conditions, so the price shown when you scan a card is generally close to what the market looks like at that moment. Because Magic card prices can move with format bans, new set releases, and shifting demand, treat any price as a live snapshot rather than a permanent number.
TCGplayer reflects the US-dollar market, concentrated in North America, while Cardmarket reflects the euro-denominated European market — the two regions can have meaningfully different supply and demand for the same card. A card that's in heavy demand for one region's competitive Commander or Modern scene may command a premium there that isn't mirrored on the other marketplace, and currency fluctuation adds another layer of difference on top of that.
Yes. Foil status is factored into the price Tappr displays, since foil and non-foil printings of the same card typically trade at different values. Condition matters too — market prices are generally benchmarked around Near Mint copies, so a card you've tagged with a lower condition in your collection is worth less than the headline price shown for that printing.
Tappr focuses on giving you an accurate current price the moment you scan or view a card, since that's what matters most for collecting and trading decisions in the field. Deeper price history is something the underlying marketplaces track in more depth if you want to research how a specific card has moved over time.
Prices default to US dollars, reflecting the TCGplayer side of the market, alongside the Cardmarket euro price where available. Seeing both gives you a read on the US and European markets for a given card rather than just one region's numbers.
After Tappr identifies a card, tap "Add to Collection" from the scan result screen. The card is saved with its exact printing, set, and price at the time you added it, and you can immediately tag its condition, quantity, and whether it is foil.
Yes. You can group and filter your collection by set, by color, or by custom lists — useful for tracking a specific Commander deck, a Standard-legal pool, or a long-term set-building project separately from the rest of your cards. Cards can belong to more than one grouping at once, so a card in your Modern deck list can also count toward its set.
With a free account, your collection syncs automatically whenever you're signed in, so scanning a card on your phone and later checking your collection on a tablet or a new device shows the same data. Sync happens over an internet connection, so anything added while offline syncs the next time you're connected.
Your collection dashboard totals the current market value of every card you've added, using live pricing for each individual printing and condition. As prices move, your collection value updates accordingly, giving you a running sense of what your cards are worth as a whole rather than card by card.
Yes, you can export your collection — including card names, sets, quantities, conditions, and current prices — for your own records, insurance documentation, or to bring into a spreadsheet. This is especially useful before a big trade or sale, or if you just want a backup outside the app.
If you've signed into an account, your collection stays saved to that account, so reinstalling Tappr and signing back in restores everything. If you were using Tappr without an account, collection data is stored locally and will be lost if you uninstall — creating a free account first is the safest way to keep your data intact.
Set completion tracking compares the cards you own against the full checklist for a given Magic set, showing you a completion percentage and exactly which cards you're still missing. It's built for anyone chasing down a full set, whether that's a recent Standard set or an older classic set.
Tappr supports set completion tracking across the game's catalog, from early sets through the newest releases like Foundations and Bloomburrow. As new sets release, they get added to the tracker so you can start building toward them from day one.
As you scan and add cards to your collection, Tappr automatically checks them off against that set's full card list. Open a set's tracker page and you'll see your owned cards alongside a clearly marked list of everything you don't have yet, so you always know what to look for next.
Yes. Because foils, borderless cards, showcase frames, and other special treatments are distinct printings, Tappr tracks them as their own entries rather than lumping them in with the standard version. You can track completion for the base set alone or include every alternate treatment, depending on which version of "complete" you're chasing.
Standard set completion is based on the numbered card checklist for that set, which is what most collectors track toward. Tokens and separately numbered promotional cards are generally tracked as their own category rather than folded into the main set percentage, since they're typically optional extras rather than part of the core set you're trying to finish.
Yes, you can share a snapshot of your set completion progress straight from the app — it shows your completion percentage along with a visual breakdown of owned versus missing cards, which is a handy way to show off progress or ask trading partners for help tracking down what you still need.
The free tier covers the core of what most people need: card scanning, live price lookups, and basic collection tracking. You can scan cards, add them to a collection, and see what they are worth without paying anything or needing Pro.
Pro is available as a monthly or annual subscription and builds on the free tier with deeper collection tools — full set-completion tracking across your whole collection, expanded collection analytics and value history, and other convenience features aimed at serious collectors and players managing larger collections. Exact plan options are shown in the app before you subscribe.
Yes. Subscriptions are managed through your device's app store account rather than inside Tappr directly — on iOS that's your Apple ID subscription settings, on Android it's Google Play's subscriptions page. You can cancel at any time, and you'll keep Pro access through the end of the period you've already paid for.
Tappr periodically offers a free trial period for new Pro subscribers so you can try the full feature set before committing. Trial availability and length are shown at the point of purchase in the app, since they can vary by promotion and platform.
No. Your collection — every card you've scanned and added, along with its condition, quantity, and history — stays intact whether or not you're subscribed to Pro. Canceling just returns you to the free feature set; it doesn't delete or lock away anything you've already saved.
Sign into the same account on your other device and your Pro subscription status carries over automatically, since subscriptions are tied to your account rather than a specific phone. If Pro does not appear right away, use the "Restore Purchases" option in Settings to re-check your subscription status with the app store.
Tappr uses the standard condition scale most of the Magic marketplace works with: Near Mint (NM), Lightly Played (LP), Moderately Played (MP), Heavily Played (HP), and Damaged (DMG). These are the same tiers you will see on TCGplayer and Cardmarket listings, so tagging your cards this way keeps your collection's estimated value consistent with what buyers and sellers actually use.
When you add a scanned card to your collection, or any time afterward from its detail view, tap the condition field and choose the tier that matches the card. You can update a card's condition later too — useful if you re-examine a card more closely or its condition changes over time, such as a sleeve tear.
No — Tappr's condition tags are a quick, practical way to track raw card condition for collection and pricing purposes, not a substitute for professional grading. Services like PSA, BGS, and CGC use detailed, numeric grading scales and physically encapsulate the card, which matters for high-value cards where a precise, third-party-verified grade meaningfully affects resale value.
The price Tappr surfaces from live market data is generally benchmarked to Near Mint condition, since that's the baseline most listings use. A card you've tagged as Lightly Played or below in your collection is worth meaningfully less than that headline number — how much less depends on the specific card, since condition sensitivity varies, with older, more fragile cards and high-demand chase cards often hit hardest by wear.
Check corners first for whitening, dents, or softened points, then edges for nicks, fraying, or peeling along the border. Examine the surface under angled light for scratches, scuffing, or print lines, and check centering by comparing the border width on all four sides — a card that's noticeably off-center is usually marked down even if everything else looks clean. Foils deserve an extra look for surface waviness or foil scratching, which is easy to miss under flat lighting.
Yes — the reflective foil layer makes surface wear like scratches and print lines more visible than on a non-foil card, but it also makes glare more of a factor when inspecting it, so it's easy to miss real damage or mistake a light reflection for a scratch. Tilting the card slowly under a single light source, rather than relying on ambient overhead light, gives the clearest view of the actual foil surface.
Tappr is built as an identification and pricing tool rather than a marketplace — it tells you exactly what card and printing you're holding and what it's currently worth, so you're well-informed heading into a sale, rather than processing the sale itself. You'll still list and sell through a separate marketplace or store of your choice.
Scan the card to confirm the exact printing, foil status, and rarity, then check the live price Tappr shows, which reflects current market activity from TCGplayer and Cardmarket. Since that price is generally anchored to Near Mint condition, adjust your expectations down if your copy is Lightly Played or worse, using the condition tiers as a rough guide for how much to discount.
TCGplayer and Cardmarket are the two biggest dedicated marketplaces for singles, with TCGplayer more concentrated in the US market and Cardmarket in Europe. Card Kingdom buys cards directly and pays out quickly, trading a bit of value for convenience. Local game stores are worth checking too, especially for quick cash or store credit, and they're often the easiest route for cards you want gone with minimal listing effort.
Cards with real individual value are almost always worth listing separately, since bulk buyers price lots based on the cheapest cards in them, not the best ones. Commons, uncommons, and low-demand cards are usually better sold or traded in bulk, since the time cost of listing each one individually rarely pays off. Use Tappr to sort through a stack quickly and separate out anything worth listing on its own before bulking the rest.
A lot — condition is one of the biggest levers on what a buyer will actually pay, especially for higher-demand and older cards. Describing a card's condition accurately, using the same NM/LP/MP/HP/DMG scale buyers expect, builds trust and avoids returns or disputes, and it's worth double-checking condition right before listing since handling and storage can introduce new wear over time.
Sleeve individual cards before photographing or shipping them, and take clear, well-lit photos that show the actual condition rather than a glossy, glare-heavy shot that hides flaws. Be upfront about anything notable, such as whitening, edge wear, or a bent corner, since accurate listings sell faster and get fewer disputes than ones that oversell condition.
Start with lighting and framing — move to an evenly lit space, keep the entire card inside the camera frame, and make sure the camera has focused before capturing. Glare is the most common culprit, especially on foils and glossy modern frames, so try tilting the card a few degrees to redirect reflections away from the lens. If a specific card keeps failing, try a plain, non-reflective background instead of a busy playmat or table surface.
Slow scans are usually a connectivity issue, since identification and pricing both require a live connection to Tappr's servers. Check your Wi-Fi or cellular signal, and if you're on a weak connection, switching networks or moving somewhere with better signal should speed things up. Closing other apps running in the background can also help if your phone is under memory pressure.
Foils are the most glare-prone cards to scan because the reflective surface can bounce direct light straight back into the camera, washing out the details the scanner needs. Angle the card slightly instead of holding it flat under an overhead light, and try moving to softer, indirect lighting — a lamp bounced off a wall or ceiling usually works better than a bright ceiling light straight overhead.
Confirm you're signed into the same account on both devices, since sync is tied to your account rather than the device itself. Make sure both devices have an active internet connection, then pull down to refresh on the collection screen to force a manual sync. If cards are still missing after that, signing out and back in on the affected device triggers a full resync.
Make sure you're on the latest version of Tappr from the App Store or Google Play, since fixes for crashes are typically shipped as app updates. Force-quitting the app and reopening it resolves most one-off crashes; if it keeps happening, restarting your phone and, as a last resort, reinstalling the app usually clears it — your collection will still be there once you sign back in.
Open Settings within Tappr and look for the contact or support option, which routes your message directly to the team along with helpful device details. Include what you were trying to do, what happened instead, and your device type when you reach out — it makes tracking down the issue much faster.
Check your phone's system settings to confirm Tappr has camera permission enabled — on iOS this is under Settings > Tappr > Camera, and on Android it's under Settings > Apps > Tappr > Permissions. If you denied camera access when first prompted, you'll need to enable it manually from these settings rather than being asked again automatically.
Yes. Your collection — the cards you've scanned, their conditions, quantities, and value — is visible only to you when signed into your account. Tappr doesn't have public profiles or social feeds that expose your collection to other users, and your data isn't sold to third parties.
A scan sends the image of the card to Tappr's servers for identification, along with basic device and app-usage information used to keep the service running smoothly. The scanned image itself is used only to identify the card in the moment — what's actually saved to your account is the resulting card data (name, set, collector number, condition, and so on), not a permanent copy of the photo.
Your account is protected by your chosen sign-in method — email and password, or a social sign-in option — and data in transit and at rest is encrypted using industry-standard practices. Using a strong, unique password, or a supported social sign-in with its own security protections, is the best way to keep your account secure on your end.
You can request account deletion from the Settings screen in the app. Deleting your account permanently removes your collection data and account information from Tappr's servers, so if you want to keep a record of your collection, export it first — account deletion cannot be undone.
Card images are used to identify the card at the moment you scan it and are not kept as permanent photo storage tied to your account. Once a card is identified and added to your collection, what's saved is the structured card data, not the original picture you took of it.
No. Tappr does not sell or rent your personal data or collection information to third parties for marketing or any other purpose. Aggregated, anonymized usage data may be used internally to improve scanning accuracy and the overall app experience, but it isn't tied back to you individually or shared outside the company.
Use the "Forgot Password" link on the sign-in screen to receive a reset email, then follow the link to set a new password. If you originally signed up through a social sign-in option, use that same provider to log back in rather than trying to reset a password that was never set.
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