How we rate card ripping platforms
What goes into a score, what we refuse to guess at, and how we handle the money side so you can judge whether our numbers deserve your trust.
The scoring weights
Most of the weight sits on things that can be measured rather than impressions of a website. A platform's score is out of 10.
| Factor | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Pack expected value against price | 35% | What the average pack returns, calculated from published odds and checked against real sold prices |
| Buyback quality | 25% | The rate, and crucially whether it pays withdrawable money or site credit |
| Odds transparency | 20% | Whether a buyer can work out their own expected value before spending |
| Payouts and shipping | 10% | Getting the card or the money out, and what that costs |
| Trust and support | 10% | Track record, dispute handling, how clearly terms are stated |
Where the numbers come from
We collect each platform's published odds directly from its own pack pages and record the date. Those collections are published as CSV files on our open data page so anyone can check our arithmetic or redo it themselves.
Where a platform publishes an exact expected value, as Courtyard does, we report that figure and say that it is the platform's own. Where a platform publishes only value ranges, as Packz does, we calculate a band and report the midpoint as the headline with the full span alongside it. Where a platform publishes no values at all, as Arena Club does, we say the expected value cannot be calculated rather than inventing one.
What we will not do
- Publish a score before we have the data. A platform shows no rating here until we have collected its odds ourselves. An empty cell is more useful than a guess.
- Pass off a platform's valuations as verified. Every expected value on this site currently rests on the platform's own view of what its cards are worth. We label that clearly, and checking a sample against real sold prices is our current priority.
- Reuse another site's data. Other trackers exist and some do good work. We link to them where useful and build our own ratings only on numbers we have collected.
- Let a commission move a score. See below.
How we make money, and what that cannot buy
Some outbound links on this site are affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you sign up or buy through them. Every such link is marked and the disclosure appears in the footer of every page.
Commissions do not affect a score, a ranking, or any published number. We will publish an unfavourable finding about a platform we earn from, and we have no agreement with any platform that restricts what we can write. If a platform ever asks for one, we will say so on this page.
We also send each platform our figures before publishing and invite corrections. If a platform improves its disclosure or raises its buyback, we re-score it and say so.
Corrections
If you think a number here is wrong, tell us and show your working. We date every dataset so that a figure can be checked against what the platform published at the time, and we note changes rather than quietly overwriting them. Platforms do change their odds, and a corrected figure is a better outcome for everyone than a confident wrong one.