Quick Start

Quick Start

Get up and running with TCG API in under 2 minutes.

1. Create an Account

curl -X POST "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/auth/register" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "[email protected]", "password": "your-secure-password"}'

2. Get Your API Key

# Login first (save the session cookie)
curl -X POST "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/auth/login" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "[email protected]", "password": "your-secure-password"}' \
  -c cookies.txt

# Create an API key
curl -X POST "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/keys" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -b cookies.txt \
  -d '{"name": "my-app"}'

Response:

{
  "data": {
    "id": "abc123",
    "key": "tcg_live_a1b2c3d4e5f6...",
    "name": "my-app",
    "tier": "free"
  }
}

Save your API key — it’s only shown once.

3. Make Your First Request

# List all supported games
curl "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/games"

# Search for cards (requires API key)
curl "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/search?q=charizard" \
  -H "X-API-Key: tcg_live_a1b2c3d4e5f6..."

4. Explore the API

Browse games and sets

# Get all Pokemon sets
curl "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/games/pokemon/sets" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY"

# Get cards in a specific set
curl "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/sets/123/cards" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY"

Get card prices

# Get a specific card with its current price
curl "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/cards/456" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY"

# Search with filters
curl "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/search?q=pikachu&game=pokemon&sort=price_desc" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY"

# Top price movers today
curl "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1/prices/top-movers?game=pokemon" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY"

Using with JavaScript

const API_KEY = 'tcg_live_...';
const BASE = 'https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1';

async function searchCards(query, game) {
  const params = new URLSearchParams({ q: query });
  if (game) params.set('game', game);

  const resp = await fetch(`${BASE}/search?${params}`, {
    headers: { 'X-API-Key': API_KEY },
  });
  return resp.json();
}

// Search for Charizard cards
const results = await searchCards('charizard', 'pokemon');
console.log(`Found ${results.meta.total} cards`);

Using with Python

import requests

API_KEY = "tcg_live_..."
BASE = "https://api.tcgapi.dev/v1"
HEADERS = {"X-API-Key": API_KEY}

# Search for cards
resp = requests.get(f"{BASE}/search", params={"q": "charizard", "game": "pokemon"}, headers=HEADERS)
data = resp.json()
print(f"Found {data['meta']['total']} cards")

for card in data["data"][:5]:
    print(f"  {card['name']} - ${card['price']['market_price']}")

Free Tier Limits

The free tier gives you 100 requests per day — enough to test and prototype. Rate limit info is included in every response:

{
  "rate_limit": {
    "daily_limit": 100,
    "daily_remaining": 95,
    "daily_reset": "2026-02-20T00:00:00.000Z"
  }
}

Need more? See pricing for Pro (10K/day) and Business (100K/day) plans.