I am Sotiris. By day I'm a software engineer and mobile app developer, I spent my free time reading books and I am of those people that before breakfast I check card prices on CardMarket or TCGPlayer.

I always used multiple apps on my phone for Pokemon. I used one for scanning, one for prices, one as a wiki and a handful of Facebook groups for actual trading. Five places for a hobby I think this is more than enough.

So I built the app I wanted. It's called PokeTrade.ai, and this is the story of why it exists and what it does.

The problem is global not only mine

I have friends that collect or they own TCG stores around Greece. So I started asking everyone what annoyed them the most. Everyone had different problems. But the one thing that they all had in common is that they have to use multiple apps of even spreadsheets to keep track of everything.

Here's what kept coming up:

  • Pricing. Most pricing apps are built for US only. There is almost nothing good for EU prices everyone has to use CardMarket.
  • Collections and Binder tracking. You can't easily share your binders with others or keep track fo them.
  • Trading still runs on Facebook groups. You scroll, comment "pm", wait, and hope the person is real.

People deserved better tools than that and because nobody seemed to be building for helping people but they want to build for profit and when they take the money they basically stop listing to the people. I though of creating an app of my own.

What Poketrade Does

Super Fast Scanning that goes straight to the binder. Point your camera to any card JP or EN and in less than a second your card is recognized. I built a custom AI model just for that, it runs on your phone. No typing set numbers. (More about the scanner)

Real Prices based on your loction. All cards have market real market prices based on EU or USA and you can convert prices to the currency you want to see. If you're in Greece, Germany or the UK, you finally see a number that means something to you. (Look up a card)

Your binder is one link away. Share your binder to your friend with just one click. Your friends open it in a browser wihtout sign up.

Trade with people nreaby. Automated card matching with collectors near you. No shipping, no waiting a week to find out the card was "near mint" in name only.

Price alerts. Follow a card and PokeTrade tells you when its price moves a lot. Good for buying the dip, or knowing when to sell. (How alerts work)

Local shops and card shows. A directory of TCG shops and upcoming card shows, by country and city, so you know where to go on a Saturday.

In App Chat. You can chat for free directly through the app.

It's also free to start. There are no ads and the free version is good enough for most people. Also Premium is quit cheap only 5$. I only take home 3$ so if you want to support this project just buy Premium.

Building it

I built PokeTrade within 2 months, working at nights with 3 Claude Subscriptions. But the best part is that i went out and met with real collectors and TCG Store owners to ask them what they care about the most in an app. So I built something that the people actually want, not something that I like.

Now for the technical stuff if anyone is interested. If not just skip this part.

It is written in React Native with a few native module for Android and iOS ( the web app is Next.js ). It runs on 4 servers distributed accross Canada and Europe with K3s. I will make another article about that in the future.

The AI Scanning is super interesting because i took over 1000 photos on my own and found 10k more online to train my own AI Model to detect fingerprints ( Cards ) and compare them locally on device, it even works offline.

What's next

The most useful thing you can give me right now is feedback. What's missing? What annoys you about the tools you use today? Tell me in the comments or through the contact page. I read everything.

Website right now support multiple languages and the app supports most features someone will need.

Try it and give me your feedback

PokeTrade is free on iPhone and Android. Get the app, or just browse every Pokémon card and its price on the website without signing up.

Thanks for reading, and happy pulls.

Sotiris