Build a Trading Card Price Bot in 30 Minutes with the TCGPlayer API

Build a Trading Card Price Bot in 30 Minutes with the TCGPlayer API If you collect or sell trading cards (Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh), you know prices shift constantly. Here's how to build a simple price-checking bot that texts you when a card drops below your target price. What We're Building A Python script that: Checks card prices via the TCGPlayer Price Data API Compares them against your watchlist Sends you a text via Twilio when a price drops Total time: ~30 minutes. Step 1: Get Your API Key Sign up at RapidAPI and subscribe to the free tier (200 requests/month — plenty for a personal price bot checking 5 cards daily). Step 2: The Price Checker import requests import json RAPIDAPI_KEY = " your-key-here " RAPIDAPI_HOST = " tcgplayer-price-data.p.rapidapi.com " def search_card ( query , game = " pokemon " ): url = f " https:// { RAPIDAPI_HOST } /tcgplayer/search " params = { " query " : query , " game " : game , " limit " : 5 } headers = { " x-rapidapi-key " : RAPIDAPI