Short answer
Ludex and CollX do the same core job. You point your phone at a card, the app identifies it, and you see a value. The differences are in the limits and in what happens after the scan.
- Ludex gives free users unlimited scans in every category but caps the collection at 60 cards and eBay listings at 5 a month. Its selling tool, List-It, builds eBay listings for you.
- CollX lets free users keep a collection of up to 500 items and sell inside its own marketplace, where sellers pay a 10% commission and CollX covers payment processing. It covers more sports and more trading card games than Ludex.
If you mostly scan and flip on eBay, Ludex fits. If you want to catalog a large collection and sell to other collectors without leaving the app, CollX fits. If your real question is "is this card worth grading?", neither app answers it on its own.
Ludex vs CollX side by side
| Ludex | CollX | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | iOS, Android | iOS, Android |
| Store ratings | 4.7 from 28K ratings (App Store); 4.5 from 16.2K reviews (Google Play) | 4.6 from 50K ratings (App Store); 4.6 from 18.2K reviews (Google Play) |
| Free plan | Unlimited scans in all categories, 60-card collection, 5 eBay listings a month | Collection of fewer than 500 items; CollX does not publish a free scan cap on the pages we checked |
| Paid plans | Lite $4.99/month (one category, 50 eBay listings); Standard $9.99/month or $89.99/year (all categories, 50 listings); Pro $24.99/month or $239.99/year (250 listings) | Pro $9.99/month or $99.99/year; Gold $24.99/month or $249/year |
| Sports covered | Baseball, basketball, football, soccer, hockey, MMA, wrestling, racing | Baseball, basketball, football, soccer, hockey, MMA, wrestling, boxing, golf, tennis |
| TCGs and non-sport | Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, VeeFriends | Pokémon, Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Flesh and Blood, One Piece, Lorcana, plus Garbage Pail Kids, Marvel and Star Wars |
| Price data | eBay completed sales and other marketplaces | Average value from "millions of historical auction prices" |
| Selling | List-It creates eBay listings; you can also buy cards in the app | Built-in marketplace, 10% seller commission, CollX Protect for buyers |
| Graded cards | Not mentioned in the App Store listing | Identifies graded cards, parallels and reprints |
| Condition or grade estimate | Not listed | Not listed |
Prices are the App Store figures as of October 2026. The Ludex listing shows the Lite annual plan at $49.99 in its description and $44.99 in its in-app purchase list, so check the price inside the app before you pay. "Not listed" means we did not find the feature on official pages. It does not prove the feature is missing.
Scanning accuracy and speed
Neither company publishes an accuracy rate we could check. Ludex calls itself "the most accurate trading card scanner in the hobby" and says it "deciphers complex variations and parallels." CollX says it matches scans against a database of more than 20 million cards and identifies graded cards, parallels and reprints. Those are the companies' own claims, not independent tests.
Base cards with unique artwork are the easy part. Where any scanner can slip is the same set of cards: refractors and color parallels that share artwork with the base card, short prints, and inserts with near-identical designs. Whatever app you use, compare the card number and parallel name on the result with the card in your hand before you trust the price. A numbered parallel and its base card can sell for very different prices, so a wrong match gives you the wrong value.
CollX Pro adds 500 "Scan+" credits a month for AI-assisted identification, which suggests CollX treats harder matches as a premium feature. Ludex keeps scanning unlimited on the free plan and limits how many cards you can save instead.
Price data sources: asking vs sold
The number an app shows is only as good as the data behind it. Asking prices are what sellers hope to get. Sold prices are what buyers actually paid. For deciding what a card is worth, sold prices are the better guide.
- Ludex says its values are "based on eBay completed sales and other marketplaces." Pro adds price reports for any category.
- CollX says it "uses millions of historical auction prices to calculate a card's average value." A recent release note says its "View Recent Sales on eBay" button now links to completed sold listings instead of active ones.
Neither app publishes its exact formula, so a single average can hide a wide range. For any card worth more than a few dollars, open the recent sold listings and look at the spread, especially by grade. Our sports card price guide walks through how to read comps.
Selling and marketplace features
This is where the two apps differ most.
Ludex sends you to eBay. After a scan, List-It builds a listing for you to review and post. Free users get 5 listings a month, Lite and Standard get 50, and Pro gets 250. You keep eBay's audience and eBay's fees. Ludex also lets you buy cards in the app.
CollX keeps the sale inside CollX. Its marketplace FAQ says sellers pay a 10% commission on the sale price, excluding shipping and taxes, and CollX covers payment processing. Pro and Gold sellers get lower rates on parts of larger orders. Buyers are covered by CollX Protect, which holds payment until the order is delivered and lets buyers request a refund for wrong, missing or misrepresented items within 30 days of the order or 72 hours of delivery, whichever comes first. The CollX Envelope tracked shipping option starts at $0.75 per the App Store listing. Withdrawals to a bank have a $10 minimum and a $2 fee, waived for Gold members. CollX Pro also includes a $10 monthly credit for buying on the marketplace.
If you sell a lot of low-dollar cards, the per-listing caps on Ludex matter. If you sell higher-value cards, eBay's larger buyer pool may matter more than CollX's convenience.
Neither one grades condition
Both apps tell you what a card is and what it usually sells for. Neither one lists a photo-based condition or grade estimate on its official pages as of October 2026. CollX's homepage says you can "buy, sell, grade, and trade" cards, but we did not find a feature that estimates a card's grade from your photos.
That gap matters because value depends on condition. A raw card's price assumes average condition, and the gap between a PSA 9 and a PSA 10 of the same card is often large. Before you pay to grade, you need to know whether centering, corners, edges and surface give you a real shot at the top grade. You can check centering yourself with our free card centering calculator, and see whether the fee pays off with the grading ROI calculator.
When a third app makes sense
Binder AI
Binder AI is an AI pre-grading app for iOS, Android and the web. You photograph the front and back of a card and get an overall grade estimate on the PSA, BGS or TAG scale you choose, with centering, corners, edges and surface subgrades and written condition notes. It also has a manual centering tool, identifies the card, shows eBay sold prices, price history and a graded value table, and sorts cards into binders by game or sport with sharing and wishlists. It supports Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece, Digimon, Lorcana, baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, WWE and non-sport cards. The app is free to download, and grading is included in a subscription: $1.99/week, $3.99/month or $24.99/year on the website ($4.99/month or $29.99/year in the App Store).
Binder AI is not a marketplace and does not list cards for sale, so it does not replace CollX or Ludex for selling. It fits next to them. Use Ludex or CollX for bulk scanning and selling, and use Binder AI on the cards that might be worth submitting. Its grades are estimates to help you decide, not official grades.
For the head-to-head pages, see Binder AI vs Ludex and Binder AI vs CollX. If you are still choosing a scanner, start with our sports card scanner guide.
