Price Inference
You’ll notice that Sideboard often shows market prices for conditions even when the market data feed only provides a Near Mint price. This is price inference — Sideboard estimates the missing prices rather than leaving them blank.
This doc explains how that works, what it means for your pricing, and where to configure the percentages it uses.
Why inference exists
Market data providers typically publish Near Mint prices with the broadest coverage. Lightly Played, Moderately Played, and other condition prices are less consistently available — especially for newer cards, niche printings, or games with thinner market activity.
Rather than showing a blank for every condition that doesn’t have a direct data point, Sideboard estimates the price by working backwards from the nearest condition it does have.
How inference works
Sideboard looks for the best available price, starting with Near Mint, and steps down through conditions until it finds something:
- Near Mint — used directly if available
- Lightly Played — if found, NM is estimated as LP ÷ 0.9
- Moderately Played — if found, NM is estimated as MP ÷ 0.75
- Heavily Played — if found, NM is estimated as HP ÷ 0.6
- Damaged — if found, NM is estimated as DMG ÷ 0.4
Once a base Near Mint estimate exists, all other conditions are derived from it using your configured condition-adjustment percentages.
Example — only NM price exists:
NM: $10.00 (from market data)
LP: $9.00* (inferred: $10.00 × 90%)
MP: $7.50* (inferred: $10.00 × 75%)
HP: $6.00* (inferred: $10.00 × 60%)
DMG: $4.00* (inferred: $10.00 × 40%)The asterisk (*) on LP, MP, HP, and DMG tells you those are inferred, not observed market prices.
Example — only LP price exists:
NM: $11.11* (inferred: $10.00 ÷ 0.9)
LP: $10.00 (from market data)
MP: $8.33* (inferred from NM estimate)
HP: $6.67*
DMG: $4.44*Inferred vs. actual prices
Sideboard marks inferred prices with an asterisk (*) throughout the interface. Hover the asterisk to see a tooltip explaining which condition was used as the source.
This distinction matters when you’re deciding whether to trust a displayed price for a high-stakes transaction. An inferred price based on NM data is highly reliable for LP, reasonably reliable for MP, and increasingly approximate for HP and DMG — those grades have more variance in how individual sellers price them.
Inference is for display, not calculation
This is the part that trips up power users: inference only affects what Sideboard shows you. It does not change how your pricing rules calculate sell prices.
Your pricing rules work directly with the actual prices stored in the database. If a condition has no actual market price, the rule uses whatever the nearest actual price is — the inference layer is not in the middle of that calculation.
| Inference | Pricing rules | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Show an estimated market price in the UI | Calculate your actual list price |
| Affects list price? | No | Yes |
| Configurable? | Yes, in Inventory Settings | Yes, in each pricing rule |
| Shown with asterisk? | Yes | No |
Configuring your inference percentages
The percentages used for inference are set on your inventory. Go to Inventory → Settings → Market Price Inference to change them.
Default percentages:
| Condition | Default |
|---|---|
| Near Mint | 100% |
| Lightly Played | 90% |
| Moderately Played | 75% |
| Heavily Played | 60% |
| Damaged | 40% |
If your local market values LP differently than the industry default — for example, if your customers treat LP and NM as functionally identical and you want LP inferred at 95% rather than 90% — adjust the setting here.
Your buylist has its own separate condition-adjustment settings under Buylists → Settings → Condition Price Adjustments, which are used when inferring prices on the buy side.
Note that these inference percentages are separate from the condition adjustments in your pricing rules. Your rules have their own condition adjustments that control how your sell price is discounted by condition — those are configured within each individual rule, not here.
When no price exists at all
If Sideboard has no market data for a card in any condition or variant, the price field shows a dash (—) rather than an inferred value. There is no data to infer from, so Sideboard doesn’t guess.
What’s next
- How Pricing Works — The full picture of how market data flows into your sell prices.
- Setting Up Pricing Rules — Configure sell-price rules, including per-rule condition adjustments.
- Manual Pricing — Override auto-pricing for specific items.
- Adding Products to Inventory — Build the inventory your rules will price.
- Setting Up Buy Pricing Rules — Apply the same logic to your buylist.
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