The fastest way to make money in TCG Card Shop Simulator is to price shop stock at 10-20% above market, sell the cards you pull from packs at or just above market, and keep every shelf full. Datamined customer code shows why: a customer buys at market price 90% of the time, at +20% only 60% of the time, and never above +60%. On top of that, buy cards cheaply from customers, run play tables in the evening, and let workers handle restocking and price updates.
The game is out of Early Access. Version 1.0 launched in mid-September 2026, and the latest PC update is the Ghostly Halloween Update 1.03, posted on October 28, 2026 (all checked October 30, 2026 UTC). The buy-chance numbers come from a community datamine of the early access code. Players were still quoting them on the Steam forums in October 2026, but developer OPNeon Games has never published them.
Table of Contents
Quick answer: how to make money in TCG Card Shop Simulator
- Shop items (packs, boxes, accessories): price them at about +10% to +20% over market. On paper, that band earns the most profit per customer.
- Cheap items under $2: the game judges their price more loosely, so they can carry a bigger markup.
- Cards you pulled: they cost you nothing extra, so market price (0%) earns the most per customer who looks. Go higher only on a few rare cards you can afford to wait on.
- Never go above +60%. According to the datamine, nobody buys at that price.
- Check what customers can afford. Each customer’s money is capped by your shop level and expansions, so a $3,000 card can sit unsold for a long time in a small shop.
- Buy low from customers. Sellers ask 0.7x to 1.2x market. Take the cheap offers and resell those cards.
- Add more income streams: play-table fees (most customers play in the evening and at night), tournaments with an entry fee, and bulk boxes made at the Workbench from cheap cards.
Every compartment carries its own price tag; at roughly +10-20% over market, stock like this sells to most customers who look. Image: OPNeon Games
Best prices to set: the markup and buy-chance table
Customers compare your shelf price with the market price shown in the price app. The datamine comes from LoddZee’s Steam guide Everything Customers, last updated for early access build 0.61.5. It turns the gap into a percentage, rounded to the nearest whole number, and reads the buy chance off a fixed scale. Values between the steps are linear, so +15% means a 67.5% chance. The same scale was posted again in a Steam starting-tips thread on October 19, 2026.
The last two columns are our own math from that scale: what one customer who looks at the item is worth to you on average. The first is for an item you bought at 70% of market (an example ratio; your real cost varies by product). The second is for a card you pulled from a pack and paid nothing extra for.
| Price vs market | Chance a customer buys | Average profit per look ($100 item bought for $70) | Average revenue per look ($100 card you pulled) |
|---|---|---|---|
| -20% or lower | 100% | $10.00 | $80.00 |
| -10% | 95% | $19.00 | $85.50 |
| Market (0%) | 90% | $27.00 | $90.00 |
| +10% | 75% | $30.00 | $82.50 |
| +20% | 60% | $30.00 | $72.00 |
| +30% | 45% | $27.00 | $58.50 |
| +40% | 15% | $10.50 | $21.00 |
| +50% | 5% | $4.00 | $7.50 |
| +60% | 1% | $0.90 | $1.60 |
| Above +60% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
That’s why most forum advice lands on +10% to +20% for stock. Mercury’s Best Markup/Item Price Calculations guide turns LoddZee’s values into a spreadsheet, and a March 2025 forum reply citing it puts the best money markup at +10%. One player who reran the numbers in the October 2026 thread found the best markup ran from +0% to +10%. The bigger the gap between your buy price and market, the closer it got to +0%. Use +10% for cheap stock with a thin margin and stay near market for high-margin products.
The under-$2 rule
According to the same datamine, items with a market price under $2 have their markup percentage divided by a factor between 1 and 10 before the customer checks it. The cheaper the item, the bigger the factor. A $1 item at +50% ($1.50) gets judged like roughly +9%, which still sells about three times in four. Cheap packs and sleeves can carry a much bigger markup than anything else.
Round prices to save time at the counter
A Steam pricing thread recommends round numbers, because many customers then pay with exact change and you spend less time counting it out. Too many coins in change can also earn you a bad review. Once a worker runs the register, it matters less.
How to sell expensive cards: check what customers can afford
Pulling a $600 full art foil early doesn’t mean anyone can buy it yet. LoddZee’s datamine gives the most money a normal customer can carry:
- Shop level x $100
- + $250 per Shop Lot A expansion (30 in total)
- + $500 once Shop Lot B is unlocked, + $400 per Lot B expansion (14 in total)
For example, a level 10 shop with four Lot A expansions has a cap of $1,000 + $1,000 = $2,000. A regular customer carries between $20 and that cap. About 5% of customers carry up to twice the cap, and about 0.3% carry up to four times. A rare “super wealthy” customer can also show up with an extra $50,000 to $1,000,000, and this gets more likely as your level and expansions grow. In a small shop, a very expensive card can wait a long time for a buyer who can afford it.
A $604 pull only sells once your shop level and expansions let customers carry that much money. Image: OPNeon Games
For your best cards, lay out only a few at a time. A rare card that you can wait on can go above market, because every customer who looks gets another roll. At +30% it sells to about 45% of the customers who can afford it, and at +50% to only 5%. In a Steam thread from September 2024, players reported selling high-value cards at +30% to +50%, including a card worth about $450 that went for $544 within a few days. The starting-tips thread from October 2026 suggests tripling the price of $100+ cards. According to the datamine, nobody buys anything above +60%, and a reply in that thread made the same point. Stay at +60% or lower.
Buy cards from customers below market
Since build 0.50, customers stand beside the checkout counter with a red exclamation mark and offer to sell or trade a card. According to the 0.50 patch notes, the higher your shop level, the more often this happens. Since 0.60, customers can also offer graded cards.
- According to LoddZee’s datamine, sellers ask between 0.7x and 1.2x the card’s market price. On expensive cards they add a little more on top.
- If you offer their asking price or more, they always accept. Lower offers have a chance to fail, and each refusal makes the next offer less likely to work.
- Whenever a seller asks for less than market, buy the card. You can resell it at market price or slightly above for a quick profit.
- Customers carry one card and wait about one in-game hour. Deal with them before they leave.
Play tables, duels and tournaments
Play tables earn a fee and keep customers in the shop longer. The datamine judges the fee on a slightly gentler scale than items: about 83% of players accept a fee 10% over the local market fee, about 67% accept +20%, half accept +30%, and nobody pays above +60%. Customers are much more likely to sit down later in the day: 18% in the morning, 33% in the afternoon, 63% in the evening and 73% at night. Keep tables free and cheap after 4:00 PM in-game.
The 0.66 update lets you set a higher table fee once your store rating is higher, and it lowered the XP that tables give.
Evening is play-table time: according to the datamine, 63% of customers want a game in the evening versus 18% in the morning. Image: OPNeon Games
Two newer features add income on top of the fees:
- Duels (1.0): you can play Tetramon against a customer waiting alone at a play table. Customers can give you gift packs when you play. Build 1.02 raised the chance of winning an Ascension Card Pack as a gift even at a low shop level (1.0 patch notes). The rulebook and deck editor are at the Workbench, which unlocks at shop level 7.
- Tournaments (0.70): buy the Tournament Prize Shelf in MY DIY, set 8 to 32 players, pick prizes for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and the top 8, and set the entry fee based on what the prizes are worth, so the fees add up to more than the prizes cost you (0.70 patch notes). Since 1.0, you can enter your own tournament and keep the prizes if you win.
Bulk boxes: turn cheap cards into stock
The Workbench bundles low-value cards into bulk boxes that you sell like any other product. In an October 2026 forum thread, written before 1.03, a player listed the box colour by card value: white under $1, yellow $1-1.99, purple $2-2.99, red $3-11.99, green $12-20. According to the 1.03 patch notes, the Halloween update changed the system:
- Bulk boxes are now generic boxes that work with every card expansion. Old Tetramon and Destiny bulk boxes stay in your save, but you can’t create new ones, and they no longer appear in the price app.
- A new OG Bulk Box (Omega Grade) with a base price of 4,000 is created when the total bulk card value goes over $5,000.
- The Workbench price slider now goes up to $100.
The Bulk Donation Box (0.65) is different: customers take cards from it for free, and it has a high chance of earning a good review. Fill it with your cheapest duplicates, not cards you could bundle.
More customers means more sales
Profit depends on how many customers each shelf sees, so these upgrades pay off:
| Lever | What it does | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Shop level and Lot A expansions | Raise the most customers allowed in the shop at once (capped at 28 before decorations) | LoddZee datamine |
| Decorations | Up to +5 customers at 100 decorations, plus a bonus for different decorations (copies of the same one count for less) | LoddZee datamine; 0.52 notes |
| Some shelves and valuable card displays | Raise the most customers allowed in the shop at once | 0.66 patch notes |
| Full shelves | Customers take up to 13 of one item (card products) and leave after repeated failed searches | LoddZee datamine |
| Workers | “Set Price” updates every item and card once a day; each skill level adds 7% task speed; bonuses boost speed and morale for a while | 0.50, 0.66, 0.66.5 notes |
| Pack Opener Machines | Open packs automatically while you serve customers | 0.60 patch notes |
Better packs unlock as your shop levels up. LoddZee’s table lists Rare at level 5, Epic at 12, Legendary at 20, and the Destiny packs at 25, 30, 40 and 50. The 1.0 update added Ascension packs with 1,452 new cards, and 1.03 brought the Ghost card count to 24. Early on, don’t buy expansions and hire workers faster than your daily profit can cover, a point players repeat in the “Making Money” thread.
If you like this kind of pricing math, our Supermarket Simulator pricing guide covers the same problem in another shop sim, and the Supermarket Simulator licence order helps you plan its unlocks. For a shop sim where your stock may be stolen, see our Probably Stolen beginner’s guide. On phones, try our best mobile tycoon games.
TCG Card Shop Simulator 1.0: version, platforms and price
| Question | Answer (checked October 30, 2026 UTC) |
|---|---|
| Is it out of Early Access? | Yes. Version 1.0 came out in mid-September 2026. The developer’s announcement gave September 15, and the Steam page lists September 14. |
| Latest update | Ghostly Halloween Update 1.03 (October 28, 2026), followed by bug-fix builds 1.04 and 1.05 |
| Platforms | PC (Steam, Microsoft Store), PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch 2 and Switch, according to Gematsu; also on Game Pass |
| Steam price | $19.99 (on sale for $16.99 when checked) |
| Multiplayer | No. The 1.0 FAQ says the card game is against NPCs only, with no multiplayer planned for the near future |
| Saves and cross-save | 0.70 saves carry over to 1.0; there is no cross-save between consoles and Steam |
FAQ
What is the best markup in TCG Card Shop Simulator?
For shop items, +10% to +20% over market. According to the datamined buy chances (75% at +10%, 60% at +20%), that band earns the most profit per customer. Cards you pulled from packs earn the most per customer at market price.
How do you make money fast early in TCG Card Shop Simulator?
Keep a few shelves full of booster packs at a modest markup, open packs and sell the cards at market, buy cheap cards from customers, and hold off on expansions and extra workers until your daily profit can pay for them.
Why are my cards not selling?
Either the price is above +60% over market (a 0% buy chance according to the datamine), or the card costs more than your customers carry. Your shop level and expansions set that limit, so a very expensive card waits for a rare wealthy customer.
How do you sell expensive or graded cards?
Price them near market, or up to about +30% if you can wait, and display only a few at once. You send cards for grading in The Cardinal’s Grading app, up to 8 per package. The price graph shows the market price for each grade.
Is there a money cheat or glitch?
OPNeon Games hasn’t announced any cheat codes in its patch notes. The money cheats people search for are mods or memory editors, which we don’t cover. Pricing within the buy-chance curve is the reliable way to grow your money.
Sources: TCG Card Shop Simulator Steam store page and OPNeon Games’ Steam announcements (Ghostly Halloween Update 1.03, 1.0 Update, 1.0 FAQ, 0.70, 0.66, 0.65, 0.60, 0.50); Gematsu; Steam Community guides by LoddZee (Everything Customers) and Mercury (Best Markup/Item Price Calculations); Steam discussions Starting Tips, Best Pricing, Workbench question, Making Money.
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Featured image: AI-generated illustration
