What sold comps are, and why active listings are not comps
"Comps" is short for comparables, a term resellers borrowed from real estate. A sold comp is a finished sale of the same thing you are pricing. Active listings only show what sellers are asking, and plenty of them never sell. Sold comps show what buyers actually paid.
On eBay, comps come from listings that ended with a sale. They are the most common pricing evidence for flippers, card sellers, video game resellers, pawn shops and anyone building a pricing app, because eBay has more completed sales of used goods than any other public marketplace.
How to find sold comps on eBay
- Search for the exact item. Include the details that change the price: model number, set and card number, storage, size, edition.
- Turn on Sold items (desktop: Show only in the sidebar; app: Filter). Step by step instructions are in how to check eBay sold prices.
- Filter Condition to match your item, and sort by Ended recently.
- Open anything unclear. Photos and descriptions often reveal a lot, damage or a missing part that the title hides.
eBay's public Sold filter covers roughly the last 90 days. For slow-moving items you can look further back with Terapeak Product Research in Seller Hub, which returned up to about 3 years of history in our October 2026 tests.
Which sales count as a comp, and which to throw out
A raw sold search is not a comp set yet. Searching "iPhone 15" returns cases, cracked phones, Pro models and lots. Keep a sale only if it passes every check below.
| Check | Keep | Throw out |
|---|---|---|
| Same item | Same model, edition, set, size or storage | A newer or older model, a different variant |
| Same condition | Used vs used, PSA 10 vs PSA 10 | New mixed with used, graded mixed with raw |
| Same format | One unit | Lots, bundles, multipacks, empty boxes |
| Complete item | Working, with what buyers expect | For parts, not working, missing pieces |
| Recent | The last 30 to 90 days | Old sales from a different market |
| Same marketplace | The site you sell on (ebay.com, ebay.co.uk) | Mixed currencies and countries |
CompSniper does the first pass of this automatically. Its relevance cleanup removes accessories, parts, lots and wrong models before calculating the median, and our 100-product cleaning study shows where that works well and where you should still check by eye.
A real comp set: Japanese Pikachu 291, PSA 10
A sold comps search for pokemon japanese Pikachu 291 psa 10 on ebay.com, collected October 1, 2026, returned 236 priced sales:
- Median sold price: $46.13
- Middle half of sales: $44.00 to $59.99
- Full range: $20.51 to $134.56
The full range is almost seven times wide, but the middle half is tight. That is what a healthy comp set looks like: a clear cluster with a few outliers. The $134.56 sale is worth opening (a different card, a lot, or a mislabeled grade?) before anyone prices to it. A seller pricing this card would list around $46 to $55, not $130.
Turn sold comps into a price
- Price from the median. It ignores the one lucky sale and the one damaged unit.
- Use the middle half as your range. List near the top of it when your item is in great shape with strong photos, and near the bottom when you want it gone fast.
- Keep shipping separate. Compare item price plus shipping on the same basis across comps.
- Discount Best Offer sales. A crossed-out price usually means the buyer paid less than shown.
- Count your comps. Read how many sold comps you need before trusting a median from five sales.
Pull sold comps for many items at once
Doing this by hand works for a few items. For a whole inventory, a sold comps tool saves hours:
- Dashboard search: up to 240 recent sold comps per search, with median, middle range and average shipping, then export to CSV or Excel.
- Sold comps API: the same comps as JSON for apps, spreadsheets and repricers. See the eBay sold comps API guide for a working example.
- Bulk search: up to 20 keywords in one run, each with its own comp set and CSV.
Every option works on 8 eBay marketplaces, including ebay.co.uk, ebay.de and ebay.com.au, so a UK seller gets UK comps in pounds.
eBay sold comps questions
What are sold comps on eBay?
Sold comps (comparables) are recent completed eBay sales of the same item in the same condition. Sellers use them to set a listing price, and buyers use them to judge whether an asking price is fair. They come from the Sold items filter, not from active listings.
How do I find sold comps on eBay?
Search for the exact item, turn on the Sold items filter, filter by condition, and sort by Ended recently. Then remove anything that is not the same item: lots, parts, accessories and different models. The middle of what is left is your comp range.
How many sold comps do I need?
For common items, 20 to 30 clean comps from recent weeks gives a stable median. For rare items a handful of exact matches can be enough, as long as you label the sample as small. More rows only help if they are the same item.
Should I use the average or the median of sold comps?
Use the median. A single unusually high or low sale moves the average a lot but barely moves the median. The middle half of sales (25th to 75th percentile) is a good pricing range.
Where can I get eBay sold comps for many items?
eBay's filter shows one item at a time. CompSniper returns up to 240 recent sold comps per search with the median and range calculated, exports CSV, and offers the same data through a REST API and bulk search.
Are eBay sold comps accurate?
They are real sales, but they need cleaning. Accepted Best Offers often hide the real amount, and broad searches pull in the wrong items. Comps are accurate once you keep only the same item, same condition and recent sales.
Written by CompSniper's founder. Checked October 3, 2026. The Pikachu sample is CompSniper's own search, not a customer search.