A Berlin-made German card-scanning app that climbed to #20 in Germany's shopping Top Grossing, but it has only 4 ratings
What it is A German trading card app built by a solo developer in Berlin: point the camera to identify a card, get a valuation that lists every real sale for you to tick off, plus a binder, checklists, and in-app buying and selling. 119€ a year.
Why it took off The bar for Germany's shopping Top Grossing is low, and with a 119€ annual subscription and 50€ tips, a few payments were enough to chart. The first paying users came from the German offline card shows it sponsored and staffed, and from card-collecting podcasts. Users haven't really flooded in.
CHow you could follow Don't build another one in Germany. Take 'valuation with per-sale detail' and 'act as the official app for a local card show' to local football card markets nobody serves, like France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland, before the big US apps localize.
- Data (updated daily) · Launched 2026-09-22 · German ratings 4 · Charted in 11-08 stores 1
iOS · best category chart rank · by store Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 10 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that dayiOS · Ratings count · Germany Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 10 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.
Cold Pull has been listed for six weeks and moved between roughly #150 and #20 in Germany's App Store shopping Top Grossing, which looks like a new app taking off. Looking closer, the rank mainly shows the German shopping chart has a low bar, and users haven't flooded in: 4 ratings, no growth in ten days, and under 100 Android downloads. What's worth watching is the cold-start approach: no ads, no store search, just becoming the 'official collection app' for German offline card shows first.
Separating the two Ronaldos
In 2026 Oct 26, Cold Pull shipped 1.0.2 versions. The release notes are almost all about valuation details: rookie cards get a premium based only on real sales; cards with a jersey patch are compared only with other patch cards; when a card has no sales record, the app uses other versions of the same card as a reference; and one fix ensures 「same-name players are cleanly separated, like Cristiano Ronaldo and Ronaldo Nazário」.
Around the same time, German card podcast Kartenfan posted a short Instagram video saying that at Berlin Cardshow, Cold Pull seemed to have won over the @collector__universe crowd. He went on: 「German card collecting will soon have one, maybe two apps everyone uses, which one will it be?」 「An American one is about to come here too (I just got an inquiry from them recently)」, ending with 「Noch gibt es keinen großen Platzhirsch」: there's no dominant player yet, and there should be.
Put together, that's Cold Pull's whole picture now: a small tool that sweats the valuation details, operating in a German-language market with no winner yet, and mixing with the card-collecting crowd.
What it is
Developer Sebastian Heger, a solo developer in Berlin, with this one app. The iOS version launched in 2026 Sep 22, Android followed. The UI is all German.
The features fall into five parts:
- Scanning: point at a card and it recognizes the player or character, manufacturer, set, card number, parallel and language. 「German cards get recognized too」.
- Cold Check, a valuation with evidence: instead of a guessed number, it lists the real sales behind the price, with image, date and platform for each. You can untick any sale and the average updates immediately. From the store page: 「you can always say where this number came from.」
- Binder: build binders and boxes, drag to reorder, see the total value of your whole collection.
- Checklist: full set lists for sports cards and TCG (trading card games like Pokémon). Tick off the ones you have and see which are still missing.
- Marketplace: buy and sell inside the app, with escrow payments, shipping flow, and mutual ratings after each trade. You can also trade cards.
Free to download. Cold subscription 11.99€/month or 119€/year. You can also buy features one-time: valuation 6.99€, Scan+ 3.99€, and so on. There are also four "Unterstützung" tip tiers at 5€, 10€, 25€ and 50€ (German App Store page, 11-06).
What that bestseller rank tells you
| Date | German App Store Shopping Top Grossing chart |
|---|---|
| 10-28 to 10-30 | 141 → 143 → 150 |
| 11-02 | 22 |
| 11-03 | 34 |
| 11-04 | 50 |
| 11-05 | 20 |
| 11-06 | 34 |
Apart from German Shopping Top Grossing, it has not charted in any other store in any country.
In German Shopping, most of the top spots go to e-commerce apps that don't sell in-app purchases themselves, so the 30 slots around the Top Grossing line are mostly small utilities. 11-06 On that day, the apps charting around it were FlipScan, Store Card and shopping list apps. Pferdeflohmarkt (a second-hand horse marketplace) at #29 only launched in Oct 14. At that position, a few dozen euros a day in revenue is probably enough (my estimate, not verified). Cold Pull's annual subscription is €119, and its top tip tier is €50. A handful of purchases could move it from #150 to #20.
Now look at ratings: in Oct 28 it had 4 5-star reviews, and by Nov 6 it's still 4. On Android, third-party tracking puts it at around 82 downloads, and Google Play shows 100+. The chart position is real, but it's driven by a handful of core whales spending big, and probably some tipping too, not a wave of new users.
Where users come from
- Offline card shows. This is its main approach. In March 2027, at Europa-Park's One of One Europe Card Festival, it was listed as an "Official Premium Partner" and "Official Collecting App Partner 2027" (partner page on the event website). At the Berlin Airport Cardshow (Tempelhof, Berlin, Oct 10 to 11), it had a booth. Before launch, its TikTok bio was already recruiting people to the card shows.
- Unprompted mentions by card creators. In the Kartenfan video above, he joked that "these unpaid, spontaneous ad breaks in podcasts need to stop." Posts like this get single-digit likes and the circle is small, but everyone watching is a heavy collector.
- Pack-opening posts. Under some card-dealer pack-opening posts on Instagram, Cold Pull's introduction is attached, which looks like sponsorship (not fully verified).
- Own account and beta. Instagram @coldpull_berlin has 1,404 followers, posting feature walkthroughs and launch countdowns. Before launch it opened a public TestFlight to recruit beta testers.
- TikTok. @cold.pull has only 5 followers and 3 videos. Two of them got 32k and 13k views, yet only 12 and 7 likes. A gap that big between views and followers suggests paid promotion (inference).
It doesn't come up in store search: the name has no "Scanner" or "Sammelkarten"-style keywords, and it's filed under Shopping rather than Utilities or Reference. No press coverage, and zero mentions on X in the past two months.
Who it's competing with
Card scanning is crowded. Searching "card scanner / TCG scanner / sports card" on the App Store turns up over 150 apps, most of them shell tools mass-produced in 2025–2026.
| Competitors | Scale | How it differs from Cold Pull |
|---|---|---|
| CollX | 50k+ ratings in the US store | US store, USD prices. Not charted in the German store |
| Collectr | US store 69k ratings, German store 1,461 reviews | Leaning TCG and portfolio, #15 on the DE store's Reference Free chart |
| FoilSnap: TCG Karten Scanner | DE store rating 1,107, Top Grossing in Reference: #7 | The strongest German-language TCG card scanner, but there's no football card support and no trading |
| Eyevo / HoloDex / Dex / MonPrice | DE store 144–1,144 ratings | TCG card scanner, using Cardmarket's euro prices |
| Arca: TCG Scanner & Preise | DE store 4 rating | Also a German indie dev, only doing TCGs |
| Whatnot | DE store 9,325 rating | Live unboxing and trading platform |
| Cardmarket, eBay, Kleinanzeigen | Where European cards actually convert | Cold Pull's valuation is built on its verified revenue |
The gap is narrow: a one-stop app for football cards + TCG in German-speaking markets, plus a valuation with visible sources. German TCG scanning already has FoilSnap in it, and US sports card apps are pushing into Europe.
If it were you
Verdict: Cold Pull itself didn't break out, and Germany isn't empty either. Two things are worth taking: first, the pitch that valuation shows every single sale and lets users tick the ones they want; second, the cold-start move of posing as the official app for local card shows first, then getting card podcasts to mention it in passing. Copying it for Germany on its own isn't worth the money.
Who it suits: developers who are collectors in a European country themselves, can work card shows, and know local card dealers and creators; small teams that already have card-scanning ability and want to launch in another country.
Not for: people who want to buy ads and mass-acquire users through store search. This category already has hundreds of copycat tools. Also people who can't commit to showing up in offline communities long-term, and people hoping a small country's collector circle will carry a big revenue number.
How to do it:
- Pick a country whose local language and local sports card community are underserved: France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, or Poland for football cards (inferred, not verified against each local competitor).
- Valuation works the same way: list each reference sale individually and allow outliers to be excluded. The details in 1.0.2 (rookie premium, card-level comparison, separating players with the same name) should be built into the first version, not added later.
- Copy its high-priced subscription model, but don't count tips as revenue. Skip the marketplace for now: escrow payments and fulfillment are heavy, and one person can't carry that.
How to get users: Work local card shows as an official app partner or set up a scan-the-card demo booth; reach out to local card-collecting podcasts and unboxing creators; run a public beta before launch and bring in the people you met at card shows.
Before it's too late: Kartenfan says the US player is "about to arrive" in Germany. Once an app of CollX's or Collectr's size seriously localizes for a European country, the window for small teams shrinks. If you're going to build this, aim to launch before next spring's card-show season.
Here's when this read is wrong: ① Cold Pull is still single digits in ratings after card-season, which would mean the offline card-collector route can't deliver scale; ② CollX or Collectr launch a German interface and climb the charts, meaning the big players are taking Europe country by country; ③ its trading marketplace stays unused for a long time, which would mean collectors keep buying and selling on Cardmarket, eBay and Kleinanzeigen, and the tool stays stuck at card scanning and valuation.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one CollX iOS 2022-01 US store 50.6k ratings, Sports Top Grossing 26; not charted in the German store US sports cards, dollar-priced; Cold Pull does German and soccer cards, and the valuations can be checked trade by trade Collectr iOS 2022-01 US store 69k ratings; DE store 1461 ratings, Reference Top Free 15 Leans TCG and portfolio tracking; Cold Pull covers sports cards and TCG, and adds trading LUDEX iOS 2022-06 US store 28k rating US market; skip German and football cards FoilSnap: TCG Karten Scanner iOS 2025-09 DE store 1107 rating, Reference Top Grossing 7 The strongest German-language TCG card-scanning app, with no sports cards and no marketplace Eyevo / HoloDex / Dex / MonPrice iOS 2021–2025 DE store 144–1144 rating, Reference Top Grossing 23–33 TCG card scanner using Cardmarket euro prices; Cold Pull adds football cards, trading and offline community Card Ladder / Market Movers iOS 2021 US store 11.8k ratings / Germany store single to double-digit ratings Sports card price index, investing angle Whatnot iOS 2019-12 DE store 9325 rating Live unboxing and trading platforms; Cold Pull is the tool Cardmarket Web 2000 era The de facto standard for European TCG trading, with a card-scanning beta Trading-led, weak sports cards, opaque valuation Arca: TCG Scanner & Preise iOS 2026-03 DE store 4 rating Also a German solo dev, but only making TCG games - Where users come from
- Verified offline card-show sponsorship / booths: One of One Europe Card Festival lists it as an Official Premium Partner / Official Collecting App Partner 2027; it has a booth at the Berlin Airport Cardshow (2026-10-10/11)
- Verified organic mentions by card-collecting KOLs: Kartenfan mentioned it on Instagram reels and podcasts with no payment involved
- Inferred sponsored unboxing post: On Instagram, @victoryfinds / Card JunkieZ's post carried a Cold Pull plug (the recall card was described as sponsored)
- Inferred TikTok paid promotion: @cold.pull has only 5 followers, yet two videos got 32k and 13k views with just 12 and 7 likes. Looks like Promote; the ad library doesn't match
- Verified Own Instagram + TestFlight beta: @coldpull_berlin with 1404 followers, launch countdown; a public TestFlight was opened before launch
Why Cold Pull (iOS id6790157350) charted
In one line: a German-language trading card app built by Berlin indie dev Sebastian Heger (card scanning + "verifiable sold-price" valuations + digital card binder + in-app trading). It charted not because the product took off, but because the Germany Shopping category's Top Grossing bar is very low: a few subscriptions, in-app purchases or tips were enough to push it to ranks 20–34. The real thing to watch is the playbook: no ads, instead position itself as the "official collecting app partner" of German offline card shows, to claim ground in the German card community. It's still small: 4 iOS ratings, about 100 Android downloads.
1. Data
| items | value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Launched | 2026-09-22 (Instagram teaser 9-23 19:00 launched on both platforms at once; the TikTok bio originally said 09.09) | iTunes lookup; @coldpull_berlin 2026-09-15 post; TikTok @cold.pull |
| Version | 1.0.2 (2026-10-26): rookie premium, patch cards compared only with patch cards, same-name players separated (Cristiano Ronaldo / Ronaldo Nazário) | iTunes lookup |
| Rating | 4 ratings, 5.0 stars; 10-28 to 11-06 the count hasn't moved | appstore.app_day |
| Charted | Only charted in the Germany Shopping (6024) Top Grossing: 10-28 to 10-30 was 141/143/150 → 11-02 22 → 11-03 34 → 11-04 50 → 11-05 20 → 11-06 34; no other store or chart | appstore.chart_rank |
| Paid | Free download; Cold subscription €11.99/month, €119/year; one-time IAPs Marktwert €6.99, Scan+ €3.99, Features €2.99, Sammlung+ €1.99; plus a €5/10/25/50 "Unterstützung" (tip) | apps.apple.com/de page |
| Android | com.coldpull.app, about 82 downloads (figure from AppAgg; the recall card says 100+); our googleplay library doesn't cover it | Jina search results, AppAgg summary |
| Language | The store lists it as EN, but the interface and copy are all German | lookup / recall card |
Chart bar: on the same day (11-06) in the Germany Shopping Top Grossing chart, the apps around it were small utilities like FlipScan, Store Card, Die Einkaufsliste and PreLoved AI; #29 Pferdeflohmarkt Oct 14 had only just been listed (appstore.v_chart). Most German Shopping apps are e-commerce platforms that don't sell IAPs, so a few dozen euros of daily revenue around the 30 rank is enough to get in (estimate, not verified). It jumped from 150 to 22 in one go, most likely a few annual subscriptions (€119) or €50 tips. The chart rank is real, but the absolute revenue behind it is tiny; zero rating growth shows it isn't steadily bringing in new users.
2. Competitors
This category is already crowded. Searching the appstore library by name for "card scanner / TCG scanner / sports card" turns up over 150 apps, most of them 2025–2026-year-old scanner wrappers built in batches by teams in Turkey, India and China, such as Sports Card Scanner: Hero (2026-08), Scouter (2026-09-23), Upsleeve (2026-10-31).
| Competitors | Platform | Launched | Scale | How Cold Pull differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CollX | iOS/Android | 2022-01 | US store 50.6k ratings, Sports Top Grossing 26 | Mainly US sports cards, priced on US sales; the German store has no chart presence. Cold Pull does German-language cards and football cards, and its valuations can be checked trade by trade. |
| Collectr | iOS/Android | 2022-01 | US store 69k ratings; DE store 1461 ratings, Reference Top Free 15 | Leans toward TCG and portfolio tracking; Cold Pull covers both sports cards and TCG, and includes trading |
| LUDEX | iOS | 2022-06 | US store 28k rating | US sports cards / TCG; no German |
| Card Ladder / Market Movers | iOS | 2021 | US store 11.8k / German store 90 ratings | Sports-card price index, investment-oriented; Cold Pull targets everyday German collectors |
| FoilSnap: TCG Karten Scanner | iOS | 2025-09 | DE store 1107 rating, Reference Top Grossing 7 | The strongest German-localized TCG card scanner; TCG only, no football cards and no trading marketplace |
| Eyevo / HoloDex / Dex / MonPrice | iOS | 2021–2025 | DE store 144–1144 rating, Reference Top Grossing 23–33 | TCG scanner tool using Cardmarket euro prices; Cold Pull adds sports cards, trading and the offline community |
| Arca: TCG Scanner & Preise | iOS | 2026-03 | DE store 4 rating | Also a German indie dev; Arca does TCG only |
| Whatnot | iOS/Android | 2019 | DE store 9325 rating | Live pack-opening and trading platform; Cold Pull is a tool, with trading as a side feature |
| Cardmarket | Web (scanner in beta) | Around 2007 | The de facto standard for European TCG trading | Its home turf is TCG trading; weak on sports cards and valuation transparency |
| eBay / Kleinanzeigen | Big platform | — | German store 1.09M / 4M ratings | Where cards actually change hands, and the data source for Cold Pull's valuations (the valuation lists "Marktplatz"); Cold Pull is a tool layered on top of them |
Conclusion: scanning, valuation and digital binders are not new. The gap Cold Pull can fill is a one-stop tool for German-speaking collectors covering "sports cards (football) + TCG": FoilSnap-type apps do only TCG, CollX-type apps only US sports cards. A German card-community creator, Kartenfan, put it bluntly on Instagram: "Noch gibt es keinen großen Platzhirsch" (there's no dominant player yet), and "Aus Amerika schwappt demnächst auch eine rüber" (one from America is about to wash over too).
3. Where users come from
| Channel | Evidence | Confirmed |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsoring / booths at offline card shows | One of One Europe Card Festival (Europapark, 2027 March) lists it as "Official Premium Partner" and "Official Collecting App Partner 2027 / Founding Partner" (oneofoneeurope.com/de/unsere-partner; that account's Instagram posts). It had a booth at the Berlin Airport Cardshow (Tempelhof, 2026-10-10/11), with the post reading "Cold Pull Live Event Berlin, besucht uns an unserem Messestand" (@berlincardshow reel). Before launch, TikTok was already using "come to the card show" to drive traffic. | Yes |
| Organic mentions from card-community KOLs | A reel from Kartenfan (German card-community podcast / YouTube): at the Berlin Card Show, Cold Pull "impressed the @collector__universe team", and the podcast has featured an "unsolicited, unpaid ad slot". | Yes (small scale, single digits of likes per post) |
| Sponsored card-opening posts | The recall card says it sponsored card-opening posts; on Instagram, @victoryfinds added a Cold Pull intro caption under a Card JunkieZ post. | Partly confirmed |
| Paid TikTok promotion | @cold.pull has only 5 followers and 3 videos; two of them have 32k and 13k views respectively, but only 12 and 7 likes (TikHub). A gap this wide between views and followers looks a lot like TikTok Promote or paid placement. Our TikTok ad library doesn't match this account (the library only tracks products on the watchlist). | Inferred, unverified |
| Own Instagram | @coldpull_berlin with 1404 followers, posting feature explainers and launch countdowns | Yes |
| TestFlight beta | Public TestFlight link (testflight.apple.com/join/kYcrjmCw), recruiting testers before launch | Yes |
| Store search / ASO | The name contains only "Cold Pull", with no keywords like "Scanner" or "Sammelkarten", and it sits in the Shopping category, so it didn't use a search-driven approach | No (counter-evidence) |
| Meta ads | Not in the metaads library (not tracked, and can't be found there) | Not verified |
| Media / X / Reddit | x-radar: 60 posts in the last 0 days; no media coverage found | None |
4. Why it took off
- The chart effect is most likely due to the low category bar: around 30 in the German Shopping Top Grossing chart, everything is small utilities, while Cold Pull has high-ticket IAPs like a €119 annual subscription and a €50 tip, so a few purchases get it on the chart. With 4 ratings and no growth, charting seems to rely on a small number of high-paying users, not a wave of new ones.
- Early users come from the offline card community: through the Berlin Airport Cardshow booth and its partnership as the "official app" of One of One Europe and similar card shows, it reached Germany's core collectors from the start. These people will pay for valuations and tip local developers.
- The product targets a local pain point: it recognizes German-language cards, and valuations are "Wert mit Beleg" (each price backed by sales records): every sale is listed with image, date and platform, and you can untick individual entries. The 1.0.2 updates (patch cards compared only with patch cards, rookie premium, same-name players separated) all address "inaccurate valuations", the most common collector complaint.
- Timing: German TCG and football cards are heating up (Pokémon TCG Pocket has 56k ratings in the German store; card shows are popping up everywhere, and Tempelhof held its first one in October 2026), but the German-speaking market still has no app everyone uses (in Kartenfan's words).
5. Differentiation
- Verifiable valuations: most rivals give a single number, while Cold Pull lists the sales behind it trade by trade and lets you select them. That is its core selling point.
- German + football cards + TCG + trading in one app: FoilSnap and Eyevo-type apps do only TCG, and CollX-type apps only US sports cards.
- Brand anchored in the offline community: branded around "Berlin", acting as the official app partner of card shows, rather than running paid ads and ASO like most competitors.
These differences explain why it won its first paying core users, but they're not enough to say it has "taken off": 4 ratings and about 100 Android downloads put its scale at nearly zero. The chart appearance is mainly a side effect of a low-bar category.
6. Visibility and copycat risk
- Nobody knows about it yet: revenue isn't public, it's not on TrustMRR, no press coverage, 0 posts on X. It has only shown up in German card-collector communities (Kartenfan, Berlin Cardshow, One of One Europe).
- Copycat risk: nobody is copying it directly yet. But German scanning tools already exist in quantity (FoilSnap, Arca, Pokefolio, CollectHolo GmbH, TCG Vault), and US players like CollX and Collectr could enter Germany (Kartenfan notes "there's a US one too").
7. What to borrow
- On the top-grossing charts for small languages and small categories, high-priced subscriptions plus tips can chart on just a few paying users. If you use chart rank as a signal, strip out this noise first.
- Community-first cold start: partner with local card shows as an "official app partner," then get card-collecting podcasts and creators to talk about it organically. It's cheap and the users are high quality, and it could be copied to card-show scenes in France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands (e.g. Amsterdam Sports Card Show, CardCon Zurich).
- "Valuations backed by sales records" is a transparent pitch that carries weight when collectors don't trust AI price estimates.
8. Still unclear
- Actual revenue and paying-user count (top-grossing rank only shows a few payments; absolute amounts unknown; how much comes from tips is unknown).
- Whether the播放 on the two TikTok videos came from paid promotion (inference, unverified).
- Real transaction volume of the in-app marketplace (secure payment, shipping); which platform the valuation data is scraped from, and whether it is licensed.
- Android download counts (82 from AppAgg and 100+ for the recall-card are third-party numbers).
Sources
- iTunes lookup: itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=6790157350&country=de; store page apps.apple.com/de/app/cold-pull/id6790157350 (in-app purchase list)
- Our appstore tables (chart_rank / app_day / app_profile / v_chart, 2026-10-28 to 11-06)
- Website cold-pull.com (Shopify); Impressum cold-pull.com/policies/legal-notice
- oneofoneeurope.com/de/unsere-partner ;www.instagram.com/p/De_pVuhxmfr/
- www.instagram.com/coldpull_berlin/ (1404 followers)
- www.instagram.com/reel/Detls8jIY06/(Kartenfan)
- www.instagram.com/reel/DadeiQ1OiJC/ (Berlin Cardshow booth)
- www.thf-berlin.de/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/veranstaltung/ai…
- TikHub: @cold.pull profile and posts
- TestFlight:testflight.apple.com/join/kYcrjmCw
- x-radar search for "Cold Pull" app over the last 60 days: 0 posts