{ "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/the-convenience-tax", "slug": "the-convenience-tax", "title": "The Same Pack Costs 40% More If You Buy Six of Them", "summary": "Across the 17 sets where we track both a booster box and a booster bundle, the bundle costs 1.40x more per pack. It is more expensive in 16 of the 17. Meanwhile a loose single pack is CHEAPER than the same set's box-price-per-pack in 29 of 47 sets, which says something specific about what a sealed box is actually being priced for.", "section": "Set economics", "published": "2026-09-05", "readMinutes": 7, "publisher": "moonstone", "findings": [ { "value": "1.40x", "measures": "median bundle cost per pack, against a box", "basis": "17 sets holding both" }, { "value": "16 of 17", "measures": "sets where the bundle is the pricier pack", "basis": null }, { "value": "2.15x", "measures": "the widest gap we record", "basis": "Scarlet & Violet" }, { "value": "0.93x", "measures": "median loose single pack, against a box pack", "basis": "47 sets, cheapest SKU of each per set" } ], "tables": [ { "title": "Per pack, same set, same day: box against bundle (nine of the seventeen sets that hold both)", "columns": [ "Set", "Box", "Box per pack", "Bundle", "Bundle per pack", "Premium" ], "rows": [ { "Set": "Scarlet & Violet", "Box": "$295.69", "Box per pack": "$8.21", "Bundle": "$106.07", "Bundle per pack": "$17.68", "Premium": "2.15x" }, { "Set": "Delta Reign", "Box": "$268.41", "Box per pack": "$7.46", "Bundle": "$90.49", "Bundle per pack": "$15.08", "Premium": "2.02x" }, { "Set": "Obsidian Flames", "Box": "$365.73", "Box per pack": "$10.16", "Bundle": "$119.60", "Bundle per pack": "$19.93", "Premium": "1.96x" }, { "Set": "Paradox Rift", "Box": "$272.59", "Box per pack": "$7.57", "Bundle": "$87.53", "Bundle per pack": "$14.59", "Premium": "1.93x" }, { "Set": "Temporal Forces", "Box": "$312.25", "Box per pack": "$8.67", "Bundle": "$90.35", "Bundle per pack": "$15.06", "Premium": "1.74x" }, { "Set": "Lost Origin", "Box": "$726.45", "Box per pack": "$20.18", "Bundle": "$202.15", "Bundle per pack": "$33.69", "Premium": "1.67x" }, { "Set": "Chaos Rising", "Box": "$191.90", "Box per pack": "$5.33", "Bundle": "$36.39", "Bundle per pack": "$6.07", "Premium": "1.14x" }, { "Set": "Journey Together", "Box": "$252.41", "Box per pack": "$7.01", "Bundle": "$46.40", "Bundle per pack": "$7.73", "Premium": "1.10x" }, { "Set": "Destined Rivals", "Box": "$414.67", "Box per pack": "$11.52", "Bundle": "$66.02", "Bundle per pack": "$11.00", "Premium": "0.96x" } ] }, { "title": "Median 30-day price move, the six sealed formats with a fixed pack count or a single unit", "columns": [ "Format", "Products with a recorded move", "Median 30d" ], "rows": [ { "Format": "Elite Trainer Box", "Products with a recorded move": "51", "Median 30d": "-2.5%" }, { "Format": "Booster box", "Products with a recorded move": "47", "Median 30d": "-0.4%" }, { "Format": "Booster bundle", "Products with a recorded move": "28", "Median 30d": "-0.0%" }, { "Format": "Collection box", "Products with a recorded move": "339", "Median 30d": "+1.1%" }, { "Format": "Blister", "Products with a recorded move": "266", "Median 30d": "+1.2%" }, { "Format": "Single pack", "Products with a recorded move": "151", "Median 30d": "+1.3%" } ] } ], "charts": [], "sections": [ "The loose pack is cheaper than the box it came out of", "The Elite Trainer Box is not a box of packs", "The big formats are the ones going down" ], "method": [ "Population: our sealed catalog, 2,342 priced products, synced daily from the sealed feed on a budget paced rotation, read September 5, 2026. Formats are classified with the same name rules the rip tools use; cases and half boxes are excluded throughout. Pack counts are asserted only where they are certain, 36 for a booster box, 6 for a booster bundle and 1 for a single pack, which is why no per pack figure is published for Elite Trainer Boxes: their count varies by era and we do not hold the era reliably. Box against bundle is computed within the same set on the same day, 17 sets holding both; box against single pack the same way, 47 sets. Within a set, each format is represented by its CHEAPEST qualifying SKU, and that choice decides the sign of the loose-pack figure rather than merely refining it: most sets list both a plain Booster Pack and a dearer Sleeved Booster Pack, and pooling them into a per-set median reverses the result to 1.02x on this date, 1.11x on a September 22, 2026 recompute. The article states both readings rather than only the one that supports the headline. One single pack in the sample is a Base Set Shadowless collector pack at $15,000, which is not a rip candidate; medians rather than means are reported throughout, so it moves nothing. Thirty day moves are the feed's own recorded change per product, reported as medians with the count of products carrying one, for the six formats named in that table only; the other nine formats our classifier recognises, including tins, decks, build and battle boxes, premium collections and the Pokemon Center ETB, are not shown and are not in the gloss beneath it. That column is the feed's current-state field rather than a dated series, so it is the one figure here that cannot be recomputed as of this read. Sealed prices are not simultaneous with card prices and nothing here is an expected value: no pull rates are used anywhere in this piece." ], "terms": "Figures are moonstone's own recorded measurements, dated as published. Quote them with the population stated beside them. The article at `url` is the human form of this file." }