Trawl vs the eBay Marketplace Insights API

The eBay Marketplace Insights API returns the sales history of items sold on eBay. eBay grants it to approved partners only. Trawl answers the same search for any account, with sales older than 90 days.

What it is

eBay's own API for sold items. It returns the last 90 days of sales. eBay marks it Limited Release: approved partners only. On 2026-10-07 its reference pages redirect to the developer sign-in.

For the same data without an application, create a free account and call the eBay Sold Listings API.

Side by side

	eBay Marketplace Insights API	Trawl
Access	Limited Release. For eBay partners that eBay approves, after an Application Growth Check.	Any account. The key is created at signup.
History	Sales from the last 90 days.	Recorded sales, older than 90 days. The script below reads April 2026.
Search	Keyword, ePID or GTIN, in up to four categories. A category is required. Filters: buying option, condition, item location, last sold date, price, aspects.	Keyword, in one category or all. Filters: condition, item specifics, price, sale date, excluded words. No ePID or GTIN search.
One record	One item with its sales summed: last sold price and date, quantity sold, title, condition, category, image, location, seller.	One sale: price, shipping, sale date, condition in eBay's words, buying format, bids, item id, category, image. The item endpoint adds specifics, description, images, seller and recorded sales.
Categories	A list of categories given to each partner.	Every category of the marketplace. The category lookup finds them by name or id.
Results per search	Pages of up to 200, by limit and offset. 10,000 at most.	Up to 2,000 in one response, as 20 pages of 100. Older sales by date_to.
Price	No published price. Buy APIs need an additional license.	Credits: 1 per page of 100 results, 0 for an empty result. 250 credits a month free, then from $20 a month for 3,000.
Auth and version	An OAuth client-credentials token. Version v1_beta.	An API key in a request header. Version v1, with a published OpenAPI document.

The same search on Trawl

A Marketplace Insights search names keywords, a category and a condition. Trawl's search takes the same three. Here the sold-date window is April 2026, six months back. The script reads the key from TRAWL_API_KEY. The search costs 1 credit.

same_search.py · the script

# same_search.py  (pip install requests)
import os
import requests

# A Marketplace Insights search: keywords, a category, a condition and a
# sold-date window. The same search on Trawl, with the window six months back.
r = requests.get(
    "https://api.trawl.dev/ebay/v1/sold",
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["TRAWL_API_KEY"]},
    params={
        "query": "iphone 15 pro 256gb",   # was q
        "category": "9355",               # was category_ids
        "condition": "used",              # was filter=conditions:{USED}
        "date_from": "2026-04-01",        # was filter=lastSoldDate:[...]
        "date_to": "2026-04-30",
    },
    timeout=30,
)
r.raise_for_status()
sold = r.json()
print(f"{sold['count']} sales, {sold['credits_charged']} credit")
for s in sold["results"][:3]:
    price = f"{s['currency']}{s['sale_price']:.2f}"
    print(s["date_sold"][:10], price, s["condition_raw"], s["title"][:40], sep="  ")

terminal · printed 2026-10-07

100 sales, 1 credit
2026-04-30  $629.99  Pre-Owned  Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max Unlocked 256GB B
2026-04-30  $565.95  Pre-Owned  Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max 256GB Titanium B
2026-04-30  $529.99  Pre-Owned  Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max 6.7" A2849 256GB

Where the eBay API is the better fit

An approved partner should use it. The data is eBay's own, with no published price. A search by GTIN or ePID pins one catalogue product. Trawl returns the ePID on a sale when the listing has one, but does not search by it. A Marketplace Insights record sums the sales of an item into one quantity; Trawl lists them one by one.

Where Trawl differs

Trawl needs no application. It keeps sales after eBay's 90 days. The eBay sold listings history guide reads a year of them, one month per call. Each sale is one row, with its own date, price and shipping. The findCompletedItems alternative guide maps eBay's old field names to Trawl's. The Browse API, eBay's open search, has no sold items at all, see Does eBay API return sold listings?