What's next for Dex in 2026?
Looking Back on an Incredible 2025
Hey folks 👋 Pedro here with our usual annual review of Dex, plus a look at what’s coming next.
The past year was tricky to navigate, but still nothing short of amazing. One of the biggest highlights was welcoming Ruben as a full-time member of our engineering team. Ruben had already been working with us as a contractor on several major initiatives, including kickstarting Dex for Android and Web.
With his move to full-time, we were able to move much faster and finally launch Dex for Android and Web. Both are currently in Early Access, as they are still missing some major features compared to the iOS app, but getting them into users’ hands was a huge milestone for us.
That said, this shift also meant we couldn’t focus as much as we wanted on improving the already amazing iOS experience. Some long-awaited features like Graded Cards and Price History had to take a back seat for a while, but we’ll come back to those a little later in this article.
So, without further ado, let’s start by reviewing our major releases from this year.
Friends: Connect and Trade with Ease
Everything is better with friends, right? That’s why we introduced a friend system to Dex!
But don’t worry, Dex is not, and will never be, one of those pesky social platforms designed for bragging or keeping you hooked on an endless news feed. Instead, we’re focused on providing a reliable, privacy-friendly way to see if any of your friends have that chase card you’ve been searching for and to make trading easier than ever.
A New Home: Welcome to the Dashboard
You thought we’d stop at friends? Think again.
We also introduced a way to share your entire account with someone, simply by sharing your username. Don’t worry, they can’t make any changes to your data. Instead, they can view your collection in real time and browse through it as if it were their own.
With these additions, it became clear that Dex needed a new home base. The previous experience and design weren’t built to support this kind of functionality. So we introduced a brand-new entry point for Dex, the Dashboard screen, alongside a redesigned user profile to match this new design language.
While this update may seem simple on the surface, we strongly believe it’s a major milestone and the foundation for what’s coming next. Features like folder sharing are now within reach. Once Folders land on Web, we’ll replace our current static share links, which don’t reflect ongoing changes, with dynamic links that update in real time, along with a few more related features that we’ll reveal at the right moment.
If everything’s better with friends, then sharing is definitely caring. Right?
Badge Redesign: Collect, Achieve, and Celebrate
Who doesn’t love earning badges while collecting cards? We sure do, and we know you do too.
In 2025, we didn’t introduce as many new badges as we had hoped. There were two main reasons for that:
- We wanted Web and Android to catch up before adding more badges, ensuring we could properly support them across all platforms
- Our badges went through a bit of an identity crisis. We weren’t happy with their designs or the lack of consistency between them
While Web and Android still don’t support earning badges yet, only viewing them, we’ve at least solved the design problem. Together with Paulo, we completely redesigned every badge from the ground up.
This was a long journey spread across several months, but we’re incredibly happy with the result. More importantly, this redesign laid a solid foundation for many more badges to come.
Earlier in 2025, we also introduced a brand-new badge tier, Amethyst. These badges can’t be earned through regular use and are instead granted directly by our team, making them especially rare and extra elusive.
Marketing: Is it finally time?
Every single year, we talk about how much we love our community. It’s what allowed Dex to grow to this point without us putting any real effort into marketing. That said, even if it wasn’t strictly necessary, it always felt like a missed opportunity not to invest in it at all. Marketing is a vital part of sustaining growth, and we can’t rely solely on word of mouth forever.
2025 was finally the year we changed that. Back in April, Paulo took the lead on our social channels, and since then we’ve seen significant growth, especially on Instagram. More importantly, we’ve established Dex as a go-to place for thoughtful, high-quality content focused on the Pokémon TCG itself, not just the economics behind it, as many platforms tend to emphasize. That’s what we love about this hobby, and we couldn’t be happier that our socials reflect that passion.
On top of this, we also expanded the newly introduced Dashboard with a Stories section featuring those very same posts. This way, you can stay up to date directly inside Dex, without having to rely on external social feeds.
Oh, and we’re also very close to reaching 10 000 followers on Instagram. Can we make it happen before the end of the year? Go help us get there!
Pokédex Folder: Build Your Own
During 2025, what was already a popular way of collecting truly exploded in popularity: building your own Pokédex by collecting one card for each Pokémon.
We kept a close eye on this trend, and as a result, we introduced a brand-new folder type, the Pokédex. This folder focuses on selecting a single card per Pokémon, allowing you to narrow your search with precision while also tracking your progress more accurately.
We’ve been building a Pokédex ourselves, with a strong focus on art-driven cards. Think Alternate Art Tag Teams, Special Illustration Rares, and Illustration Rares. It’s been a costly journey, but an incredibly fun one. And by not limiting ourselves to English cards, we’ve been able to find much better deals in Japanese and Simplified Chinese.
None of this would have been possible without this new folder type. It’s a perfect example of what makes Dex special. We build tools we genuinely want to use ourselves.
A New Region: China
You know it, we know it, everyone knows it. Dex has the most complete card database out there, and it wouldn’t be possible without the incredible work of our content manager, Rick.
As Simplified Chinese cards from China continue to receive more exclusive releases every few months, we couldn’t help but notice both their rapid growth and how naturally they fit into Dex. Unlike cards from international regions or Japan, sourcing accurate data for Simplified Chinese releases is significantly more challenging, but we’re steadily getting there.
Even though the database is still a work in progress, we already offer what we believe is one of the most complete Simplified Chinese Pokémon TCG databases available in the West.
We can’t wait to see which new exclusives 2026 will bring.
Two New Platforms: Web & Android Are Here!
Ever since 2021, the most frequently asked question by far has been: “When is Dex coming to Web or Android?”
We heard you loud and clear. Thanks to an enormous effort over the past year, Dex is now available on Web and Android.
They’re not exactly where we want them to be just yet, which is why both are labeled Early Access. We’re actively working to bring them up to par with the iOS experience. While we missed our original April release target, launching on Web in July and Android in November, we’re now moving at full speed. Our goal is to get Group Folders and Standard Folders into your hands just in time for Christmas.
Dex is no longer tied to a single platform, and we can’t wait to see how our community grows alongside it.
2026: Boundless
As challenging as 2025 was to manage, it was still a very successful year, and we can’t wait to show you what we have in store for 2026. We’re hopeful this is the year we fully realize the vision we’ve had for Dex since the very beginning.
There’s still a long road ahead, but we believe the missing pieces will turn Dex into a truly complete package for any kind of collector. With that in mind, here’s a sneak peek at the major milestones we’re aiming to achieve in 2026.
Feature Parity: Get it all together
If there’s one clear goal for the very start of 2026, it’s achieving feature parity across all our platforms. In simple terms, that means having the same features available everywhere, with consistent behavior no matter where you use Dex.
We’re getting closer every week, and it’s only a matter of time until we fully get there. Right now, our focus is on bringing Folders from iOS to Web and Android just before Christmas, and we can’t wait for you to try them out.
There isn’t much more to explain. It’s a straightforward goal, but a very important one.
Price History
Price history is one of the most requested features in Dex, and it’s firmly on our roadmap for 2026. Our goal is to build it in a flexible and scalable way, allowing you to explore historical price charts for any card while also tracking how the value of your entire collection evolves over time. This is just the beginning, and we plan to expand on it with even more insights as the system grows.
Above all, we want price history to be robust, accurate, and genuinely useful, whether you’re a casual collector or deeply invested in tracking long-term value.
Graded Cards
We’re actively exploring how to introduce graded card tracking in a way that feels natural and fully aligned with the Dex experience. The system is being designed to support adding graded copies of any card, tracking both the grading company and the grade itself, and clearly distinguishing graded cards from raw ones in your collection.
These features will roll out in a future 2026 update, once we’re confident the system is ready and meets the level of polish we expect from Dex.
Binder Display Mode
At the moment, Dex doesn’t include a binder-style browsing experience. While our current list and gallery views work extremely well for searching, filtering, and tracking, we know many collectors love the familiarity of flipping through a physical binder.
A dedicated binder display mode is something we plan to introduce in 2026. Before releasing it, we want to make sure it feels smooth and fast, stays true to the look and structure of real binder pages, adapts to different collection sizes, and makes it easy to visually track set progress. Our goal isn’t just to create something that looks good, but a binder mode that’s genuinely useful for organizing and browsing your cards.
Sealed Product
Right now, Dex focuses exclusively on individual cards and collection tracking. Sealed products such as booster boxes, packs, Elite Trainer Boxes, tins, collections, and special bundles aren’t currently supported.
That said, we know more and more collectors enjoy mixing sealed products and singles in their collections. Adding sealed product tracking is something we want to tackle in 2026, and when we do, it will be designed to feel consistent with the rest of Dex while offering meaningful value for sealed collectors as well.
…and a Little Something Extra
There’s still one more thing we’re keeping under wraps, a fun Christmas gift for all of you, and we can’t wait for you to see it! Make sure to open Dex between Christmas and New Year’s Eve to unwrap our yearly Dex Wrapped.
But now, we’d love to hear from you! What do you think we should focus on in 2026? Did we miss something? What features would you like to see the most?
With all these new features on the horizon, we’re confident Dex will continue to be the ultimate companion for every Pokémon TCG enthusiast. Your feedback is invaluable in shaping the future of Dex, and we’re excited to bring these features to life.
Here’s to a groundbreaking 2026! 🥂