How to read DonutSMP prices

Every item on DonutSMP has two prices at the same time. Sellers list items on the auction house and ask for a price. Buyers place buy orders and offer a price. The gap between the two is where trading happens, and almost every number on a DonutStats price page describes one side or the other.

If you want an item right now, the auction house side matters to you: it is what you will pay. If you have items to get rid of right now, the buy order side matters: it is what someone has already promised to pay you. Keeping those two apart is the single most useful habit for reading prices.

The asking price is the headline number on every item. It is a price per single item, worked out from the cheapest listings on the auction house rather than from only the one cheapest listing. That way one listing at a silly price cannot drag the number around, but the figure still tracks what you would realistically pay if you went to buy a few right now.

Prices are always shown per item. A stack of 64 listed for $6,400 shows as $100 each, so you can compare a single item and a full stack fairly.

The lowest listing is the single cheapest item for sale. It is the price you can get if you are quick, but it is also the number most likely to be a mistake, a bait listing or an item that is about to sell.

The median listing is the middle of every listing for the item. When the median is far above the asking price, the cheap end of the market is thin: a few sellers are undercutting while most listings sit much higher. When the median and the asking price are close, the market is crowded and prices are stable.

The top buy order is the best price any buyer is currently offering for one item. If you deliver items to that order, that is what you are paid. Next to it you will see how many items are wanted in orders, which tells you how much you could actually sell before you run into lower offers.

A high top order with only a handful wanted is a small opportunity. A slightly lower price with tens of thousands wanted is often the better place to sell a large haul.

The spread is the difference between the asking price and the top buy order. A small spread means buyers and sellers agree on what the item is worth, and you lose very little by buying and selling quickly.

A large spread means the two sides disagree. That can be an opportunity, which is what the flipping guide is about, but it can also mean the item rarely trades and nobody is in a hurry.

Listings counts how many separate auctions exist for the item, while quantity for sale adds up every item across them. Ten listings of a full stack is 640 items. These two numbers tell you how deep the market is: a price backed by hundreds of listings is far more reliable than one backed by two.

Enchanted gear, potions, trimmed armor and other special items are priced separately for each combination. A Netherite Sword with Sharpness V and Looting III is a different market from one with only Mending, and DonutStats keeps their prices apart. Use the enchantment filters on an item page to find the exact version you care about before you compare prices.

Most prices are trustworthy, but a few situations call for a second look:

• Only one or two listings. The price is whatever one seller decided, not what the market agrees on.
• A sudden spike on the chart that fades within the hour. Usually a cheap batch sold out and the next listings were much higher for a short while.
• A buy order far above the asking price. Check how many items it actually wants. Some orders are tiny, already filled or set up as bait.
• Prices in the billions for common items. These are troll listings. The asking price ignores most of them, but the lowest and median listing will not.

When in doubt, open the item in game before you buy or sell. DonutStats shows you where to look, but the final check is always the auction house itself.

Every item page has a price chart with hourly and daily views. Hourly views show what is happening today, including short dips you can buy into. Daily views use the typical price for each day, which makes long term trends easy to see without the noise of a single busy hour.

A steady climb usually means demand is growing, for example after an update makes an item more useful. A steady slide often means more of the item is being farmed than players need. Either way, the trend tells you more than any single number on the page.