How accurate is the brick'em scanner?

brick'em is trained on 18,600+ minifigures using BrickLink's complete catalog. You get the exact BrickLink ID, name, and market price for every figure scanned.

Do I need a credit card to start?

No. Start your 14-day free trial with no payment due today. Cancel anytime during the trial and you won't be charged.

What platforms can I export to?

Whatnot, eBay, BrickLink, Shopify, BrickStore, and generic CSV. Each export is formatted specifically for that platform so you can bulk upload immediately.

Is brick'em just for minifigures?

No. brick'em identifies both minifigures and individual parts. The parts scanner identifies pieces by color and looks up prices per variant.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. Cancel or downgrade from your settings page. No contracts, no cancellation fees, no questions asked.

I already have a system that works. Why switch?

If your current process handles 200+ figures a week without eating your weekends, keep it. But if you're spending hours on manual lookups, brick'em does the same work in minutes. Most sellers try the 14-day free trial and never go back.

Does LEGO Scanning Actually Save Time?

You just bought a bulk lot with 80 to 100 minifigures. You know there's money in there. Maybe a few hundred dollars. Maybe more. But now you're sitting at your desk, staring at a pile of plastic people, and you're wondering how long this is actually going to take.

If you've ever tried to manually look up LEGO minifigures one by one, you already know the answer: a long time. Hours. Sometimes an entire afternoon for a single lot. And if you're doing this regularly, whether for resale, inventory tracking, or collection management, that time adds up fast.

So does scanning LEGO actually save time and money? Or is it just another tool that sounds good in theory? Let's break it down with real numbers.

The Manual Lookup Problem

Here's what manual identification looks like in practice. You pick up a minifigure. You squint at the torso print. You open BrickLink, type a description into the catalog search. Something like "clone trooper blue markings." You scroll through results. You click on three or four listings that look close. You compare the photos to the figure in your hand. You check whether the legs match. You check whether the helmet is the right variant. You finally land on the correct ID. Then you click over to the price guide tab to see what it's worth.

That's one figure. It took you somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes. And that's if you know LEGO themes reasonably well. If you're newer to this, or the figure is from an obscure theme, it can take 5 to 10 minutes per fig.

Now multiply that by a whole lot.

The math on manual lookup

50 minifigures at 2.5 minutes each = 2 hours, 5 minutes
100 minifigures at 2.5 minutes each = 4 hours, 10 minutes
200 minifigures at 2.5 minutes each = 8 hours, 20 minutes

That's just identification and pricing. It doesn't include photographing for listings, writing descriptions, or actually posting them for sale. The lookup step alone can eat an entire day.

And here's the part nobody talks about: fatigue. After 30 or 40 manual lookups, your brain starts to check out. You rush. You misidentify a variant. You mark a \ figure as a \ common because you didn't notice the slightly different leg print. That one mistake just cost you more than the lot itself.

What Scanning Actually Looks Like

A scanning tool flips the process. Instead of describing a figure in words and hoping the search returns the right match, you point a camera at the figure and let image recognition do the work. The software matches the torso print, head design, and accessories against a database of every known minifigure. You get an ID and a price in seconds.

With brick'em, the process looks like this:

Spread your minifigures on a flat surface with a bit of space between each one
Take a photo (or use your phone camera directly)
The scanner detects each figure in the image and draws a box around it
Each figure gets identified against the full BrickLink catalog
Prices appear automatically, pulled from real BrickLink sales data

For a single figure, this takes about 5 to 10 seconds. For a batch of 15 to 20 figures in one photo using bulk scan, you're looking at about 30 to 60 seconds total.

The math on scanning

50 minifigures = roughly 15 to 20 minutes (3-4 bulk scans)
100 minifigures = roughly 30 to 40 minutes (6-7 bulk scans)
200 minifigures = roughly 60 to 80 minutes (12-14 bulk scans)

Compare that to the manual numbers above. At 100 figures, you're going from over 4 hours to under 40 minutes. That's a 6x speed improvement. At 200 figures, you're saving roughly 7 hours.

Does Scanning LEGO Save Money?

Time is money. That's not just a cliche when you're running a resale operation. Every hour you spend on identification is an hour you're not spending on sourcing, listing, shipping, or buying the next lot.

Let's put a dollar value on it. If your time is worth \/hour (conservative for anyone doing this as a side hustle or small business), here's what manual lookup costs you:

50 figs: 2 hours = \ in time
100 figs: 4 hours = \ in time
200 figs: 8 hours = \ in time

Now compare with scanning:

50 figs: 20 minutes = \.33 in time
100 figs: 40 minutes = \.67 in time
200 figs: 80 minutes = \.33 in time

On a single 100-figure lot, scanning saves you about \ in time. Process two lots a month and you're saving \ monthly. That's before counting the money you make from actually spending those freed-up hours on revenue-generating work.

brick'em tip: The biggest savings aren't just in speed. Scanning catches variants that manual lookup misses. One correct variant ID on a figure worth \ instead of \ pays for months of scanning. Try it free.

The Hidden Cost of Manual Lookup: Mistakes

Speed is the obvious advantage. But the less obvious one is accuracy. When you're manually looking up minifigures, you're making judgment calls on every single one. And after 50 or 60 lookups in a row, your judgment gets sloppy.

Common mistakes that cost real money:

Misidentifying variants. LEGO produces tons of similar-looking figures with subtle differences. A Clone Trooper Phase 1 and Phase 2 can look nearly identical but differ in value by \ to \. A Boba Fett with printed arms vs without can be a \ difference.
Skipping figures that look generic. When you're tired, you start tossing "boring" looking figs in the dollar bin. Some of those "boring" figs are exclusive to a single retired set and worth \ or more.
Using outdated prices. If you're referencing a price you looked up last month, the market may have moved. Scanning tools pull current data every time.
Mixing up similar BrickLink IDs. Typing "sw0188" when you mean "sw0189" doesn't sound like a big deal until one is worth \ and the other is worth \.

A scanner doesn't get tired. It doesn't rush at 4pm because it wants to be done. It checks the same database with the same precision on figure #1 and figure #200.

When Manual Lookup Still Makes Sense

Scanning isn't always the right call. There are situations where manual lookup is still the better move:

Disassembled or partial figures. If a minifigure is missing its head or has the wrong legs attached, image recognition has less to work with. You may need to manually check the torso print on BrickLink.
Custom or modified figs. Scanners match against official LEGO releases. If someone has swapped parts between figures (or worse, mixed in knockoffs), the scanner may return a close but incorrect match. Your eyes are better for catching those.
One or two figures. If you're only looking up a single fig and you already have a good idea what it is, a quick BrickLink search is perfectly fine. The time savings of scanning really kick in at volume.

For most resellers dealing with bulk lots, though, scanning is the clear winner. The volume is where the time savings become undeniable.

A Real Example: 100-Figure Lot Breakdown

Let's walk through a realistic scenario. You bought a bulk lot at a garage sale for \. It has about 100 minifigures mixed in with loose bricks.

Manual approach

Sort and separate all minifigures: 20 minutes
Look up each figure on BrickLink: 4 hours
Record IDs and prices in a spreadsheet: 30 minutes
Total: ~5 hours

Scanning approach

Sort and separate all minifigures: 20 minutes
Batch scan in groups of 15-20: 35 minutes
Review results and confirm IDs: 10 minutes
Total: ~1 hour, 5 minutes

Same lot. Same profit at the end. But one approach took an entire afternoon and the other took about an hour. The question isn't whether scanning saves time. It's what you do with the 4 hours you just got back. Source another lot? List the figures you already identified? Actually enjoy your weekend?

Built for bulk lots. brick'em was designed for exactly this workflow. Scan a tray of figs, get IDs and BrickLink prices, add everything to your inventory in one shot. No spreadsheets. No tab-switching. Create a free account.

What About Accuracy?

A fair question. If a scanner saves time but gets the wrong ID, you haven't saved anything. You've just added a new problem.

Modern image recognition for LEGO has gotten surprisingly good. brick'em matches against the full BrickLink catalog of over 18,600 minifigures. For clear, well-lit photos of assembled figures, accuracy is high. When the scanner isn't 100% confident, it shows alternative matches ranked by probability so you can pick the right one.

Is it perfect? No. No identification method is. Even experienced collectors sometimes need to double-check a tricky variant on BrickLink. But scanning gets you 90%+ of the way there in a fraction of the time, and you only need to manually verify the edge cases.

The Bottom Line

Manual LEGO lookup is slow, mentally draining, and error-prone at scale. It works fine for a handful of figures. It falls apart when you're processing bulk lots regularly.

Scanning saves 75% to 85% of your identification time. On a 100-figure lot, that's 3 to 4 hours back in your pocket. Over a month of regular sourcing, that's easily 10 to 15 hours. Time you can spend sourcing better lots, listing faster, or just not burning out on the tedious part of this hobby.

The money savings follow directly. Less time per lot means lower cost per lot. Fewer misidentified variants means fewer underpriced sales. And faster turnaround means you can process more inventory in the same amount of time.

If you're processing more than 20 or 30 figures at a time, scanning isn't a luxury. It's the obvious move.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to scan a LEGO minifigure?

A single minifigure takes about 5 to 10 seconds with a scanning tool. With bulk scanning (multiple figures in one photo), you can identify 15 to 20 figures in 30 to 60 seconds. Compare that to 2 to 3 minutes per figure for manual BrickLink lookup.

Is LEGO scanning accurate enough for pricing?

For well-lit photos of assembled minifigures, modern scanners match against the full BrickLink catalog with high accuracy. When a match isn't certain, tools like brick'em show ranked alternatives so you can pick the correct one. Prices are pulled from real BrickLink sales data, not estimates.

Do I still need BrickLink if I use a scanner?

BrickLink is still the gold standard for LEGO data. A scanner speeds up the identification and pricing step, but you'll likely still use BrickLink for listing items, checking historical price trends, and researching unusual variants. Think of scanning as the fast lane to get your BrickLink IDs and prices, not a replacement for the platform itself.

What's the best way to scan a large LEGO lot?

Separate your minifigures from loose bricks first. Lay them out on a flat, well-lit surface with a little space between each one. Scan in batches of 15 to 20 figures per photo. This gives the image recognition enough detail to distinguish each figure clearly. A 100-figure lot takes about 6 to 7 batch scans.

Is it worth paying for a scanning tool?

If you process more than a few lots per month, the math is straightforward. A scanning tool that saves you 3 to 4 hours per lot at \/hour means \ to \ saved per lot. Even a \/month subscription pays for itself on the first lot. Free tiers (like brick'em's free plan) let you test the workflow before committing.