Funko Pop and Pop Mart's Labubu line sit at opposite ends of the same hobby. Both are mass-collected vinyl figures with huge cultural footprints, but they're built on almost entirely different collecting mechanics, and comparing them head-to-head says a lot about what kind of collector you actually are.
Funko built an empire on licensed pop-culture figures, a fixed box design, and a catalog so vast it covers nearly every franchise imaginable. Pop Mart's Labubu, by contrast, is a designer-art blind box line with no license behind it at all, built entirely around character design, rarity, and the thrill of not knowing what's inside the box until you open it.
Neither approach is new to collecting as a whole, but seeing them compared directly makes it easier to decide where your money and shelf space should go, especially since both categories keep growing fast enough to overwhelm a shelf if left unchecked.
A Funko Pop purchase is a known quantity. You see the figure on the shelf, you know exactly which character and variant you're getting, and the box design has stayed largely consistent since the line launched. The collecting decision is about which character to add, not what you'll end up with.
Labubu and other Pop Mart releases work in reverse. Each blind box hides one of several figures in a series, with secret or chase variants inserted at low odds among the more common designs, which means the purchase itself is a small gamble every time. That mechanic is the entire appeal for a large segment of Pop Mart's audience, and it's a completely different experience from picking a specific Funko off the shelf. Trading communities have grown up around swapping duplicate pulls for the specific character a collector actually wanted, which adds a social layer Funko collecting doesn't really have.
Collectors who want certainty and completeness by character tend to gravitate toward Funko, while collectors who enjoy the surprise, and the community energy around chase pulls, tend to end up deeper into Pop Mart's blind box format. Some collectors end up doing both, buying Funko for characters they specifically want and Labubu for the collecting experience itself.
Standard Funko Pops typically retail around $12-$18, with exclusive or convention variants climbing much higher on the secondary market for specific high-demand releases. Resale value in the Funko world is concentrated in a relatively small percentage of chase, exclusive, or vaulted figures, while the bulk of the catalog holds close to retail price, which makes it easier to predict which figures are worth holding onto.
Labubu blind boxes generally retail in a similar $15-$25 range per figure, but secondary market pricing behaves very differently, since secret and rare chase pulls from a sold-out series can resell for many multiples of the original price. That resale culture has turned Labubu into something closer to a trading commodity in some markets, with resale activity happening almost immediately after a series drops.
Both lines reward patience and research, but the resale dynamics couldn't be more different. Funko's value concentrates in a small number of known rarities you can identify before buying, while Labubu's value is largely determined after the fact, once you know what was actually inside the box. That unpredictability is part of why Labubu resale groups move so quickly compared to the slower, more established Funko secondary market.
Funko's fixed box design and consistent figure size have made it one of the most protector-friendly lines in the hobby, with dedicated cases sized specifically for standard 4-inch and 6-inch Pop boxes, including double protectors built for displaying pairs side by side. That consistency makes it simple to protect a growing shelf without guessing at sizing.
Labubu and other Pop Mart figures don't have the same dedicated protector ecosystem yet, since the smaller, plush-adjacent format and frequent size variation across series make a single universal case harder to standardize. In practice, general acrylic display cases and risers built for smaller figures tend to work well enough for Labubu, even without a Labubu-specific product on the market.
That gap is worth knowing going in. Funko collectors have more dedicated protection options today, while Labubu collectors are more likely to rely on general-purpose display and storage solutions until the format matures further. Expect that to change as Labubu's popularity holds, since protector brands typically follow demand rather than lead it.
Base prices are similar, generally $12-$25 per figure, but Labubu's secondary market pricing for rare pulls tends to run higher than most Funko resale activity.
It depends on the specific release, but Funko's value is easier to predict since rarity is known at purchase, while Labubu's value depends on which figure was inside the box.
Not yet in the way Funko has dedicated Pop protectors, so general acrylic display cases are the more common solution for now.
Funko is generally easier to complete a set from, since you know exactly which figure you're buying, while Labubu sets require opening multiple blind boxes to land specific characters.
Funko's consistent box sizing makes it one of the easier collections to protect long-term, and EVORETRO's Funko Pop 6-inch protector is built specifically for the line's standard 6-inch box format.
!
