Guide5 min read
How much does it cost to grade a Pokémon card? PSA, CGC and Beckett prices
Every open grading tier at PSA, CGC and Beckett as of October 2026, what you'll pay beyond the fee, and a simple test for whether a card is worth grading.
Guide
$17cheapest open grading fee per card (CGC Bulk, 25-card minimum)
New to pull rates? The terms in 30 seconds
- “1 in 92 packs”
- On average, you'd open 92 packs to pull one. It's an average, not a promise: you could hit it in pack 3 or go 300 without one.
- SIR (Special Illustration Rare)
- Full-art cards with special artwork. Usually a set's most valuable pulls.
- IR (Illustration Rare)
- Art cards of single Pokémon. More common than SIRs, and often collected as a set.
- Hyper Rare
- The gold cards. Among the rarest pulls in modern sets.
- Double Rare / Ultra Rare
- The ex and full-art cards that make up most of a set's hits.
- Booster box / ETB
- A booster box has 36 packs. An Elite Trainer Box (ETB) has 9, plus sleeves and accessories.
On this page
Grading a Pokémon card costs $17 to $599 per card at the big three graders for most collectors, and far more for very valuable cards. Where you land depends on the company, how fast you want the card back, and how much it’s worth. Right now there’s a twist: PSA and Beckett have both paused their cheapest tiers, so the low end of the market looks very different than it did a year ago.
Key takeaways
- PSA’s cheapest open tier is Standard at $59.99 a card (90 to 100 business days). Its Value tiers, which ran $24.99 to $64.99, are paused.
- CGC is the cheapest open option: Bulk at $17 a card (25-card minimum) or Economy at $20, but both are slow.
- Beckett is only taking Express right now, at $79.95 a card. Base and Standard are paused.
- Fees aren’t the whole bill. Add shipping both ways, insurance, and upcharges if the grader values your card above your tier.
- Of the 5,426 priced cards in the sets we track, only 123 sell for more than PSA’s cheapest fee ungraded.
Grading prices at a glance#
All prices are per card, for US submissions, as each company listed them on October 7, 2026. “Max value” is the most a card can be worth to use that tier. Turnaround is the company’s estimate in business days, counted from when it logs your order, not from when you ship.
PSA
| Tier | Price per card | Max value | Estimated turnaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value Bulk, Value, Value Plus, Value Max | Paused | — | — |
| Standard | $59.99 | $1,000 | 90–100 business days |
| Priority (formerly Regular) | $79.99 | $1,500 | 70–80 business days |
| Express | $199 | $2,500 | 20–30 business days |
| Super Express | $349 | $5,000 | 10–15 business days |
| Premier (formerly Walk-Through) | $599 | $10,000 | 7–10 business days |
PSA paused its Value tiers while it works through its backlog, and launched Standard on September 14, 2026 as a stopgap. Before the pause, Value Bulk was $24.99 and Value was $32.99. PSA hasn’t given a date for bringing them back.
CGC
| Tier | Price per card | Max value | Estimated turnaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bulk (25-card minimum) | $17 | $500 | 150 working days |
| Economy | $20 | $1,000 | 90 working days |
| Standard | $55 | $3,000 | 10 working days |
| Express | $100 | $10,000 | 5 working days |
| WalkThrough | $300 | $100,000 | 2 working days |
CGC members get 10% off (Associate and Premium) or 20% off (Elite). Bulk and Economy are the cheapest grading available anywhere right now, but the wait is long: 150 working days is more than seven months.
Beckett (BGS)
| Tier | Price per card | Estimated turnaround | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base (with subgrades) | $17.95 | 75+ business days | Paused, waitlist open |
| Base (no subgrades) | $14.95 | 75+ business days | Paused, waitlist open |
| Standard | $34.95 | 45 business days | Paused |
| Express | $79.95 | 15 business days | Open |
Beckett’s website has been offline for maintenance since September 9, 2026, and it’s taking submissions through a temporary form. Base and Standard prices are still listed, but Beckett says those tiers are paused to work through existing orders.
What you’ll pay beyond the grading fee#
The per-card fee is the headline, but a submission has other costs:
- Shipping to the grader. Use tracked, insured shipping. For a handful of cards that’s usually a small share of the total; for one card it can add a lot per card.
- Return shipping and insurance. Graders charge this at checkout, priced by the declared value of the order.
- Upcharges. If the grader decides your card is worth more than your tier’s max value, it moves the card up a tier and bills you the difference. Declare values honestly.
- Membership. Bulk tiers at PSA require a Collectors Club membership when they’re open. CGC discounts depend on membership level.
- Supplies. Penny sleeves and semi-rigid card holders for each card.
Is it worth grading your card?#
Grading pays when the graded card sells for more than the raw card plus everything you spent to grade it. The catch is that you don’t choose the grade. A card you think is a 10 can come back a 9, and a 9 often sells for a fraction of a 10.
A quick test before you submit:
- Look up the raw price and the recent sold prices for the card in the grade you realistically expect. Our guide to checking Pokémon card prices walks through it.
- Add up your all-in cost: fee, shipping both ways, insurance.
- Grading makes sense if the graded price at a likely grade, minus your all-in cost, is clearly more than the raw price. If it only works at a perfect 10, it’s a gamble.
For most modern cards, the answer is no. Of the 5,426 cards with prices in the sets we track, 123 sell for more than $59.99 ungraded, PSA’s cheapest fee today. Only 400 sell for more than CGC’s $17 Bulk fee. A Charizard ex from 151, one of the most popular modern cards, sells for $320.91 raw as the Special Illustration Rare, but $8.62 as the regular Double Rare. Grading the first can make sense; grading the second almost never will. (Prices as of Oct 12, 2026.)
People do grade cheaper cards for other reasons: to protect a favorite card, to finish a graded set, or because they like the slab. Those are fine reasons. Just count the fee as spending, not investing.
Which grader should you use?#
- For resale value, PSA is the default for Pokémon. Its slabs trade the most, and PSA 10s usually sell for more than other graders’ top grades. See PSA vs BGS for the comparison.
- For the lowest cost right now, CGC Bulk or Economy, if you can wait months.
- For speed on a mid-value card, CGC Standard ($55, about 10 working days) is far faster than PSA Standard at a similar price.
How long each one takes is covered in our grading turnaround times guide.
Sources#
- PSA, Trading card grading services and prices. Checked October 7, 2026.
- PSA, Pricing and estimated turnaround time updates (February 10, 2026 Value prices).
- CGC, Card services and fees. Checked October 7, 2026.
- Beckett, Turnaround time and availability update; Beckett tier prices and paused status as listed on its temporary submission form, reported by Collector Nation on October 7, 2026.
- Card prices: TCGplayer market prices from our price tracker.