Key takeaways
- Grading is priced on two axes at once: how much the card is insured or declared for, and how fast you want it back.
- Both PSA and CGC publish their fee charts openly, and both state in writing that the turnaround times shown are estimates only and not guaranteed.
- Tiers are not directly comparable between companies — they bundle different extras, count days differently, and one applies membership discounts.
- Availability is part of the price: on the day we checked, PSA's pricing page showed its Value service levels temporarily paused.
- Per-parcel costs — postage both ways, insurance, packaging — are charged once per submission, which is why bulk tiers exist and why single-card submissions are expensive per card.
Grading is priced on two axes at the same time: how much the card is worth, and how fast you want it back. Every tier table you will meet is those two variables crossed with each other, with a few extras bundled in at the higher levels. Once you can read the table that way, the whole structure stops looking arbitrary.
What follows is what the two companies whose pages resolved for us published on one specific day, quoted exactly and attributed precisely, plus the costs that never appear in a fee chart at all.
Published by Reign Creative LLC. All figures below were read from the companies' own published pages on 15 September 2026.
How this was researched, and what we left out
We publish a card scanning app, so we have an interest in this subject and you should weigh what follows accordingly. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any grading company, and all names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Every figure here was read on 15 September 2026 from the grading company's own published pricing page, linked in the sources at the end. We did not use summaries, aggregator sites or forum posts. We are quoting the tiers as published rather than recommending any of them.
One deliberate omission: we checked a third well-known grading company's site on the same day and found it serving a maintenance page in place of its published fees. Describing its tiers from memory would have been guesswork dressed as research, so it is not in the tables below. That is not a judgement about the company — it is a statement about what we could verify.
Fees, service levels and availability change. Everything below is a snapshot. Check the current page before you send anything.
PSA's published card service levels
PSA describes grading as the assessment of a card's quality and condition on its 10-point grading scale, carried out after the card has been authenticated. Its card pricing page lists service levels by maximum insured value and estimated turnaround.
| Service level | Max insured value | Published fee per card | Estimated turnaround | Verification source | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $1,000 | $59.99 | 90–100 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
| Priority | $1,500 | $79.99 | 70–80 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
| Express | $2,500 | $199.00 | 20–30 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
| Super Express | $5,000 | $349.00 | 10–15 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
| Premier | $10,000 | $599.00 | 7–10 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
| Premium 1 | $25,000 or less | $999.00 | 5–7 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
| Premium 2 | $50,000 or less | $1,999.00 | 5–7 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
| Premium 3 | $100,000 or less | $2,999.00 | 5–7 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
| Premium 5 | $250,000 or less | $4,999.00 | 5–7 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
| Premium 10 | $250,001 or higher | $9,999.00 and up | 5–7 business days | PSA card pricing page | 15 September 2026 |
Three details from the same page are worth having.
The extras climb with the tier. Standard includes standard imaging of the front and back of the graded card. Priority adds a fitted sleeve protector. Express adds Grader Notes detailing card defects. Super Express and above include high-resolution Premium Imaging. So the higher tiers are not purely buying speed and insurance headroom.
Premium 10 is formula-priced. PSA's published note states that Premium 10 pricing starts at $9,999 for any item with a maximum insured value of $350,000 or less, and increases by $399 for each $10,000 — or fraction of $10,000 — above $350,000.
Availability is not permanent. On the day we checked, the page showed a "Value Services Are Temporarily Paused" notice and listed a Value Bulk level, with a $500 maximum insured value, as currently unavailable. A tier you read about last month may not be open this month.
PSA also states that estimated turnaround times are estimates only and not guaranteed, that a service level's estimated turnaround does not begin until the order has been entered into the grading system, that times may change rapidly without notice as conditions change, and that all terms and conditions are subject to change.
CGC's published card grading tiers
CGC's services and fees page lists its card grading tiers by maximum value per card, fee per card and current turnaround in working days.
| Tier | Max value per card | Published fee per card | Current turnaround | Verification source | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bulk (25-card minimum, mixed types) | $500 | $17 | 150 working days | CGC services and fees page | 15 September 2026 |
| Economy | $1,000 | $20 | 90 working days | CGC services and fees page | 15 September 2026 |
| Standard | $3,000 | $55 | 10 working days | CGC services and fees page | 15 September 2026 |
| Express | $10,000 | $100 | 5 working days | CGC services and fees page | 15 September 2026 |
| WalkThrough | $100,000 | $300 | 2 working days | CGC services and fees page | 15 September 2026 |
| Unlimited Value | Unlimited | $300 plus 1% of fair market value | 2 working days | CGC services and fees page | 15 September 2026 |
Two things on that page change the effective price. CGC states that Associate and Premium members save 10 per cent on grading and Elite members save 20 per cent, so the list price is not what every submitter pays. And it states that turnaround times reflect the estimated number of working days to complete a submission delivered to its facility today, that they are estimates only, and that they are not guaranteed.
Why the two tables do not settle anything
It is tempting to lay these side by side and declare a winner. They are not comparable in the way that would require.
- The bundles differ. Grader Notes and Premium Imaging are included at some PSA levels; CGC's chart is structured differently.
- The day counts differ in wording. "Business days" and "working days" are stated separately by each company, and PSA specifies that its clock starts when the order is entered into its system rather than when you post it.
- Discounts apply unevenly. A CGC member rate is a real price for that submitter and not for another.
- Tier availability moves. One company had a service level paused on the day we looked.
What the two tables do show clearly is the shape of the market: a low per-card price attached to a low value cap and a long queue, rising steeply as the value cap and the speed increase. That shape is consistent across both, and it is the thing to understand before you look at any individual number.
The costs that never appear in a fee chart
Add these before you decide anything.
- Postage out, and postage back. Per parcel.
- Insurance on the outbound parcel. Per parcel, and priced on what is inside it.
- Packaging that survives a courier. Cheap, but not free, and not optional.
- Selling fees, if the eventual plan is to sell.
- Time, held for a period published as an estimate rather than a commitment.
Because the first three are per parcel rather than per card, they are the structural reason single-card submissions are expensive and the reason bulk tiers with minimum counts exist at all. The full subtraction — raw price against graded price minus all of the above — is set out in is my card worth grading.
Why our app prices cards and not grades
TCG Card Grading Scanner Value gives you a market-value estimate for an identified printing variant and a centring measurement from photographs you take. It does not estimate a grade, and it does not estimate a grading fee.
Both omissions are deliberate, and the reasoning is the same in each case: we would have to guess.
A grade depends on surface, corners, edges and centring assessed under controlled conditions against a company's published standards. We can measure one of those four from a phone photograph taken in unknown light at an unknown angle. Turning that into a predicted grade would mean inventing the other three, and someone would pay a real fee on the strength of it.
A fee depends on the declared value you choose, the service level you pick, the company's current availability and any membership discount you hold. We would have to guess all four, and fee charts change without notice — as this article's own snapshot will eventually demonstrate.
What we would need to do either responsibly is not mysterious. For a grade: controlled capture conditions, calibrated lighting, and a validated model checked against a large set of cards with known outcomes. For a fee: a live, authorised data feed from each grading company. We have neither, so we do neither, and we say so in the app: grading estimates are informational only, and an official grade requires an independent professional grading service.
Before any of this matters, the card has to be identified correctly, and the surrounding vocabulary has to make sense — what the condition scales actually mean covers the second, and how to measure card centring covers the measurement itself. If a scan came back with a printing you did not expect, when a card scanner picks the wrong card is the place to start.
Our scanner sits with the rest of the studio's practical Android tools under Video & Utility Apps.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to grade a card?
Why does declared value change the price?
How long does grading take?
Can I compare two companies' tiers directly?
What costs are not in the fee chart?
Sources
- Card Authentication & Grading Prices (opens in a new tab)Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) — accessed
- CGC Cards Services and Fees (opens in a new tab)CGC Cards — accessed
- PSA Grading Standards (opens in a new tab)Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) — accessed
About the author
Reign Creative LLC — The independent app studio that builds the apps covered on this site and publishes every article here. On Google Play it publishes as Reign Collective Apps.
We use AI tools to help research, draft and edit our articles. Each article lists the sources its factual claims rely on, and details about our apps come from their live Google Play listings. No article on this site has been reviewed by an independent expert unless the reviewer is named on it.
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