Skip to content

Grading & condition

Card Grading Cost Calculator

Enter how many cards you are sending and what one is worth. This prices the submission at every tier the five major graders publish, drops the ones your card is too valuable for, marks the ones nobody can order today, and gives you the landed cost per card with postage included.

Your submission

$

What the raw card is worth today. Declare it honestly — an under-declared card gets bumped to a higher tier and billed the difference.

Tracked and insured, out and back.

What matters to you

Three of the five graders have tiers closed to new orders right now.

Applies the member discount to CGC rows only.

What grading a single card costs in 2026

The cheapest way to get a card into a major holder right now is SGC Standard at $15 a card with a $1,500 declared-value ceiling, or CGC Bulk at $17 if you can put 25 cards in one box and wait roughly 150 working days. The cheapest PSA slab available to order is Regular at $79.99 — more than five times SGC's rate, because PSA paused all four of its Value tiers on 2 June 2026.

Postage is the cost people leave out. A tracked, insured round trip runs about $30 on a ten-card submission and $60 or more on a large one. Spread over ten cards that is $3 each; spread over one card it doubles the price of an SGC grade. Grading one card at a time is the single most expensive way to do it.

Every published tier, side by side

Published per-card grading fees and availability, checked 3 September 2026.
Grader Tier Per card Max declared value Business days Status
PSA Value Bulk 20+ cards $24.99 $500 95 paused
Value $32.99 $500 75 paused
Value Plus $49.99 $500 45 paused
Value Max $64.99 $1,000 30 paused
Regular $79.99 $1,500 40–50 open
Express $149 $2,500 20–30 open
Super Express $349 $5,000 10–15 open
Walk-Through $599 $10,000 7–10 open
Premium 1 $999 $25,000 5–7 open
BGS Base (no subgrades) $14.95 $250 75–90 paused
Base + subgrades $17.95 $250 75–90 paused
Standard $34.95 $1,000 45 paused
Express $79.95 $2,500 15 open
Priority $124.95 $5,000 5 open
CGC Cards Bulk 25+ cards $17 $500 150 open
Economy $20 $1,000 90 open
Standard $55 $3,000 10 open
Express $100 $10,000 5 open
WalkThrough $300 $100,000 2 open
SGC Standard $15 $1,500 40–50 open
Standard (mid) $85 $3,500 40–50 open
Expedited $150 $3,500 2–3 open
Expedited 7.5K $250 $7,500 2–3 open
TAG Basic $22 $500 45–60 paused
Standard $39 $750 30 paused
Express $59 $1,000 10–15 open
Priority $149 $2,500 5 open
Walkthrough $299 $10,000 2–3 open

Which tiers you can actually order today

Fee charts age badly, and most of the ones you will find were written before this summer. As of 3 September 2026:

  • PSA — Value Bulk, Value, Value Plus and Value Max are all paused, and have been since 2 June 2026. PSA attributes it to a backlog it describes as roughly 10 million cards and has not named a reopening date, tying it to a backlog target instead of a calendar.
  • Beckett — Base and Standard were paused on 8 August 2026, with 15 September 2026 given as the target for reopening. Express and Priority never closed.
  • TAG — Basic and Standard are unavailable, leaving Express at $59 as the entry point.
  • CGC and SGC — every published tier is open.

That pattern is the whole story of grading costs this year. Two companies absorbed the demand the other three stopped taking, and the price of the cheapest available slab roughly tripled at PSA while staying flat at SGC.

How the total is worked out

total = (fee per card × cards) + postage out + postage back per card = total ÷ cards a tier is offered only when: declared value per card ≤ tier ceiling cards in submission ≥ tier minimum tier status = open (unless you ask to see paused tiers)

The declared-value ceiling is a hard filter, not a suggestion. Send a $2,000 card on a tier that caps at $1,500 and the grader moves it up a level and invoices you for the difference, so a calculator that shows you the cheap tier for that card is showing you a price you will never be charged. This one hides those rows instead.

Member discounts are not applied by default because most submitters do not hold one. CGC's Elite tier takes 20% off, and the box above will apply it to CGC rows if you tick it. PSA's Collectors Club is deliberately left out of the maths: the tiers it unlocks are the paused ones, so paying for membership today buys access to a queue you cannot join.

What this does not include

  • Upcharges. Every grader reserves the right to re-tier a card it thinks you under-declared, and bills the gap.
  • Add-ons. Pedigree labels, custom labels, crossovers and reholders each carry their own fee.
  • Supplies. Card savers, team bags and a rigid box are a few dollars per submission.
  • Your time. Filling a submission form for 200 cards takes an evening.

Questions people ask about this

How much does it cost to grade a card in 2026?

Between $15 and $999 per card before postage, depending on the company and how fast you want it back. SGC Standard at $15 and CGC Bulk at $17 are the cheapest routes into a major holder; the cheapest PSA tier you can order is Regular at $79.99 because its four Value tiers are paused. Add roughly $30 round-trip postage on a small submission, which is $3 per card on ten cards and $30 per card on one.

Why is PSA grading suddenly so expensive?

PSA did not raise the price of Regular — it removed everything below it. All four Value tiers, from $24.99 Value Bulk up to $64.99 Value Max, were paused on 2 June 2026 while the company works through a backlog it describes as around 10 million cards. That leaves Regular at $79.99 as the entry price. PSA has tied the reopening to reducing the backlog rather than to a date.

Which grading company is cheapest?

SGC, at $15 per card on its Standard tier, with a $1,500 declared-value ceiling that is higher than several tiers costing five times as much. CGC Bulk is $17 but requires 25 cards in one submission and quotes 150 working days. If speed matters more than price, CGC WalkThrough at $300 returns cards in about two working days — the fastest published turnaround of any tier in this table.

Does the declared value change what I pay?

Yes, and it is the most common way a submission comes back costing more than planned. Each tier has a declared-value ceiling, and a card worth more than that ceiling has to go on a higher tier. Graders check this: if they judge the card to be worth more than you declared, they move it up and bill the difference. Declaring low to save money does not work.

Is it cheaper to grade cards in bulk?

Substantially, but the saving comes from postage rather than the fee. One card via SGC Standard costs $15 plus about $30 postage, so $45 landed. Twenty cards cost $300 plus roughly $40 postage, so $17 each. The per-card fee is identical; the shipping is what you are splitting. CGC Bulk adds a genuine fee discount on top, at the price of a 150-working-day wait and a 25-card minimum.

How long does grading take right now?

Published estimates run from two working days (CGC WalkThrough, $300) to 150 (CGC Bulk, $17). PSA Regular is quoted at 40 to 50 business days and SGC Standard at 40 to 50. Treat all of them as estimates rather than commitments — the reason three companies have tiers paused at all is that demand overran those estimates, and the clock at most graders starts when your package is logged in, not when it is delivered.

Where these numbers come from

Rates on this page were last checked against the published price lists on . Grading companies change fees and pause tiers without notice — confirm the total on the submission form before you pay.