Card grading fees in September 2026: every PSA, CGC, TAG and Beckett tier, what is paused, and the cheapest way to grade

Fees verified 13 September 2026 from each company's published price page. Fees change; confirm on the grader's site before you submit. We update this table monthly.

The one fact that matters most right now

PSA paused all four of its Value tiers (Value Bulk $24.99, Value $32.99, Value Plus $49.99, Value Max $64.99) in June 2026 and estimates they return around October. Until then, the cheapest PSA service for a single card is Regular at $79.99, with a 70 to 80 business day turnaround. If your mental model of grading still includes a $25 PSA slab, your math is off by $55 a card.

Full fee table

Company Tier Fee per card Max declared value Minimum cards Est. turnaround Status
PSA Value Bulk $24.99 $500 20 ~95 days Paused (Collectors Club required when active)
PSA Value $32.99 $500 1 ~75 days Paused
PSA Value Plus $49.99 $500 1 ~45 days Paused
PSA Value Max $64.99 $1,000 1 ~30 days Paused
PSA Regular $79.99 $1,500 1 70–80 business days Active
PSA Express $149 $2,500 1 ~25 days Active
PSA Super Express $349 $5,000 1 ~9–12 days Active
PSA Walk-Through $599 $10,000 1 ~6–8 days Active (+2% insurance over $499 declared)
CGC Bulk $17 $500 25 ~150 working days Active
CGC Economy $20 $1,000 1 ~90 working days Active
CGC Standard $55 $3,000 1 ~10 days Active
CGC Express $100 $10,000 1 ~5 days Active
CGC WalkThrough $300 $100,000 1 ~2 days Active
TAG Basic $22 $500 10 ~2 months Paused
TAG Standard $39 $1,000 1 ~15 days Paused
TAG Express $59 $1,000 1 ~10 days Active
TAG Priority $149 $2,500 1 ~5 days Active
TAG Walkthrough $299 $5,000 1 ~3 days Active
Beckett Base $14.95 none listed 1 ~3 months Active
Beckett Base with subgrades $17.95 none listed 1 ~3 months Active
Beckett Standard $34.95 none listed 1 ~2 months Active
Beckett Express $79.95 none listed 1 ~15 days Active
Beckett Priority $124.95 none listed 1 ~5 days Active

What the pause does to the math

Grading pays when the expected value of the graded card, after fees and after the selling platform's cut, beats selling raw today. A fee jump from $25 to $80 is a $55 move in that equation. For a card worth $300 raw that is 18% of its value, more than the price gap between a 9 and a 10 for many modern cards.

A worked example with real numbers is in our Charizard ex (151) breakdown: the same card is about +$51 on expectation through CGC Economy and about −$8 through PSA Regular.

Cheapest way to grade a single card today

  1. Beckett Base, $14.95, if a BGS slab suits the card's buyers. Resale premiums for BGS on modern Pokémon are usually below PSA and CGC, so check sold comps first.
  2. CGC Economy, $20, the practical default for modern cards worth $60 to $1,000 while PSA's tiers are paused. Check that the graded comps you are counting on are CGC comps, not PSA.
  3. CGC Bulk, $17, if you have 25 cards ready and can wait about 150 working days.
  4. PSA Regular, $79.99, when the card is worth enough that the PSA premium covers the fee, roughly $300 and up depending on the 10 comps, or when you are willing to hold the card until the Value tiers return.

The 2.5× rule of thumb

Before you even look at comps: if the raw price is less than about 2.5 times the fee plus your share of shipping, stop. With CGC Economy that floor is about $63; with PSA Regular it is about $212. The full five-question walk-through is in our free Grade or Hold checklist, and the Grading ROI Calculator runs the whole calculation with your own comps, odds and fees for up to 50 cards at a time.

GradeWorthy is not affiliated with PSA, CGC, TAG, Beckett, The Pokémon Company, Nintendo, eBay or TCGplayer. Fees quoted are from the companies' public price pages on 13 September 2026 and may have changed.