COST COMPARISON
Pokemon card grading cost comparison
What PSA, CGC, and TAG actually charge to grade a single card right now, and how their turnaround times compare — pulled from each grader's own published pricing.
Grading fees change, tiers get paused, and turnaround times swing with submission volume — so a number you saw quoted six months ago in a forum post is not a number you should plan a submission around. Below is what each major grading service publishes on its own site today, for a single-card submission (not a bulk/quantity-discounted rate).
PSA
PSA's current published grading fees range from $79.99 per card (Regular tier, 70-80 business day turnaround) to $599 per card (Walk-Through tier, 7-10 business days), with a separate lower-cost 'Value' tier currently paused due to demand.
Beyond Walk-Through, PSA also publishes five further Premium tiers running up to $9,999+ per card with 5-7 business day turnaround and higher declared-value insurance caps — relevant only for genuinely high-value cards, but worth knowing so you don't assume Walk-Through is PSA's ceiling. No PSA membership is required to submit at any tier; PSA does sell an optional paid Collectors Club membership with its own benefits, separate from submission eligibility.
CGC
CGC's published tiers for a single card, from its own current fee schedule: Economy at $20 per card with roughly a 90-day turnaround (the cheaper Bulk tier at $17/card requires a 25-card minimum submission, so it doesn't apply to a single card), Standard at $55 with a 10-day turnaround, Express at $100 with a 5-day turnaround, and WalkThrough at $300 with a 2-day turnaround. CGC also offers paid membership tiers that discount these fees.
TAG
TAG is the hardest of the three to quote confidently. TAG's help-center documentation has described a Basic/Standard/Express/Priority/Walkthrough ladder running from roughly $22 to $299 per card — but TAG's own live backlog tracker has separately shown that ladder paused, with a "TAG Score" option (around $79 per card, roughly 25 business days) as the tier actually open for submissions. Because these two TAG sources disagree, treat any TAG number you see — including ours — as something to reconfirm directly with TAG immediately before submitting, not something to plan around in advance.
Side by side (single-card submission)
| Grader | Tier | Fee | Turnaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | Regular | $79.99 | 70-80 business days |
| CGC | Economy | $20.00 | 90 business days |
| TAG | TAG Score | $79.00 | 25 business days |
verified 2026-09-07 — always confirm on the grader's own site before submitting
Add shipping and insurance before you compare to card value
None of the fees above include what it costs to actually get the card to the grader and back safely. Budget roughly $10-15 for tracked, insured shipping on a single well-protected card at typical declared values, more as the card's value rises — this is a real cost estimate, not a grader-published number, and should be added on top of the fee before you compare total cost to the card's value.
An honest gap in what RarityPay shows today
The fees and turnaround times above are real and sourced. What RarityPay's app cannot yet show you is a live, real graded-price figure to multiply against those fees — doing that math well requires a connected source for actual PSA/CGC/TAG sale prices, and this build doesn't have one wired up yet. Rather than estimate a graded price and present it as fact, the app marks that line "unavailable" and shows you the real fee and turnaround on their own. The free calculator on the should-I-grade-this page lets you run the same math with graded prices you look up yourself in the meantime.
Fees, tiers and turnaround times are pulled from each grading company's own published pricing pages as of 2026-09-07 and are subject to change without notice. Shipping/insurance figures are an estimate, not a grader-published number. RarityPay is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to PSA, CGC, or TAG.