Grading Pokémon cards: how it works, from binder to slab

Grading looks complicated from the outside: five companies, a dozen tiers each, forms, declared values, waits measured in business days. It isn’t. You pick a few cards, check them hard, choose a grader and a tier, send them off and wait. This page walks through the whole thing once, with fees checked today, and points you to the deeper guides when you need the detail.

What does it mean to get a Pokémon card graded?

It means paying an independent company to authenticate the card, give it a condition grade, usually on a 1 to 10 scale, and seal it in a tamper-evident case with a label and a certificate number. Anyone can then look that number up to check the slab is real.

Authentication comes first. PSA, for example, says its graders check every card is genuine and look for trimming or recoloring before they grade it; a fake or altered card comes back without a number grade. Then the card is graded on four things, centering, corners, edges and surface, and the weakest of them usually sets the grade. PSA calls a 10 “a virtually perfect card.” Our PSA grading scale guide goes through every grade from 1 to 10.

Does grading make a Pokémon card worth more?

Only when the number on the slab is high. On modern cards, a 10 is where the money is; a 9 often sells for about what a clean raw copy does. Here’s the most traded modern Charizard today.

A PSA 9 adds less than $40, which doesn’t cover the cheapest PSA fee. A PSA 10 is worth about four times a raw copy. That gap is why the whole hobby obsesses over 10s, and why the most useful thing you can do before grading is work out honestly whether your card could get one. PSA 9 vs PSA 10 looks at that gap across more cards. Vintage is different: clean Base Set era holos are scarce, so 8s and 9s can still carry a real premium.

How do you get Pokémon cards graded?

You create an order on the grader’s website, pack the cards and post them, or hand them over in person, then wait for the slabs to come back. Here’s the whole process in order.

1. 1Pick the cards. Choose cards that are valuable and clean enough to have a shot at a high grade. Most cards in a binder aren’t worth the fee; more on picking them below.
2. 2Check their condition. Under a bright light, look at the centering, all eight corners, the edges on the back and the surface at an angle. One flaw you can see usually rules out a 10.
3. 3Choose a grader. PSA for the best resale on most cards, CGC for the lowest price, TAG or Beckett if you want to know why a card got its grade. The comparison below sets them side by side.
4. 4Choose a tier. Tiers trade price for speed, and each has a maximum value per card. You declare what the card will be worth after grading, and that, not what you paid, sets the tier.
5. 5Submit online or in person. PSA says every submission starts with an order in its Online Submission Center, even if you hand the cards in at a show. Or skip the form: GameStop takes PSA submissions in participating stores.
6. 6Wait. Anything from a few days on the expensive express tiers to about seven months on CGC’s cheapest. PSA quotes its $59.99 Standard tier at 90 to 100 business days, roughly four and a half months.
7. 7Get your slabs back. Check each label against the card and look up the certificate number on the grader’s site. Then decide whether to keep or sell.

Packing matters more than people think: a penny sleeve, then a semi-rigid holder such as a Card Saver, then a sturdy box with no room for the cards to slide. How to submit cards to PSA covers the form, packing and shipping step by step, and where to get Pokémon cards graded compares mailing it yourself with GameStop, card shows and group submitters. GameStop’s price on 25 October 2026 was $59.99 a card plus $9.99 an order, for cards worth up to $1,000, with no form and no minimum.

Which company should you use to grade Pokémon cards?

For cards you might sell, PSA, because its 10s sell for the most on most cards. For your own collection or mid-value cards, CGC is the cheapest. Here are all five on the things that matter to a first submission.

Two things a beginner should know. First, PSA has no 9.5, so a near-perfect card lands on a 9 or a 10 there; CGC, SGC and Beckett can give it a 9.5. Second, the price you see is per card and doesn’t include shipping both ways. The best grading company for Pokémon cards compares what each company’s 10s actually sell for, and there are full guides to TAG, SGC, Beckett and CGC’s fees.

How much does it cost to get a Pokémon card graded?

Between $17 and $59.99 a card at the cheapest open tiers, plus shipping, and more if the card is valuable, because each tier caps the value it covers. At PSA the tiers on 25 October 2026 were these.

The max value is what the card will be worth after grading, not now. The 151 Charizard above sells for about $307 raw, but a PSA 10 is worth about $1,275, so it belongs in Priority at $79.99, not Standard. Under-declare and PSA can bill you for the right tier before it returns the card. What PSA grading costs has every tier, extra and shipping charge.

What do graders look at on a Pokémon card?

Every grader checks the same four things on both sides of the card: centering, corners, edges and surface. They differ in how strict they are and in how they combine the four into one number.

The back is where most Pokémon cards lose their 10. Its dark blue border shows every speck of whitening, and the front hides it. And because the weakest area caps the grade, a card with perfect corners and one visible scratch is still a 9 or lower. Our guides to Pokémon card centering and Pokémon card condition show what each flaw looks like.

Can you grade Pokémon cards yourself?

You can pre-grade them, and you should, but only a grading company’s slab counts when you sell. Use a bright lamp or a phone flashlight held at an angle, a loupe if you have one, and look at the back first. If you find a flaw, assume a 9 at best and price the card that way.

Which Pokémon cards should you get graded?

Send cards that are worth well over $100 raw, have a big jump in price at a 10, and look clean enough to get one. Most cards fail at least one of those three, and that’s fine.

• Send: clean vintage holos, modern special illustration rares and alt arts of popular Pokémon pulled straight into a sleeve, and expensive cards you want authenticated before you sell.
• Send if it matters to you: a card you’ll keep forever. The fee then buys protection and display, not profit.
• Skip: bulk and cheap holos, where even a 10 barely covers the fee and postage.
• Skip: anything with whitening, a soft corner, a visible scratch or obvious off-centering. That caps it at an 8 or 9, which on modern cards often sells for less than raw plus the fee.
• Check first: anything you bought raw that you’re not sure is genuine. A fake comes back ungraded and you still pay. How to tell if a Pokémon card is fake covers the checks.

The quick test: take the PSA 10 price, subtract the raw price, and see if the difference beats the grading fee and shipping by a comfortable margin, remembering a 10 is never certain. Is it worth grading Pokémon cards? turns that into a proper break-even sum with real sales.

Is grading Pokémon cards worth it for a beginner?

Yes, for a handful of the right cards; no, for most of a collection. Start small: pick two or three of your best cards, check them under light, send them to one grader at its cheapest tier that covers their graded value, and see how the grades compare with what you expected. That first order teaches you more about condition than any guide, and it keeps the cost of learning low.