PSA raised its grading prices on February 10. Again. The Value Bulk tier jumped from $21.99 to $24.99 per card. Value went from $27.99 to $32.99. Value Plus hit $49.99. Value Max is now $64.99. Every tier got a $5 bump, and turnaround times got longer across the board.
This is the second price increase in less than six months. PSA bumped prices in September 2025 too. Before that, Value Bulk was $19.99. In 18 months, the entry-level price to grade a card has increased 25%.
CGC did the same thing. On January 6, their Standard tier jumped from $45 to $55. Express went from $85 to $100. Walkthrough climbed from $275 to $300. Including a separate increase in May 2025, CGC's services now cost roughly 20% more than they did at the start of last year.
Both companies say it's about managing submission volume. PSA is grading around 90,000 cards per day now, up from 15,000 daily in 2021. They graded 19.26 million cards in 2025 alone. That's a 26% increase year-over-year. Across all major graders, 26.8 million cards were slabbed last year.
The demand is real. But so is the pricing power.
One Company, Three Graders
Here's the part that should concern every collector. PSA's parent company, Collectors Holdings, now owns three of the four major grading companies.
They bought SGC in 2023. Then in December 2025, they acquired Beckett. That means Collectors Holdings controls PSA, SGC, and BGS. The only major independent left is CGC, which is owned by Certified Collectibles Group (backed by Blackstone and Roc Nation in a deal that valued CCG at $500 million).
Congressman Pat Ryan of New York demanded an FTC investigation in December 2025. His letter called it what it is: an attempt to monopolize the trading card grading market. Collectors Holdings now controls roughly 79% of all cards graded. CGC handles most of the rest.
No formal FTC investigation has been announced.
The Buyback Scandal
While consolidating the market, PSA also got caught in a scandal that eroded trust at the worst possible time.
In late 2025, a collector exposed that PSA had downgraded a batch of 30 identical cards to PSA 9, repurchased them through their Partner Network buyback program at PSA 9 prices, and then relisted the same certification numbers as PSA 10s. The implication is hard to miss. Grade cards low. Buy them cheap. Upgrade them. Sell high.
PSA called it an "isolated grading error." But Nat Turner, head of Collectors Holdings, acknowledged a "systematic failure" on social media and admitted PSA "authenticates counterfeit cards sometimes." Dealers Score More Points and Three Point publicly cut ties with PSA. Multiple card shows suspended submissions.
The company that grades your cards, sets the data on how many exist at each grade through population reports, and operates a buyback program to purchase those same cards. That's a lot of power concentrated in one entity with very little external oversight.
Beckett's Decline and the Shrinking Field
Beckett was supposed to be the counterweight. It wasn't. BGS graded just 32,000 cards in November 2025. A 43% year-over-year drop. In 2007, BGS had 45% market share against PSA. By 2019, PSA had 91%.
Leadership scandals, financial mismanagement (founder Greg Lindberg allegedly secured a $100 million loan against Beckett but the company reportedly saw only $500,000 of it), and operational decline made the acquisition almost inevitable.
Now Beckett operates "independently" inside the Collectors Holdings family. Alongside PSA and SGC. Under one roof.
The Trap
An ungraded card is worth a fraction of a graded one. A raw PSA 10-quality card might sell for $50. Slabbed and certified, it sells for $200. Collectors know this. The grading companies know this.
You have to use these services. There is no meaningful alternative for cards where resale value matters. A PSA or CGC slab is the standard. Everything else trades at a discount.
Population reports make the trap even tighter. PSA publishes exactly how many of each card exist at each grade level. That data drives pricing across every marketplace. Collectors and dealers rely on it to determine scarcity and set prices. The same company that controls the supply of graded cards also controls the data that determines their value.
It's a brilliant business model. It's also one where the incentives are deeply misaligned with the people paying for the service.
What Would Competition Look Like?
CGC's card grading business is surging. Their sports card submissions jumped 631% in the first half of 2025. They're expanding internationally with grading operations in Munich. But CGC is not a scrappy underdog. They're backed by Blackstone. They've been raising prices too.
This isn't a market where a startup can show up and compete. Trust in grading takes years to build. Dealers won't accept slabs from unknown companies. Marketplaces won't list them at comparable prices. The moat is made of institutional trust and network effects, and both PSA and CGC have spent decades building it.
The real question is whether the FTC takes Congressman Ryan's letter seriously. Whether 79% market share under one corporate umbrella triggers antitrust scrutiny. Whether collectors organize beyond frustrated Reddit threads and podcast rants.
The Bottom Line
PSA graded 19.26 million cards last year and keeps raising prices. CGC is growing fast and raising prices too. Beckett, SGC, and PSA all answer to the same parent company. An ungraded card is a card that's worth less.
Collectors will keep paying. They don't have a choice.