The cheapest way to grade a trading card through PSA used to be $18.99. TCG Bulk. It was the entry point for Pokemon and sports card collectors sending in stacks of cards where the math only worked at high volume and low cost.
On February 10, PSA eliminated TCG Bulk entirely. Gone. The new floor is Value Bulk at $24.99 per card. That's a 31.6% price increase over what TCG Bulk users were paying. And it comes with strings attached.
The New Price Sheet
Every tier below Express got a $5 bump. Here's the full picture:
- Value Bulk: $21.99 → $24.99. 95 business days. Collectors Club only. 20-card minimum. - Value: $27.99 → $32.99. 75 business days. - Value Plus: $44.99 → $49.99. 45 business days. - Value Max: $59.99 → $64.99. 35 business days. - Regular: $74.99 → $79.99. 25 business days. - Express, Super Express, Walk-through: Unchanged.
Turnaround times also got longer across the board. Value Bulk now takes 95 business days. That's nearly five months to get your cards back.
The $149 Paywall
Value Bulk requires a PSA Collectors Club membership. That membership costs $149 per year. It was $99 before PSA raised it.
For a collector sending in 20 cards at the cheapest tier, the first-year math looks like this: $149 membership plus $24.99 times 20 cards. That's $648.80 total. $32.44 per card all-in.
If you're sending in a stack of $30-$40 raw cards hoping for PSA 10 bumps, that math doesn't work. The grading cost eats most or all of the potential premium. You need raw cards worth at least $75-$100 before a PSA slab starts making financial sense at this price point.
Who Gets Hurt
Pokemon collectors. Specifically, the ones submitting 20 to 50 modern cards at a time.
Pokemon was the single most graded category in 2025 with 16.1 million cards slabbed across all graders. A huge chunk of that volume came from people using TCG Bulk to grade modern hits from sets like Prismatic Evolutions, 151, and Obsidian Flames.
Those collectors just lost their tier. The replacement costs 32% more and locks them behind a membership paywall.
The CGC Math
CGC's Bulk tier is $15 per card. No membership required. 25-card minimum. Roughly 40-day turnaround.
Twenty cards through CGC: $300 flat. Twenty cards through PSA Value Bulk (first year): $648.80. That's less than half the cost for faster service and no annual fee.
The PSA 10 label still carries a resale premium over CGC 10. But that gap has narrowed. It used to be 20-25%. Now it's closer to 5-10% on most modern cards.
For a lot of submissions, CGC's pricing advantage more than offsets the slab premium difference.
CGC graded 4.92 million cards in 2025, a 121% increase year over year. PSA still dominates at 19.26 million cards and 71.8% market share. But the migration is happening.
The Pattern
September 2025: PSA raises prices. February 2026: PSA raises prices again and kills the cheapest tier. Collectors Club membership goes from $99 to $149. Two hikes in under six months.
We covered the broader grading market dynamics and the Collectors Holdings monopoly question yesterday. The short version: PSA's parent company now owns PSA, SGC, and Beckett. That's roughly 80% of all cards graded under one corporate umbrella. Congressman Pat Ryan has asked the FTC to investigate. No formal action has been taken.
The Bottom Line
PSA grading still makes sense for high-value cards. If your raw card is worth $150 or more, the PSA 10 premium probably justifies the cost even at $24.99 plus membership. For vintage cards and true chase pulls, PSA is still the label buyers trust most.
But for the collector sending in 20 modern Pokemon hits worth $30-$50 each, the math broke. TCG Bulk was the tier that made volume grading accessible. PSA killed it and replaced it with something 32% more expensive behind a $149 gate. At those numbers, CGC at $15 a card isn't just an alternative. It's the obvious move.
