Card Grading Price Comparison

The cheapest published entry price among the four major graders is CGC Bulk at $17 a card; the dearest is PSA Standard at a reported $59.99. In between sit CGC Economy and Beckett's economy service at $20, and SGC's standard service at a reported $50. Each of those prices comes bolted to two other numbers — a declared-value cap and a turnaround estimate — and ignoring them is how collectors end up on the wrong tier.

A word on the figures before the table. CGC publishes its fees openly and we read them on 17 October 2026. The PSA, SGC and Beckett numbers are secondary-source figures that this site records and dates on each company's own cost page, because 2026 was a year of repeated repricing across the industry. Treat the table as a guide to the SHAPE of the market and confirm the current number with the company before you ship.

Read the turnaround column next to the fee column and the apparent bargain at the bottom gets more complicated. CGC's $17 comes with a 150-working-day estimate, which is about seven calendar months. SGC's reported $50 comes with 40-plus business days, which is roughly two. You are not comparing four prices for the same thing; you are comparing four combinations of price, insurance ceiling and waiting.

CGC Standard at $55 for a 10-working-day estimate is the quiet outlier in that table — it is cheaper than PSA's cheapest live tier and roughly ten times faster. If speed matters and the card is under $3,000, it is a genuinely strong option that gets overlooked because the conversation about CGC fixates on the $17.

Grading is not a service you buy for its own sake. You buy it because a numbered, authenticated holder makes a card sell for more or sell at all. So the fee is only half of the equation, and the other half is which holder the buyers for your particular card actually want.

On modern cards, PSA reaches the broadest market, and the same numeric grade in a PSA holder frequently realizes more than it does in a CGC or Beckett one. If that gap is larger than the $40-odd you saved on the fee, the cheap grader cost you money. If it is smaller — or if you are grading to keep rather than to sell — it did not.

• Modern cards you intend to sell soon: check PSA comparables first. The fee difference is often smaller than the holder premium.
• Modern cards in volume you intend to keep: CGC Bulk at $17 is hard to beat, with the caveats in is CGC bulk worth it.
• Vintage: SGC has a long-standing following in pre-1980 collecting, which can close or reverse the PSA gap on older cardboard.
• Anything with a deadline: compare the fast tiers above, not the entry tiers. This is where CGC Standard and SGC Expedited earn their keep.

• Outbound shipping and insurance. CGC states explicitly that you are responsible for getting the cards to it safely; the others operate the same way in practice.
• Return shipping. Priced on the declared value of the lot, not the card count.
• Supplies. A sleeve and a semi-rigid per card, rigid boards, bands and a box. Small per card, substantial across a few hundred.
• Membership. CGC publishes paid membership from $39 a year with a stated 10% grading discount at Associate and Premium level. PSA's cheapest historical tiers were tied to its Collectors Club.
• Add-on designations. CGC publishes Pedigree at the tier fee plus $5 and Custom Label at plus $8.

1. Price the card graded, in each holder you are considering, from sold comparables rather than asking prices.
2. Subtract the entry fee for each grader whose cap covers that value.
3. Add both shipping legs and your supplies cost per card.
4. Check the turnaround against any deadline you actually have.
5. Screen the cards and drop everything you would not bet the fee on.
6. Choose the combination with the best expected net, not the lowest fee.

The per-company detail sits behind each of these numbers: CGC grading cost, PSA grading cost, SGC grading cost and Beckett grading cost. The head-to-heads are PSA vs CGC, PSA vs SGC, PSA vs BGS and CGC vs SGC, and the overall ranking in best card grading company.