Question 1

Is AuraGrade affiliated with PSA, BGS, or CGC?

Accepted Answer

No. AuraGrade is fully independent — we don't sell graded cards, run an auction house, or own any secondary-market inventory. Our only revenue is the $0.99 you pay for a scan, which means we have zero financial incentive to inflate or deflate your grade.

Question 2

Will AuraGrade replace PSA / BGS / CGC?

Accepted Answer

No, and we don't want to. AuraGrade predicts what they'll likely return so you stop wasting $25+ submissions on cards that won't grade high enough to be profitable. Final grades still come from the institutions — we're the pre-screen, not the slab.

Question 3

Can I sell a card with an AuraGrade report instead of a PSA slab?

Accepted Answer

You can show the report to a buyer as evidence, but no — an AuraGrade report is not a certified grade and shouldn't be marketed as one. Buyers pay PSA-slab premiums that vary widely (commonly 1.5× raw at PSA 9, and several multiples of raw at PSA 10 for in-demand cards) depending on grade, set, and demand; our value is helping you decide which of your cards are worth the PSA submission in the first place.

Question 4

How accurate is the prediction?

Accepted Answer

On scans that pass our QC gate (focus, exposure, tilt, glare), our PSA-equivalent prediction lands within ±1 PSA tier of the actual grader call on roughly 70-85% of cards — meaning if we predict PSA 9, you'll most often receive a PSA 9 or PSA 10. The other 15-30% may land a full tier outside that range; borderline cases (8.5 vs 9 BGS, light whitening, holo wear) are where any AI grader loses precision. See /accuracy for the full residual breakdown.

Question 5

Why two photos (front and back)?

Accepted Answer

Because back-side defects — back centering, back-side whitening, and rear surface scuffs — are independently checked by PSA and BGS, and can knock a card down a tier even when the front looks perfect. You get one combined report; both sides cost just 1 credit total.

Question 6

The same card scanned twice — will I get the same grade?

Accepted Answer

Yes, deterministically. Our scoring engine does pure math on the AI-identified defects — same input always produces the same output. The AI's job is only to find defects; the grade is calculated, not generated.

Question 7

Which games and card types are supported?

Accepted Answer

Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and modern sports cards (NBA, NFL, MLB, soccer) are our primary calibration set. One Piece, Lorcana, and Flesh and Blood are graded on the same geometry-driven rubric but haven't been separately benchmarked yet — your confidence band will reflect that honestly. Holo, reverse-holo, full-art, and textured cards are handled by a dedicated holo detector.

Question 8

Slabbed cards? Sleeved cards? Damaged cards?

Accepted Answer

Slabbed: yes, but confidence drops one band (the slab adds glare and centering distortion). Sleeved: no — please remove the sleeve for accurate surface scoring; we'll flag this and refund the credit. Damaged: yes, we'll grade it down honestly — we won't pad the score to be nice.

Question 9

I'm shooting with a phone, not a scanner. Will it work?

Accepted Answer

Yes, with a tripod and diffused light. A modern smartphone (iPhone 12+ / Pixel 5+) hits our "High (phone)" confidence band when held overhead at 90° with even lighting and a dark background. If your shot is too blurry, glare-heavy, or angled, we tell you before charging the credit — re-capture is free.

Question 10

Pricing — what does $0.99 actually get me, and how do packs work?

Accepted Answer

$0.99 = one full two-sided AI grading report (front + back, all 4 sub-grades, evidence images, confidence band). Packs: $4.99 / 6 scans, $15.99 / 25 scans, $39.99 / 75 scans — pack credits stay valid while your account is active. Subscriptions: Pro Monthly at $19.99 / 25 scans per month (scans don't roll over), Pro Yearly at $179.99 / 300 scans. Compared to PSA's $25 Value tier fee plus round-trip shipping and insurance (typically $15–35 more), one PSA submission funds 25+ AuraGrade scans at $0.99 each.

Question 11

Do I get a refund if the grade is wrong?

Accepted Answer

We don't refund on grade disagreement — a prediction isn't a guarantee, and even authoritative graders disagree on roughly 10% of borderline cards on resubmission (industry estimate; PSA does not publish this figure). We do refund the full credit if our system fails to deliver: server errors, unreadable input we should have caught upfront, or a clearly broken report. Pack credits are refundable within 14 days of purchase if zero scans have been used. Your first scan is free, so you can try us before paying.

Question 12

What happens to my card photos? Do you keep them?

Accepted Answer

Yes, while your account is active — your photos and reports stay in your private dashboard so you can revisit them. They're stored in a private Supabase Storage bucket with per-user row-level security; no one outside your account can see them. Free accounts may have images older than 12 months auto-pruned once that policy is activated (30 days' notice given here first); Pro Monthly and Pro Yearly subscribers get the Aura Vault perk — originals are exempt from auto-pruning for the lifetime of the subscription. If the subscription lapses, the prior images become eligible for the 12-month pruning policy from the lapse date forward. Closing your account hard-deletes your profile, every grading report, and every uploaded image immediately. The only exceptions are tax-invoice records we're legally required to keep and a one-way email hash plus OAuth subject ID retained for 365 days to prevent free-credit abuse — see Privacy Policy §3. We do not sell your data or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising; we do use the service-delivery sub-processors named in Privacy Policy §4 (Supabase, Stripe, Anthropic, Cloudflare) strictly to deliver this service to you.

Question 13

What does the confidence band actually mean?

Accepted Answer

Four bands. High (pro scan): flatbed scanner, even light, no perspective — score is usable as-is. High (phone): modern phone, tripod, diffused light — usable for pre-screening decisions. Medium: usable, but borderline cases (8.5 vs 9) may flip — proceed with caution before paying for PSA. Low: re-capture recommended; we'll tell you exactly what's wrong (blur, glare, angle, crop) before charging the credit.

Question 14

Can dealers / bulk submitters use AuraGrade?

Accepted Answer

Yes — the $39.99 / 75-scan pack and the $179.99 / yearly plan are sized for dealers and high-volume PC sorters. A 50-card UI batch upload is on the Pro roadmap; for true API access or 200+ cards/month, email support@auragrade.com and we'll set something up. Reports export as PDF + JSON.

Things you're probably wondering.

Things you're probably wondering.