PSA Submission Tiers — Pricing and Turnaround Compared
A submission tier is the service level a card owner selects when sending cards to PSA, BGS, or CGC. Tiers are priced by declared card value and corresponding turnaround time, ranging from Value (lowest-value cards, longest wait) to Walkthrough (highest-value, fastest service). PSA's published 2026 tiers (after the early-2026 fee increase) run from Value at roughly $30 per card to Walkthrough at $600+ per card.
Detailed explanation
PSA prices grading by declared value because higher-value cards carry higher liability if lost or damaged. The tier you select must match the card's market value — under-declaring is a violation of submission terms and can void grading guarantees. Roughly, PSA's 2026 ladder (after the early-2026 fee increase) is: Value Bulk ($25/card, ~95 business day wait, value ceiling $499, Collector's Club required); Value ($30/card, ~75-day, $499 ceiling); Value Max ($65/card, ~30-day, $999 ceiling); Regular ($80/card, ~20-day, $1,499 ceiling); Express ($150/card, ~15-day, $2,499 ceiling); Super Express ($300/card, ~7-day, $4,999 ceiling); Walkthrough ($600+/card, ~7-day, $10,000 ceiling). BGS and CGC publish parallel ladders with slightly different price points.
The submission-tier decision compounds for collectors with multiple cards: 100 modern cards at Value Bulk = $2,500 in grading fees plus shipping and insurance. The same 100 cards at Express = $15,000. The math forces a pre-screen step — most collectors won't submit a card unless the post-grade resale value exceeds the grading fee by 3x or more.
Common misconception: faster tiers grade more strictly. They do not — PSA's published rubric is the same across all tiers. What changes is queue position and insurance ceiling.
How AuraGrade measures it
AuraGrade's $0.99 pre-screen lets a collector decide which cards to submit and at which tier — paying about a dollar to avoid spending $30 on a card likely to grade PSA 7.
Worked example
A collector has 50 raw Pokémon cards ranging from likely PSA 6 to PSA 10. Submitting all 50 at PSA's Value Bulk tier (~$25/card) costs $1,250. After grading, only 12 cards come back PSA 9+ and worth resale. A pre-screen at $0.99 each costs $50 total, flags the 38 likely PSA 6-8 cards before they ship, and avoids roughly $950 in grading fees on cards that wouldn't have profited.