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PSA vs CGC vs BGS vs TAG grading cost side by side, with the tiers that were closed

By the PopJunk Serials desk. Updated Nov 1, 2026

On the dates in the table, the cheapest open tier for a single $100 card was $20 at CGC Cards, $59.95 at TAG, $59.99 at PSA and $79.95 at Beckett. Each fee comes from the grader's own price page, and the last column of the table gives the day each page was read. Three of the four push a single card past their cheapest price: PSA's Value tier was paused, TAG's two lowest tiers need 5 or 10 cards, and Beckett's Base and Standard tiers were sold out. Prices and open tiers change without notice, so the table is a dated record and not a quote.

One table holds every tier from all four graders

Turnaround is each grader's estimate and none of them guarantees it. PSA's column shows the top of its stated range. The cap column means different things at each grader: PSA prints a maximum insured value per tier, CGC caps the declared value, Beckett lists no cap and TAG lists a protection amount per card instead of a cap.

Paused, sold out and batch-only tiers are left out of every total

• CGC Cards Bulk ($17) needs 25 cards or more per submission.
• PSA Cards Value ($39.99) was paused on 1 November 2026.
• Beckett (BGS) Base ($14.95) was sold out on 1 November 2026.
• Beckett (BGS) Base with subgrades ($17.95) was sold out on 1 November 2026.
• Beckett (BGS) Standard ($34.95) was sold out on 1 November 2026.
• Beckett (BGS) Priority ($124.95) was sold out on 1 November 2026.
• TAG Value ($29.95) needs 10 cards or more per submission.
• TAG Base ($39.95) needs 5 cards or more per submission.

PSA's page showed the line "Value Services Are Temporarily Paused" above its tiers while still printing the Value price. Beckett's page marked Base, Base with subgrades, Standard and Priority as sold out and offered a notify option. Those prices are real, and they were not available on the day. Any total that uses them describes a service nobody could buy that day.

Each grader leaves something out of the headline fee

• PSA lists no handling fee in the pricing block. It prints the maximum insured value per tier, and cards above the top tier's value go to its premium options.
• CGC Cards caps each tier by declared value. Its page says that if CGC decides a card is worth more than declared, the card moves to a higher tier and the submitter pays the difference. No handling fee appears on the cards page, in contrast to the invoice fee on CGC's comics page. The page also lists a Jumbo Card row and a combined TCG, sports and non-sports coin row. The text of those rows was ambiguous when read, so the table leaves them out.
• Beckett adds $5 a card for an autograph and $8 a card for an oversized card, per its extras list. Its turnaround for Base is quoted as 90 or more business days.
• TAG says its price never changes with a card's value, and shows return shipping as a separate line in its order total.

CGC's January 2026 price news post lists Cards Bulk at $15 and Economy at $18. The services page read for this table lists Bulk at $17 and Economy at $20. The two CGC pages disagree on those two fees, and the table follows the services page.

A ten-card submission shows how the cheapest open tier moves

The example sends ten cards declared at $200 each. Each row is the cheapest tier that is open, takes ten cards and covers the value, with shipping set at an example $25 for the arithmetic. Your carrier sets the real number. TAG's cheapest fit here is Value, which is grade only and carries $250 of protection per card.

Raise each card to $1,200 and the tiers shift, because PSA's Standard caps at $1,000, CGC's Economy caps at $1,000, and TAG's Standard protects $1,000.

At $1,200, PSA moves to Priority, CGC Cards to Standard, and TAG to Priority. Beckett stays at Express, subgrades because it lists no cap. A single-card price by value band lives in the guide on grading cost by card value, and the TAG tiers are laid out in the TAG guide.

The calculator prices your own order

The grading cost calculator holds the same four graders from the same data file. Choose a grader and a tier, enter the number of cards and the value of each, then add your shipping and insurance. Totals on this page and in the calculator cannot disagree, because both read one file.

Before sending, check four things against the grader's page

1. Confirm the tier is open, since both PSA and Beckett had closed tiers on the read dates.
2. Count the cards against the minimums. TAG Value needs 10, TAG Base needs 5 and CGC Bulk needs 25.
3. Match the declared value to the cap or protection column.
4. Confirm the grader accepts the card type. Each grader publishes its own eligibility rules.

Sources

• PSA Cards, https://www.psacard.com/services/tradingcardgrading, read 1 November 2026.
• CGC Cards, https://www.cgccards.com/services/, read 1 November 2026.
• Beckett (BGS), https://beckett.com/grading#pricing, read 1 November 2026.
• TAG, https://taggrading.com/pages/pricing, read 1 November 2026.

Also read: CGC, 2026 price updates, read 1 November 2026, for the Bulk and Economy figures quoted above.