PSA Now Grades 90,000 Cards Per Day Globally as Capacity Expansion Continues

Ninety Thousand Cards Per Day, and Climbing

PSA, the largest third-party grader in the hobby, just shared an update that puts the scale of modern card grading into sharp focus. The company is now grading approximately 90,000 cards per day across its global facilities, a number that would have been unthinkable to a long-time collector just a few years ago.

To put that in perspective, that is more than 30 million cards per year if the current pace holds. And PSA executives say they plan to push that number significantly higher before the end of 2026.

Capacity Expansion Plans

According to PSA, the throughput growth will come from two parallel investments:

• Expanding existing facilities. The flagship Santa Ana, California operation continues to add grading lines and quality-control staff.
• Opening new global locations. Frankfurt has been confirmed for a summer launch, and PSA has openly discussed additional sites in other regions over the next 18 months.

The company has framed the expansion as a response to sustained demand rather than a one-time spike, which is a meaningful distinction for collectors weighing whether to send cards in now or wait.

What It Means for Submission Turnaround

Higher capacity sounds great, but raw throughput does not automatically translate to faster turnaround on every service tier. PSA itself acknowledges that estimating turnaround has become harder as submission volume continues to climb alongside capacity additions.

The grading bottleneck is not just hands and machines anymore. It is also the front-end intake, the imaging stations, and the quality-control review process at the end of the line.

Practical Tips for Submitters Right Now

1. Match the service level to the card. Bulk pricing is great for modern commons, but for any card with real value, the regular service tiers are usually worth the upgrade.
2. Group your submissions. Sending a single 20-card form is faster to process than four separate forms of five cards each.
3. Use clean holders and sleeves. It sounds obvious, but cards that arrive in dirty top loaders slow down the imaging stations.
4. Watch the announcement page. PSA has been posting service level updates more frequently in 2026, and waiting an extra week sometimes gets you a much faster turnaround tier.

The Bigger Picture

Card grading has become a logistics business as much as it is an authentication business. PSA is not the only grader pushing for capacity, but it is the one setting the pace, and its decisions ripple across the rest of the market. For collectors, that means more cards in plastic slabs, more pop reports to track, and more data than ever to inform what your collection is actually worth.

If you have been on the fence about sending in cards, the message from PSA this month is simple: the line is long, but it is moving faster than ever.