PSA Grading Fees by Card Type: Pokémon, Sports, Yu-Gi-Oh, Jumbo

PSA prices grading by tier, not by card type — but a few categories carry surcharges or special rules. Pokémon, sports, Yu-Gi-Oh, MTG, and oversized/jumbo cards each have specific things to know before you submit. This guide breaks down the actual fees by card type, where the gotchas hide, and which categories make economic sense at which tiers.

Standard Cards: All Sports + TCG

The published PSA tier prices apply to standard-sized cards across all major categories: baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Lorcana, and most non-sport trading cards. Standard size means a card up to roughly 2.5" × 3.5" — the same dimensions whether it's a 1986 Topps Jordan or a 2024 Pokémon SV: Twilight Masquerade booster pull. No upcharge for category.

What changes by category is which tier makes sense, because card values vary so widely. A common Pokémon card from a current set isn't worth Value Plus pricing; a high-end vintage baseball single isn't worth the Value Bulk wait. The card-by-card math:

Pokémon

Modern English Pokémon dominates PSA's submission volume. Most submissions are from the last 5 years, with collectors hunting PSA 10 grades on chase rares from sets like Evolving Skies, Crown Zenith, and the current Scarlet & Violet block.

Tier guidance: Value Bulk for any modern Pokémon worth less than $200 raw. Value Plus for chase rares ($200–$1000). Express or higher for vintage WOTC (Base Set, Jungle, Fossil, Team Rocket) where a single grade bump from 9 to 10 can be a $5,000+ swing.

Japanese Pokémon: No surcharge. PSA grades Japanese Pokémon at the same tier prices, and the market premium for graded Japanese cards has grown significantly in the past two years. See our Japanese vs. English Pokémon investing guide.

Vintage Pokémon WOTC: Always grade at Regular or higher. Vintage cards get scrutinized harder, and PSA's reputation for accurate grading on vintage Pokémon is what creates the price premium in the first place.

Sports Cards

The biggest category by submission count and the one where PSA's market dominance is most pronounced.

Modern sports rookies: Value Plus or Regular. A 2023 Bowman 1st Bowman of a top prospect needs to grade a 10 to be worth grading at all — Value Plus's $50 fee fits the math on $200–$500 raw rookies.

Vintage sports (pre-1980): Regular tier minimum, Express for anything over $5,000 declared. Vintage value lives almost entirely in the slab; raw vintage trades at heavy discounts because of authentication concerns.

Star auto rookies (Mahomes, Doncic, Wembanyama): Express minimum. The card values are too high and too volatile for slow tiers.

Yu-Gi-Oh

Smaller submission volume than Pokémon or sports but has its own collector base. PSA grades all Yu-Gi-Oh sets including 1st Edition Asia, 1st Edition English, and Japanese OCG.

Tier guidance: Value Bulk for everything except 1st Edition LOB and pre-Stardust era staples. Value Plus or Regular for the high-end vintage sets where condition sensitivity matters most.

Watch-out: Yu-Gi-Oh's print quality from the early 2000s is notoriously inconsistent — centering and printer line issues are common. Don't submit anything that looks borderline; the PSA 10 rate on vintage Yu-Gi-Oh is much lower than on equivalent-era Pokémon.

Magic: The Gathering

PSA grades MTG, but BGS and CGC have historically held a larger share of the MTG grading market. PSA-graded MTG has been gaining ground, especially on Reserved List vintage and modern competitive cards. Our most-valuable MTG guide covers grading premiums by card.

Tier guidance: Regular minimum for any Reserved List card. Express for Black Lotus, dual lands, and any card declared above $2,000. Lower tiers don't make sense for MTG because the market only really pays a premium at PSA 9–10 on already-valuable cards.

Oversized / Jumbo Cards

Cards larger than standard — typically 5" × 7" or larger — get a jumbo upcharge of approximately $5–$10 per card on top of the tier price. The most common jumbo submissions are Topps Jumbo redemptions, oversized Pokémon promos, and certain non-sport sets that printed deliberately at jumbo size.

Jumbo cards also need their own jumbo Card Saver and ship in dedicated holders. Standard semi-rigids won't fit. Make sure you have proper supplies before submitting.

Booklet, Foldout, and Multi-Panel Cards

Cards that fold or unfold (popular in modern Topps Now and certain Panini products) get evaluated as a single object but are graded with attention to all panels. No standard upcharge, but PSA reserves the right to designate special handling for unusual sizes — when you fill out the submission form, list the exact card type and PSA will price-confirm before grading.

Autographed Cards

For signed cards, you have two PSA paths: standard grading (slab grades the card condition only, ignoring the autograph) or PSA/DNA dual grading (slab grades both the card condition AND authenticates the autograph as genuine). Dual grading adds approximately $10–$15 per card on top of the standard tier fee.

Always go dual grading on certified autos and big-name signatures. The dual-graded slab commands a meaningful premium and, more importantly, eliminates buyer doubt about the signature's authenticity.

Reholders and Mechanical Errors

If a slab arrives with a printing error on the label or a damaged case, PSA will reholder it. Mechanical errors (PSA's mistake, like a misspelled player name) are corrected free if reported within 30 days. Customer-side reholders (you damaged the slab and want a replacement) cost $20–$30 per card.

Crossovers

Sending a slab from another grading company (BGS, CGC, SGC) and asking PSA to crack and reslab if it grades the same or higher. Tier-priced like a standard submission, with a minimum reservation grade you set on the form. PSA only crosses if the grade meets your minimum; otherwise the card is returned in its original slab without being cracked. Detailed walkthrough in our crossovers and regrades guide.

Bulk Strategy by Category

If you're submitting more than 20 cards at once, build the submission around a single category for cleaner tracking and pricing. PSA processes mixed-category submissions but flags errors faster on category-pure batches.

Most efficient bulk strategy: 20+ modern Pokémon at Value Bulk, supplemented by a separate Regular submission for the 2–3 high-end cards in your collection. Mixing tiers in the same submission isn't allowed; each tier needs its own submission form.

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