How to Grade Pokemon Cards: A Beginner's Guide to PSA, CGC, and BGS

Getting a Pokemon card professionally graded is one of the most exciting milestones in this hobby. There is something deeply satisfying about seeing a card you pulled from a pack — or tracked down for years — come back in a hard plastic slab with a grade that officially confirms its condition. But the process can feel intimidating the first time. Which company do you use? How do you submit? What grade will your card get? Is it even worth the money?

This guide walks you through everything a beginner needs to know, from understanding why grading exists to the exact steps for submitting your first card.

Why Grading Exists

Raw Pokemon cards — meaning ungraded cards — are hard to price consistently. One person’s “near mint” is another person’s “lightly played.” That ambiguity creates friction in every transaction and opens the door for disputes, fraud, and overpaying.

Professional grading solves this by having trained evaluators assess each card on a standardized scale and seal it in a tamper-evident case. When you buy a PSA 9, you know exactly what you are getting. The card has been authenticated as genuine and assigned a condition score that any collector in the world understands. That consistency is what drives graded cards to sell for significantly more than their raw counterparts — sometimes by a factor of ten or more.

The Three Major Grading Companies

Three companies dominate the Pokemon card grading market in 2026. Each has its own approach, price structure, and reputation.

PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator)

PSA is the oldest and most trusted name in the business, founded in 1991. In the Pokemon market specifically, PSA is the gold standard. PSA 10 grades on desirable cards command the highest resale premiums of any grading service, and their population reports — which show how many copies of each card exist at each grade — are the most widely referenced in the hobby.

PSA uses a clean 1-10 scale with no sub-grades. A PSA 10 is called “Gem Mint.” A PSA 9 is “Mint.” The scale drops through Near Mint, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor. For most collectors the difference between a PSA 10 and a PSA 9 is enormous in terms of market value, especially on vintage cards.

Current pricing: Economy submissions run around $25 per card with turnarounds of 50 or more business days. Express service is roughly $100 per card for about 10 business days.

BGS (Beckett Grading Services)

Beckett is PSA’s oldest competitor and brings something unique to the table: sub-grades. Every BGS card receives four individual scores for Centering, Corners, Edges, and Surface, in addition to an overall grade. This gives you a detailed breakdown of exactly where a card lost points, which is genuinely useful if you are learning to evaluate cards yourself.

BGS also has a legendary designation called the Black Label — a BGS 10 where all four sub-grades are also 10. These are extraordinarily rare and can sell for more than even PSA 10s on high-demand cards.

The trade-off is that BGS is less dominant in the Pokemon market compared to sports cards. PSA 10s still tend to sell for more than BGS 9.5s in most Pokemon categories, which is worth factoring into your decision.

Current pricing: Economy starts around $20 per card, standard service around $50.

CGC (Certified Guaranty Company)

CGC entered the trading card market in 2020 after a long history of grading comic books. They have grown quickly and carved out a strong niche, particularly for modern Pokemon cards. CGC’s economy tier is the most affordable entry point of the three companies at around $18 per card, and their standard turnaround times have historically been faster than PSA at comparable price points.

CGC grades on a 1-10 scale with half-point increments and offers optional sub-grades. Their cases have a clean, modern look that many collectors prefer aesthetically.

The downside is that CGC grades generally command lower resale premiums than PSA for equivalent cards, and their population data is less extensive. For high-value vintage submissions, PSA remains the better choice financially.

Current pricing: Economy starts around $18 per card, standard around $40.

Understanding the Grading Scale

All three companies use a version of the same 1-10 scale. Here is what the key grades mean in practical terms:

PSA 10 / BGS 10 / CGC 10 — Gem Mint / Pristine: The card is essentially flawless. Four sharp corners, clean edges, centered print, no surface scratches, no print defects. These grades are rare even on freshly opened packs because factory quality control is imperfect.

PSA 9 / BGS 9.5 — Mint: Very minor imperfections visible under close inspection. A slight surface scratch or minor print line that does not detract from the card’s overall appearance. PSA 9s are still highly desirable and much more attainable than 10s.

PSA 8 / BGS 8 — Near Mint to Mint: Light edge wear, minor corner wear, or slightly off-center printing. Still a strong grade for most collectors. A PSA 8 on a vintage card can be worth significant money.

PSA 7 and Below: Visible wear that becomes increasingly obvious. PSA 7 is Near Mint, PSA 6 is Excellent-Mint, and so on. For common modern cards, grades below 8 rarely justify the cost of grading. For rare vintage cards, even low grades can be worth grading for authentication purposes.

Is Your Card Worth Grading?

This is the most practical question in the hobby and the one beginners most often get wrong. Not every card deserves a slab.

A useful rule of thumb: the card should be worth at least five to ten times the grading fee in its graded form before you submit. If a card is worth $30 raw and you are paying $25 to grade it, you need a PSA 10 just to break even — and most cards do not grade at 10.

Cards that are generally worth grading:

• Vintage cards from Base Set, Jungle, Fossil, and early sets. Even moderate grades on cards like Charizard, Blastoise, and the original holographics are authenticated collectibles with strong demand.
• Modern chase cards in near-perfect condition. Alternate arts, full arts, and special illustration rares from current sets can be worth grading if you opened them from fresh packs and sleeve them immediately.
• Cards with obvious high-grade potential. If you can look at a card under bright light and find zero surface scratches, sharp corners, and near-perfect centering, it has a realistic shot at a 9 or 10.

Cards that are usually not worth grading:

• Common and uncommon cards with no collector demand
• Cards with visible wear, scratches, or centering issues
• Modern cards that have been in binders or touched repeatedly

How to Submit Your First Card

Step 1: Create an Account

Register at PSA (psacard.com), BGS (beckett.com), or CGC (cgccomics.com/tcg). Each service has an online submission portal where you enter your cards and select a service level.

Step 2: Prepare Your Cards

Handle cards by the edges only. Before submitting, inspect each card under a bright light source — a phone flashlight works well — and rotate the card to catch surface scratches that are only visible at certain angles. Check centering by measuring the border widths or using one of the free centering apps available for iOS and Android.

Store cards in penny sleeves and then inside semi-rigid card savers (not rigid top loaders) before shipping. Grading companies specify their preferred packaging on their websites — follow it exactly.

Step 3: Build Your Submission Order

In the portal, enter each card by set, name, and card number. Select your service level based on turnaround time and budget. Economy is the best starting point for most beginners — there is no reason to pay $100 per card to rush a submission when you are just learning the process.

Step 4: Ship Securely

Use a tracked shipping method with insurance. Pack cards in a rigid box — a small cardboard box packed with bubble wrap — so they cannot shift or flex in transit. The grading company’s website will have a specific shipping address and packaging requirements.

Step 5: Track and Wait

Once received, the grading company assigns your submission a tracking number you can monitor online. Economy turnaround times currently run 50 to 75 business days across all three services. The wait is part of the experience.

Practical Tips for Better Grades

• Pull fresh packs carefully. Bent cards come from rushed pack opening. Take your time and handle new pulls from the edges immediately.
• Sleeve on arrival. The moment a card comes out of a pack, it goes into a penny sleeve. Do not set it on a table, stack it with other cards, or let anyone else handle it.
• Check centering before submitting. Off-center cards almost never grade 10 regardless of surface condition. If the centering is notably skewed, be realistic about the grade ceiling.
• Research population reports before submitting. If there are already 5,000 PSA 10s of a card, the grade adds less value than if there are 50. Population data affects market price significantly.
• Start with one or two submissions. Your first submission teaches you the process. Do not ship 50 cards before you understand how your cards tend to grade.

The Bottom Line

Grading is not for every card, but for the cards that matter most to your collection, it is one of the best investments you can make. A slabbed card is authenticated, protected, and objectively valued in a way that raw cards never are.

Start with PSA if you are prioritizing resale value and long-term collectibility. Try CGC if you want faster turnaround and lower fees on modern cards. Consider BGS if you want detailed sub-grade feedback and are interested in chasing the rare Black Label designation.

The most important thing is to start with cards that are genuinely worth the process, protect them properly, and enjoy what makes this hobby great — the cards themselves.