Cheap Grading Is Gone: PSA's Value-Tier Shutdown and Where Pokémon Collectors Should Send Cards Now

On June 2, 2026, PSA quietly did something with no precedent in the modern grading era: it stopped accepting cheap submissions entirely. Every Value tier — from the $24.99 Value Bulk to the $64.99 Value Max — closed to new orders, leaving $79.99 Regular as PSA's cheapest open service. For Pokémon collectors — who now drive 71% of PSA's card volume — the sub-$65 grading path is closed for the remainder of the summer. This report compiles the submission-price history, the volume data behind the shutdown, and the current cost and turnaround structure across the four major grading services.

How we got here: five months of tightening

The Value-tier shutdown wasn't sudden — it was the fourth escalation in a year of PSA trying to slow the flood of submissions:

• Sep 2025First price hike: Value Bulk rises from $19.99 to $21.99.
• Feb 10, 2026Second hike in five months: Value Bulk to $24.99, Value to $32.99, Value Plus to $49.99, Regular to $79.99 — with turnaround times lengthened at the same time.
• May 14, 2026PSA announces a $200M infrastructure investment over 18 months and ~1,000 new hires — while stretching Value Bulk turnaround to 140–160 business days and raising Super Express from $299 to $349. Bulk minimum jumps from 20 to 50 cards, raising the minimum outlay from ~$400 to ~$1,250.
• Jun 2, 2026All four Value tiers temporarily closed to new submissions. Backlog at announcement: ~10 million cards.
• Jun 9, 2026Backlog peaks near 14 million as collectors rush the closing door.
• Jun 30, 2026Backlog "approximately 12 million units and trending down" per PSA — reopening targeted at ~5 million, projected around October 2026.

The numbers behind the freeze

The remarkable part: PSA set its all-time monthly record — 2.5 million cards — in the same month it closed its cheapest tiers. Grading demand isn't cooling; it's accelerating past capacity. Industry-wide, June's 3.5 million cards graded beat the previous record (April's 3.1 million) by 13%, and TCG — overwhelmingly Pokémon — is the engine.

Every major grader except SGC set a record in June: CGC hit 763,000 cards (+78% YoY), Beckett 146,000 (+132% YoY), TAG 54,000 (+45% YoY). SGC — now under the same Collectors umbrella as PSA and Beckett — fell 75% year-over-year to 39,000.

Where to send cards right now

With PSA's sub-$65 tiers closed until roughly October, here's the real comparison for a Pokémon collector with a stack of raw hits. Click a column to sort.

The trust question hanging over all of it

The shutdown landed in the middle of PSA's roughest stretch of press in years. In late 2025, a submitter documented 30 modern cards graded PSA 9, sold to PSA's own Direct Buyback program at $35 per card — 11 of which reappeared weeks later re-slabbed as PSA 10s. Collectors Holdings called it "an isolated grading error"; CEO Nat Turner later called it a "systematic failure." Dealers cut ties, card shows suspended PSA submission services, and a grassroots #NoPSAMay boycott followed — grievances spanning turnaround times, back-to-back fee hikes, and the conflict of interest in PSA buying cards it grades.

The market's verdict, though, is in the volume data: boycott month was followed by PSA's biggest month ever. As of this writing the buyback program still operates, and no independent review has been published.

What to watch next

Three dates matter: The National (July 29–August 2, Rosemont IL), where CGC is running on-site grading from $40; ~October 2026, PSA's projected Value-tier reopening once the backlog hits ~5 million; and September 11, 2026, when the Rasmussen v. Collectors Holdings antitrust suit — challenging a company that now controls roughly 80% of grading across PSA, SGC, and Beckett — heads to federal court. A Value-tier reopening implies two measurable effects, based on the June record: a renewed submission surge, and — as Athlon's July analysis flags — a supply wave of freshly graded modern Pokémon entering secondary markets, which historically pressures prices of comparable slabs in the months that follow.