PSA’s Value tiers are closed. Here’s how to triage your grading pile.
On 2 June 2026, PSA paused all four of its Value service tiers. If your grading routine assumed a $25 bulk submission existed, that routine no longer works — and the arithmetic of what is worth grading has moved with it.
What actually happened
A pricing update on 14 May triggered roughly a 20% spike in submissions, pushing an extra 1.6 million cards into intake within days. PSA announced the pause on 28 May, effective 2 June. Collectors then rushed to beat the closing window, which made it worse: an internal queue estimated near 10 million cards at the freeze had grown to around 14 million by mid-June. It has since come down to about 12 million.
PSA has said it wants the global queue at roughly 5 million before restoring the paused tiers, with projections pointing at a reopening somewhere between November 2026 and January 2027. Independent volume tracking put the annualized submission pace near 28.9 million cards, which is the real story behind the backlog.
The tiers, before and after
Paused as of 2 June:
- Value Bulk — $24.99
- Value — $32.99
- Value Plus — $49.99
- Value Max — $64.99
Still open, with the entry point now more than triple the old bulk rate:
- Regular — $79.99, 40–50 business days, $1,500 declared-value cap
- Express — $149, 20–30 business days, $2,500 cap
- Super Express — $349, 7–10 business days, $5,000 cap
- Walk-Through — $599, 5–7 business days, $10,000 cap
Redo the break-even before you ship anything
Grading fees are not the whole cost. Add the one-time handling fee of roughly $10 and return shipping with insurance from about $15, and a single card through Regular lands near $105 all-in — call it $90 per card on a larger submission where shipping amortizes.
That gives a usable filter. A card is worth submitting when its expected value clears the cost, and expected value depends on your realistic chance of a 10:
- Find the PSA 10 premium. Graded 10 comp minus what the raw card sells for today. Not the graded price alone — the spread is what you are buying.
- Discount it by your gem rate. A modern card you are confident in might hit 10 half the time. A premium of $200 at a 50% gem rate is $100 of expected upside, which barely clears a $90–$105 cost.
- Require real headroom. If the discounted premium is not comfortably above $150, the submission is a coin flip with your capital tied up for 40–50 business days.
The old $25 tier made grading a volume game. At $80 plus fees it is a selection game, and most piles do not survive the filter.
Three adjustments that work right now
- Hold modern base cards raw. High-population modern cards were the exact use case for Value Bulk. Without it, they do not clear break-even. Store them properly and wait for the tiers to return.
- Sell mid-tier modern raw. With turnaround stretched and the cheap tiers gone, the discount buyers apply to raw cards is smaller than the cost and delay of grading them yourself.
- Buy already-graded vintage instead of chasing grades. Established PSA 10 vintage has stable population reports, no queue risk, and no gem-rate gamble. During a backlog, certainty is cheap relative to the alternative.
One timing note
If the reopening lands in the November-to-January window, expect a second submission rush the week it happens — the same dynamic that turned a 10 million queue into 14 million. The collectors who do best out of a reopening are the ones who have already sorted and priced their pile and can submit on day one, not the ones deciding what to send after the announcement.
Prices move while cards sit in a queue. Track the games below to keep an eye on the raw-versus-graded spread on anything you are holding.