Everyone Hates PSA. Everyone Still Wants a PSA 10.

The most important fact about a PSA 10 is not the number 10. It is the three letters before it.

Card collectors complain that PSA is too lenient, too slow, too expensive or too hard to read. Some prefer Beckett's subgrades. TAG gives each card a 1,000-point score and a map of its defects. CGC saves its Pristine 10 for cards it calls flawless under magnification. SGC built a following on speed, price and vintage cards.

PSA grades seven of every ten cards

In September, PSA graded 2.46 million cards, about 70 percent of the 3.52 million that GemRate counted across the graders it tracks. CGC graded 962,000, TAG 50,000 and SGC 46,000. GemRate left Beckett out of its September count.¹

PSA did that with its four cheapest service tiers still closed and 9 million to 10 million cards waiting in its backlog.² Card owners keep sending it more cards than every other grader combined.

Set-level data can be even more lopsided. GemRate's Universal Population Report shows PSA holding 78.4% of grades for 2025 Topps Baseball and 85.6% of grades for 2025 Pokémon Mega Evolution.³⁴

Those are a 2025 baseball flagship and a 2025 Pokémon set, the new cards where a newer grader should have its best shot at winning collectors over.

PSA's own rules let a 10 sit off-center

PSA calls a 10 a "virtually perfect" card. Its standards allow a slight printing flaw, front centering of about 55/45 and back centering up to 75/25.⁵

PSA also says grading has a subjective side. Its standards let graders make calls on eye appeal, including rare cases where a card just inside or outside a centering limit gets treated differently because of how it looks.⁶

Condition is partly taste, so that's fair. It also means a PSA 10 isn't always a better physical card than another company's 10.

Other graders do offer more information. Beckett grades centering, corners, edges and surface and can print all four subgrades on the label. TAG's report can include eight subgrades, a 1,000-point score, high-resolution images and marked defects. CGC splits its 10s into Gem Mint and a stricter Pristine.⁷⁸⁹

All of that information is on offer. PSA still graded 70 percent of September's cards.¹ A collector picking a grader is buying more than a measurement.

A PSA 10 sells for more than double the same card in an SGC 10

In 2026, the 2024 Topps Chrome Elly De La Cruz rookie, #44, has sold 87 times in a PSA 10, for around $70. The same card in an SGC 10 has sold eight times, for around $29.¹⁰ The last SGC 10 went for $13 on Aug. 10. PSA 10 copies have sold 17 more times since Aug. 19, mostly around $63.

Both slabs say 10. Buyers paid about $41 more for the PSA copy and bought it about ten times as often.

Pokémon shows the same gap. Since Sept. 1, the 2023 Pokémon 151 Charizard ex #199 has sold 56 times in a PSA 10, for around $1,400, and 13 times in a CGC 10, for around $552.¹¹ PSA has graded 28,855 copies of it a 10.¹²

The order flips at the top of the scale. A CGC Pristine 10 still sells for more than a PSA 10, but the gap has shrunk. In August, Pristine copies sold for around $2,000. In October they sold for around $1,630.¹¹

PSA built a network around its grade

PSA started its Set Registry in 2001. By August 2026 it held about 335,000 registered sets, each one a reason for its owner to keep buying PSA slabs that fit.¹³

PSA also runs a daily population report, cert lookup, auction prices, a price guide and links into Card Ladder. In 2024, eBay and Collectors announced a deal that gave PSA the eBay Vault, with plans for a smoother path from grading to storage to an eBay listing.¹⁴

Each piece feeds the next:

A grader that grades more consistently still has to break that loop. A better grade alone won't change the mind of a seller whose buyers search for "PSA 10."

PSA is winning despite the criticism

PSA has taken real hits on fraud, consistency and wait times.

Altered cards have made it through

In 2019, The Washington Post reported on an FBI investigation into an alleged card-altering scheme in which collectors identified cards that appeared to have been altered, resubmitted to PSA and later auctioned. The reporting centered on hundreds of cards and raised a basic problem for any third-party grader: the entire economic promise of the slab depends on catching alterations that sophisticated card doctors want the grader to miss.¹⁵

The backlog peaked at 12.4 million cards

PSA paused its four Value service tiers in June 2026 after a demand surge pushed its backlog toward 10 million cards. The backlog kept growing into late July, then fell to 8.2 million by Oct. 6 as PSA added capacity, including a new hub in Frankfurt.² PSA has committed $200 million to expanding its operations.¹⁶ In September it opened a new Standard tier at $60 a card, with an estimated wait of 90 to 100 business days.¹⁷

PSA's parent has bought two of its rivals

Collectors, PSA's parent, acquired SGC in 2024. In December 2025 it announced a definitive agreement to acquire Beckett, while saying Beckett would continue as a separate brand with its own grading standards and operations.¹⁸¹⁹

A proposed class action filed in April 2026 says the SGC and Beckett deals unlawfully cut competition in grading.²⁰ Two more collectors joined the suit in August. Collectors has asked the court to dismiss it or send it to arbitration, with a hearing set for Dec. 11.²¹

Neither SGC nor Beckett had caught PSA in decades of grading before Collectors bought them.

"PSA 10" has become a brand name

"PSA 10" is a phrase every collector knows on sight. It's shorthand for the version of a modern card that's easiest to price and sell. A TAG 10 may come with more condition data, a BGS Black Label is harder to get and a CGC Pristine 10 has a stricter standard. None of those facts make them the benchmark.

The holder is part of what you're buying. The De La Cruz and Charizard sales above show buyers paying for it.

So is the PSA 10 premium justified?

For a reseller, usually yes. A PSA 10 sells faster because it has more buyers, more comps and registry demand behind it. The De La Cruz rookie sold 87 times in a PSA 10 this year and eight times in an SGC 10.

For a collector who cares only about the card, often no. If an SGC 10 De La Cruz looks as good to you as a PSA 10, the SGC copy saves you about $41.

For condition sticklers, PSA isn't the top of the scale. BGS Black Label, CGC Pristine and TAG Pristine all sit above an ordinary 10. The Charizard's Pristine sales show buyers will pay for that, though less than they did in August.

Beating PSA takes its own buyers and sellers

The hobby has waited for a rival to beat PSA by being cheaper, faster, more open or more high-tech. Each of those wins some customers, but none has broken the benchmark.

A real threat needs its own market. That means enough supply that buyers see comps everywhere, enough buyers that sellers stop fearing a discount, a marketplace where grading is one step of the sale and a grade collectors search for by name.

Until then, sellers will keep grading with PSA because buyers pay more for it. Buyers pay that premium because they expect to get it back when they sell.

What I'd do

If you're buying a modern card to keep, look at the CGC and SGC 10s first. The Charizard ex costs around $552 in a CGC 10 and around $1,400 in a PSA 10. If you plan to sell within a year, pay up for PSA, because that's the slab the next buyer is searching for. And watch Dec. 11, when a judge hears Collectors' request to throw out the antitrust suit over SGC and Beckett.