2025 Grading Arms Race: How PSA, CGC, TAG, and AGS Are Rewriting Submission Strategy
PSA's new EU and Canadian hubs, CGC's Munich build-out, TAG's express relaunch, and AGS' AI volume milestone show an industry sprinting to scale. Learn how to adapt your submission playbook with CardGrade.
CardGrade.io Editorial·Published Jan 12, 2026 · Updated Feb 21, 2026·10 min read
2025 Grading Arms Race: How PSA, CGC, TAG, and AGS Are Rewriting Submission Strategy
For years, card grading meant PSA. Beckett (BGS) held a slice of the market, SGC had its vintage loyalists, and everyone else was a footnote. That era is over.
In 2025, CGC graded its 631% more sports cards in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2024. TAG Grading saw a 500% surge in demand in February alone, forcing a complete pricing restructure. AGS continues pushing its AI-only grading model. Arena Club, backed by Derek Jeter, offers $10 grading with vault storage.
The grading industry is no longer a monopoly. It's an arms race. And the winners will be collectors who understand how each company fits into their submission strategy.
The Incumbents: PSA and the Trust Premium
PSA graded 8.89 million cards in the first six months of 2025. They remain the market leader by a wide margin, and PSA-graded cards consistently command the highest resale premiums.
But PSA's 2025 has been turbulent. The company raised prices again in September, pushing Value Bulk from $19.99 to $21.99, Value from $24.99 to $27.99, and Value Plus from $39.99 to $44.99. Turnaround times stretched too: Value Plus moved from 20 to 25 business days, Regular from 10 to 15 days.
More damaging than price hikes was the buyback controversy. Collectors and dealers raised alarms about PSA's dual role as both a grading authority and a buyer/seller of cards, claiming conflicts of interest in the grading process. Social media erupted with accusations of grade manipulation, and while PSA denied wrongdoing, the trust erosion was real.
PSA also tightened its centering standard for Gem Mint 10 to 55/45 (previously 60/40 on the front), raising the bar for the hobby's most coveted grade. Cards that squeaked by under the old standard now cap at PSA 9.
The result: PSA remains the gold standard for resale value, but its pricing, turnaround, and trust issues have opened the door for competitors in ways that weren't possible even two years ago.
CGC: The Blackstone-Backed Challenger
CGC Cards is the most serious threat to PSA's dominance. Backed by Blackstone (which acquired majority ownership of parent company Certified Collectibles in 2021 at a $500 million valuation) and strategically aligned with Fanatics through founder Michael Rubin's personal investment, CGC has deep pockets and a growth trajectory that demands attention.
The numbers tell the story. CGC placed second in monthly grading volume in June 2025 with 570,000 cards graded, and the company has amassed approximately 7% market share in the four years since it began grading sports cards. Sports card grading volume was up 631% year-over-year in the first half of 2025.
CGC's competitive advantages:
Lower pricing: Starting at $17 per card for standard grading (vs. PSA's $27.99 Value tier)
Faster turnaround at entry-level tiers
Strong Pokemon and TCG collector base carried over from CGC Comics
On-site grading at Fanatics Collect's Oregon facility
Quality control concerns have surfaced on collector forums
For collectors optimizing on cost and turnaround rather than maximum resale value, CGC is increasingly the rational choice. For high-value cards where every dollar of resale premium matters, PSA still wins.
TAG Grading: The Technology Play
TAG (Technical Authentication & Grading) has been in development for over a decade, and 2025 is the year it broke into mainstream awareness. TAG's differentiator is Photometric Stereoscopic Imaging, a multi-patented technology that captures card conditions using specialized light arrays rather than relying solely on human inspection.
TAG's Standard and Priority tiers were eliminated in March 2025 to manage volume. The company currently grades sports cards from 2000-present, Topps Pokemon cards, and entertainment cards.
What TAG does well:
Every graded card includes raw card images, HD slab images, UV protection, and QR-accessible Digital Imaging and Grading (DIG) reports
The slab design is widely considered one of the best-looking in the industry
Technology-backed consistency claims (less human subjectivity)
Competitive pricing at the bulk tier
What TAG struggles with:
Limited card eligibility (no vintage pre-2000, limited TCG support)
Brand new to most collectors; resale value is unproven
Capacity constraints are already causing pricing increases
No established population database comparable to PSA's
TAG is the bet for collectors who believe technology-driven grading will eventually overtake human-subjective grading. The question is whether the market will assign resale value to TAG slabs at rates competitive with PSA or CGC.
AGS: Pure AI Grading
AGS (Automated Grading Systems) takes the technology argument further than TAG by using 100% artificial intelligence for grading. No human touches the evaluation process. The pitch: AI eliminates human error and bias, grades cards 10x faster, and provides more consistent results.
AGS has gained traction in the TCG space, particularly among Pokemon collectors who appreciate faster turnaround and lower costs. The AI-only approach appeals to a generation of collectors who trust algorithms more than human graders.
AGS strengths:
Fastest grading in the industry due to AI automation
No human bias or inconsistency
Lower operational costs translate to competitive pricing
Growing acceptance in the Pokemon TCG community
AGS weaknesses:
Market acceptance and resale premiums are minimal compared to PSA
AI grading can miss context that humans catch (intentional design choices vs. defects)
No track record for high-value vintage cards
Limited brand recognition outside TCG circles
AGS occupies a niche: high-volume, lower-value cards where speed and cost matter more than resale premium. For a $5 Pokemon card that a collector wants authenticated and protected, AGS makes sense. For a $500 card where the difference between a 9 and 10 means hundreds of dollars, most collectors still turn to PSA.
Arena Club: The Vault Model
Arena Club, backed by Derek Jeter, launched a different model entirely. At $10 per card, they offer grading plus vault storage, positioning themselves as a combined grading and digital marketplace.
The vault model means your cards are graded, stored securely, and can be sold digitally without physical shipping. It's an interesting evolution for the industry, though it raises questions about ownership and access that traditional grading doesn't.
Arena Club is most relevant for sports card investors who treat cards as financial instruments rather than collectibles to display. The $10 price point is the lowest in the industry, but the tradeoff is a relatively unproven grading standard and limited market acceptance for resale.
The Risk of Grading with Less Established Companies
Every new grading company faces the same chicken-and-egg problem: collectors won't submit high-value cards until the company proves its grades hold resale value, but the company can't prove resale value without high-value cards in its population.
Here's what's at stake:
Market acceptance risk. A PSA 10 has decades of market data supporting its value. A TAG 10 or AGS 10 does not. If you grade a $200 raw card with TAG and it receives a 10, will buyers pay a premium? Some will. Most will discount it relative to a PSA 10.
Company survival risk. New grading companies come and go. If a company shuts down or is acquired, what happens to the value of its slabs? PSA, Beckett, and SGC have survived market cycles. TAG, AGS, and Arena Club are still proving their staying power.
Standard consistency risk. Established companies have graded millions of cards and developed calibrated standards. Newer companies with smaller grading volumes may shift their standards as they scale, meaning a TAG 10 today might not mean the same thing as a TAG 10 in two years.
Practical strategy: Use newer, cheaper companies for cards where the grading cost is a significant percentage of the card's value. Use PSA for high-value cards where the resale premium justifies the higher fee.
How This Changes Your Submission Strategy
The multi-company landscape creates strategic opportunities that didn't exist when PSA was the only viable option:
Tiered submission approach:
High-value cards ($100+ raw): PSA. The resale premium justifies the cost.
Low-value cards (<$20 raw): AGS or Arena Club. Speed and cost efficiency.
Jumbo/oversized cards: CGC (they're the only major company offering this).
Pre-screening across companies:
Different companies weight grading factors differently. A card with 58/42 centering is fine for PSA 10 (55/45 threshold) but would receive a lower centering subgrade from BGS. Use CardGrade's AI pre-grading to evaluate your cards against multiple companies' standards before choosing where to submit.
Diversification:
Don't put all your cards in one company's slabs. Spreading submissions across PSA, CGC, and one newer company hedges against any single company's pricing changes, scandals, or market shifts.
Where the Industry Is Heading
Several trends are clear for 2026 and beyond:
AI will play a larger role everywhere. Even PSA and CGC will increasingly incorporate AI tools into their grading process. The companies that started with AI (AGS, Arena Club) have a head start on the technology, but the incumbents have the brand trust and market share to leverage AI as a supplement rather than a replacement.
Pricing pressure will continue. With CGC and TAG offering quality grading at lower prices, PSA faces ongoing pressure to justify its premium. Expect PSA to differentiate on brand value and population data rather than trying to compete on price.
Specialization will increase. CGC's jumbo card grading is an example. Companies will find niches (vintage, TCG, autographs, oversized) and build competitive advantages within them rather than trying to be everything to everyone.
Pre-screening becomes essential. As grading costs rise across the board and more companies enter the market, the decision of which company to grade with (and whether to grade at all) becomes more complex. AI pre-grading tools like CardGrade become more valuable in a multi-company landscape because they help you match each card to the right grading company and service tier.
The grading monopoly is dead. The arms race is on. And collectors who adapt their strategy to the new reality will come out ahead.
The CardGrade.io editorial team writes about card grading, AI technology, and collecting strategy. Our guides are researched against official PSA, BGS, and CGC standards.
