HOARD VS COLLECTORS · COMPARISON
GRADING IS
A SERVICE.
A RECORD IS
INFRASTRUCTURE.
PSA paused every Value tier in June 2026, leaving Regular at $79.99 as the entry point. Here is what grading costs now, what it is for, and what The Hoard does differently.
VERIFIED 2026.08.03· CARDS · COINS · GAMES · GRADING
WHAT A SALE COSTS
$79.99
PSA REGULAR, PER CARD$0.00
TO RECORD ANY PIECEValue tiers paused 2 June 2026. Cards declared above $499 also carry a 2% surcharge on declared value.
Most people searching this comparison are not asking which platform to pick. They are asking a cost question that got harder this year. PSA raised prices across the board on 10 February 2026, roughly five dollars a card on most tiers. Then on 2 June 2026 it paused Value Bulk, Value, Value Plus, and Value Max entirely while it worked through backlog, which left Regular at $79.99 as the cheapest way to get a card into a slab.
If you were grading twenty dollar cards at $24.99 a piece, that route is closed for now, and the whole spreadsheet you built your submissions around no longer works.
So here is the honest framing up front. The Hoard is not a grading service and is not trying to be one. It will not tell you a card is a nine. What it does is the part grading was never designed to cover: the permanent, portable record of what you own, what it cost, where it came from, and what condition it was in when it left your hands. Those two things sit next to each other, not on top of each other.
SIDE BY SIDE
HOW THE TWO ARE STRUCTURED.
What it produces
COLLECTORS
A numeric grade and a sealed slab with a cert number.
THE HOARD
A record: documentation, condition notes, photos, purchase history, and history, held against the item.
Cost per item
COLLECTORS
Regular at $79.99 with a $1,500 declared value ceiling is the current entry point. Express $149, Super Express $349, Walk-Through $599, Premium from $999 upward.
THE HOARD
No per item cost to record anything, on a free collector profile. Collector Pro adds Nyami Nyami appraisal and valuation across the whole collection, and is an upgrade rather than a requirement.
Extra charges
COLLECTORS
2% of declared value on anything declared above $499, plus shipping both ways, plus supplies, plus Collectors Club membership for some tiers.
THE HOARD
None. There is no per item, per photo, or per export charge.
Custody
COLLECTORS
The card leaves your hands and sits with PSA for the length of the turnaround.
THE HOARD
Nothing ever leaves your hands. The Hoard never takes possession of anything.
Turnaround
COLLECTORS
Regular is estimated at roughly forty to fifty business days. Faster tiers cost multiples more.
THE HOARD
Immediate. Gideon identifies the piece from a camera scan and files it into your vault already structured. When it is not sure it says so and gives you ranked options, and no match happens sometimes and is a normal outcome rather than a failure.
Coverage
COLLECTORS
Cards, and through sister brands coins and video games.
THE HOARD
Every category the network covers, including sports, fashion, plants, and everything else no grader serves.
What it claims
COLLECTORS
An opinion on condition and identity, backed by the grader’s reputation.
THE HOARD
Nothing about the item itself. Only what is documented, and how thoroughly.
BOTH SIDES, HONESTLY
BOTH PANELS ARE REAL.
WHERE COLLECTORS WINS
Liquidity. A PSA 10 sells faster and higher than a raw card, full stop. No record system changes that.
A shared scale. Two strangers on opposite sides of a deal both know what an eight means. That shared language is worth real money.
Population data. Pop reports are real market infrastructure and nothing else replaces them.
Physical protection. The slab is a case. A record is not.
Scale. Grading roughly ninety thousand cards a day globally, up from about fifteen thousand in 2021, is an operational feat, and the backlog that caused the Value pause is a symptom of demand, not decline.
WHERE THE HOARD WINS
Cost per item at scale. A free profile covers everything you own. Grading prices each item separately and the bill grows with the collection.
Nothing leaves the house. No shipping risk, no declared value guessing, no capital tied up for two months.
Everything is covered. Your vinyl, your handbags, your toys, the pieces no grader has a service for.
Ungradeable value. Sentimental pieces, damaged pieces, family pieces. A grade would be worthless, a record is not.
No AI, no house, no narrative. Gideon identifies a piece from a scan and Nyami Nyami prices it, both algorithmically. Gideon is identification and never a certificate of authenticity, and it shows you its uncertainty rather than inventing an answer.
The record travels. When the item sells, its history goes with it, which is exactly what a slab cannot carry.
WORKED MATH
FOUR SCENARIOS, IN DOLLARS.
ONE, A HUNDRED CARD COLLECTION
A hundred cards averaging $40 raw. What does it cost to make them all legible to a buyer.
GRADING · CURRENT ENTRY TIER
100 cards at $79.99$7,999.00
Shipping both ways, est.$100.00
Supplies, est.$25.00
Total$8,124.00
THE HOARD · FREE COLLECTOR PROFILE
Cost to record all 100$0.00
Per item$0.00
Total$0.00
These are not the same product and the comparison is unfair on purpose, to make one point clearly: at a hundred items, grading is a decision you make card by card, and a record is something you can give every single one at no cost at all.
TWO, THE ONE CARD WORTH GRADING
A card you believe grades a nine or ten and would sell for $1,200 slabbed.
Grade it. That is the right answer and this page is not going to talk you out of it. Regular at $79.99 covers a declared value up to $1,500, so you are inside the tier, and the grade will pay for itself several times over.
Document it on The Hoard first. Photograph the raw card, log the purchase, note the condition, then attach the cert number when the slab comes back. Now the record covers the whole life of the card, including the part before it went into a case, which is the part that disappears otherwise.
THREE, THE DECLARED VALUE TRAP
A card you estimate at $600.
SUBMISSION, ALL IN
Service tier by declared valueRegular $79.99
2% surcharge on value over $499$12.00
Shipping and insurance, est.$30.00
Cash out before a grade$121.99
Capital locked, est. turnaround40 to 50 days
Two things worth naming. Under declaring to reach a cheaper tier caps your insurance at the number you declared, so a lost card pays out at the fiction rather than the value. And the money is gone from your hands for two months before you learn anything.
FOUR, THE CATEGORY WITH NO GRADER
A vinyl collection, a shelf of designer toys, a jewelry box, a plant wall.
There is no tier to buy. Grading has no answer here and does not pretend to. This is the whole of what The Hoard covers by default, on the same free profile, with the same documentation ladder, in the same place as the cards.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
8 QUESTIONS.
01
How much does PSA grading cost in 2026?
Published tiers range from about $24.99 at Value Bulk up to $599 at Walk-Through and higher at Premium levels, but PSA paused all Value tiers on 2 June 2026, so the effective entry point is Regular at $79.99 with a $1,500 declared value ceiling. Cards declared above $499 also carry a 2% surcharge on declared value.
02
Why did PSA pause its Value tiers?
Submission backlog. PSA has said it grades roughly ninety thousand cards a day globally, up from about fifteen thousand in 2021, and the pause was announced while it worked through volume. Check PSA’s own service page for current status before planning a submission.
03
Is The Hoard a grading service?
No. The Hoard does not grade, authenticate, or take custody of anything. Gideon is identification and never a certificate of authenticity, which is a distinction worth being precise about: it tells you what a piece most likely is, not that it is real. The record then captures what is known about it, on a ladder from Draft to Basic to Documented to Export Ready. No AI is involved in any of it.
04
Can I use The Hoard alongside PSA?
That is the intended use. Document the card raw, submit it, then attach the cert number to the existing record. The slab carries the grade, the record carries everything else.
05
Does a Hoard record raise what my card sells for?
Not the way a grade does. What it does is remove the questions a buyer would otherwise ask: where it came from, what it cost, what condition it was in, who owned it. That reduces friction rather than adding a premium.
06
What happens to the record when I sell the item?
It transfers with the item. The buyer inherits the documented history rather than starting from nothing, which is the part that a slab, by design, cannot carry.
07
What does The Hoard cost per item?
Nothing. A collector profile is free, and recording items carries no per item, per photo, or per export charge. Collector Pro is an upgrade that adds Nyami Nyami appraisal and valuation. Selling carries a separate facilitation fee of 1.5% collector to collector or 5% commercial.
08
Is it worth grading a card at $79.99?
The usual rule of thumb is that the graded card should be worth roughly three times the all in cost of grading it, once shipping, supplies, and surcharges are counted. At the current entry tier that puts the floor higher than it was in 2025, which is why the Value pause changed so many people’s submission math.
THE SHORT VERSION
Grading answers one question about one item, expensively, slowly, and well. A record answers every other question about everything you own, cheaply, immediately, and permanently. Grade the pieces where a grade pays for itself. Record all of it.