Which Pokémon cards are actually worth grading? (November 2026)

CardHunt — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 12:28:12 +0000

Data from the CardHunt grading report, updated 1 November 2026. English cards from 2021 onwards, PSA population data and market prices.

A big gap between a card's raw price and its PSA 10 price looks like an easy win. It usually isn't. Most copies that get submitted do not come back a 10, and grading, shipping and selling fees eat the rest. So we ran the numbers for every English card from 2021 onwards and ranked them by what you can expect to make, not by what a perfect copy sells for.

How we calculate it

Expected value = chance of a PSA 10 x the PSA 10 price + chance of a 9 x the PSA 9 price + chance of an 8 x the PSA 8 price + lower grades at 90% of the raw price, minus the raw price, PSA grading ($59.99 for the standard tier, more for expensive cards), shipping both ways ($10) and about 13% selling fees.

One caveat up front: pop reports only count cards that were submitted, and people mostly submit their best copies. The real odds for a random raw card are probably a bit lower than the ones below.

The most worth grading (raw price $10-$150)

Card	Set	Raw price	Expected profit	Chance of a 10
Mew	Crown Zenith Galarian Gallery GG10	$68.87	+$180.85	27%
Jirachi V	Astral Radiance 170	$24.92	+$177.53	58%
Tyrantrum	Mega Evolution Black Star Promos 66	$50.24	+$172.98	25%
Morpeko ex	Pitch Black 117	$58.04	+$142.60	58%
Celebi V	Chilling Reign 160	$16.59	+$126.99	60%

Notice that the best picks are not always the ones with the highest odds of a 10. Jirachi V costs about $25 and has a 58% chance of a 10, while Mew has a 27% chance, but a much higher PSA 10 price makes up for it.

The biggest grading traps

These cards show a huge jump to PSA 10 on paper, but lose money on average because too few copies come back a 10.

Sawk (White Flare 130): +2,200% to PSA 10 on paper, but only 18% get a 10, so the average result is a loss of $25.40 per card.
Zweilous (White Flare 147): +2,458% to PSA 10, 17% chance of a 10, average -$22.67.
Scizor (Obsidian Flames 205): +2,699% to PSA 10, 15% chance, average -$15.04.
Elgyem (Black Bolt 120): +3,021% to PSA 10, 17% chance, average -$9.79.

Easy to grade is not always profitable

The easiest PSA 10s are cards where most graded copies get a 10: Cyndaquil (Mega Evolution Black Star Promos 47) leads with 87%, followed by Charmander (84%) and Totodile (82%). But the expected profit on all three is negative after fees, because the PSA 10 price is not high enough to cover grading and selling costs. A high chance of a 10 only helps if the card is worth enough as a 10.

What to take away

Look at the expected profit, not the gap between raw and PSA 10.
The chance of a 10 matters as much as the PSA 10 price. Check both.
Always check corners, edges and centering on the actual copy before you buy. Odds are for the average card, not the one in your hand.

The full ranked report, updated daily, is at cardhunt.io/report. The snapshot is also available as an open dataset on Hugging Face and Kaggle (CC BY 4.0).