Pricing & Market Data
- Raw price
- The TCGPlayer market price for an ungraded card — what you would pay to buy it today. This is the starting cost in every ROI calculation.
- Smart price
- PokemonPriceTracker's best estimate of a graded card's current market value. It filters out outlier eBay sales (suspiciously high or low) and weights recent sales more heavily than older ones. More reliable than a simple average or median.
- Confidence
- How much to trust the smart price, based on how many recent sales are available.
- ● high — many recent sales, reliable estimate
- ● medium — some data, reasonable estimate
- ● low — few or old sales, treat with caution
- 7-day delta
- The percentage change in PSA 10 smart price over the last 7 days. A green ↑ means the card is getting more valuable; a red ↓ means it's declining. Only shown when the change is at least 1%.
- Trend
- The market direction for a graded card based on recent eBay sales patterns.
- ↑ Trending — price is rising
- ↓ Trending — price is falling
- → Stable — price is flat
- Daily volume
- The average number of eBay sales per day over the last 7 days. A card with 0.2 sales/day is illiquid — it might take weeks to sell. A card with 5/day will move quickly.
ROI & Filtering
- ROI
- Return on investment — what you make after grading costs, as a percentage of what you put in.ROI = (graded price − raw price − grading fee − shipping) ÷ (raw price + grading fee + shipping) × 100
A card that grades at $100 when you paid $40 raw + $25 grading + $20 shipping isn't 150% ROI — it's actually 18% after fees. GradeScout always includes fees in the calculation.
- Diamonds ♦
- Cards where ROI is greater than 50% AND the raw price is under $30. The ROI threshold filters for meaningful profit margin after fees. The $30 cap filters for accessibility — most collectors aren't speculatively grading $100 raw cards. The combination identifies cards where grading is both profitable and reachable.
- Gradeable cards
- Cards that have graded eBay price data for the selected service. Commons and uncommons typically have no graded market — they're excluded from stats like median raw price so the numbers stay meaningful.
Grading Services
- PSA
- Professional Sports Authenticator. The most widely traded graded card company. PSA 10 (Gem Mint) is the standard benchmark for grading ROI. Highest resale liquidity of any grading service.
- BGS
- Beckett Grading Services. Uses sub-grades (centering, corners, edges, surface) to produce a composite score. BGS 10 Pristine means all sub-grades are 10. BGS 10 Black Label means all sub-grades are a perfect 10 — rarer and worth significantly more.
- BGS Black Label
- A BGS 10 where every sub-grade (centering, corners, edges, surface) scores a perfect 10. Much rarer than standard BGS 10 Pristine and can be worth 5–10x more. GradeScout shows Black Label as a separate column when BGS is selected.
- CGC
- Certified Guaranty Company. Growing market share in Pokemon cards. CGC 10 Pristine is their top grade. Turnaround times and fees are competitive with PSA.
- TAG
- Technical Authentication & Grading. Smaller grading service with a niche following. Lower population counts mean some TAG 10s command premiums for rare cards.
Grading Tiers & Fees
- Economy tier
- The slowest, cheapest grading option. Best ROI on the fee math, but longest wait time (months). Good for cards you're holding long-term.
- Regular tier
- Standard turnaround. The middle ground between cost and speed. Most collectors use this for cards they want back within a few weeks.
- Express tier
- Fast turnaround at a premium fee. Higher cost means lower ROI — only worth it if the card is time-sensitive (e.g. a card trending hard right now) or you need it back quickly.
- Tier optimizer
- The three-column breakdown in each card's expand view showing ROI for all three tiers side by side. Helps you see at a glance whether express is worth the fee premium for that specific card.
- Shipping (roundtrip)
- GradeScout includes estimated roundtrip shipping cost in every ROI calculation. Shipping to and from the grading company is a real cost that most ROI tools ignore.
Fees and thresholds are updated periodically. ROI figures are estimates based on recent eBay sales data — actual results depend on card condition, grading outcome, and market timing.