Card grading tracker: how to track PSA submissions and grading ROI
How to check on a PSA, BGS, SGC, or CGC grading order. This guide also covers what to log for every card you send to grading, a free card grading tracker template you can copy, and how to tell whether grading a card beat selling it raw.
To check a PSA order, sign in to your account page on psacard.com. If a shop submitted the cards for you, ask the shop. To know whether grading paid, track every card on its own row with its raw value, grading fee, upcharge, shipping both ways, grade, cert number, and sale. Grading paid when what you kept from the graded sale beats what the card would have left you raw plus everything you spent to grade it.
Once you've sent more than one grading order, it gets hard to keep track. One order is at PSA, another went in through a card shop's group submission, and three cards are on your desk waiting for the next one. Months later the slabs come back, and you can't remember what you paid to grade them or what each card was worth raw.
A grading tracker answers both questions. It shows where each card is now, and after the card sells it shows whether grading made money. This guide covers how to check an order's status with the grader, what to log for every card, a free template, and the formula for grading ROI.
Quick answer
- To check where a PSA order is, sign in to your account page on psacard.com. If a card shop or group submitted for you, the order is usually under their account, so ask them.
- To track your own cards, log each one on its own row with its grader, service level, submission number, date sent, raw value, and every cost, including the fee, any upcharge, and shipping both ways. Add the grade, cert number, and graded comps when it comes back.
- To know whether grading paid, take what you kept from the graded sale and subtract what the card would have left you raw and everything you spent to grade it.
How to check your PSA submission status
PSA's FAQ says to log in to your account page on psacard.com to view your order status. PSA also emails you when the order is entered for processing, when label descriptions are ready to review, when grades are available, and when the order ships.
If you sent cards through a card shop, a dealer, or a group submission, the order is usually under their account, not yours. Ask them for the status. Some shops use submission software such as SlabTracker, which says it checks PSA and CGC submission statuses daily and keeps customers informed.
The other graders show orders in your account or their apps:
- CGC. CGC's submission FAQ says to sign in and choose My Submissions under your profile. It shows whether the cards were received, whether they were graded, and when they're on the way back. Grades show there once the status reads "Shipped."
- SGC. The SGC Grading app listing says you can track your submissions through the whole grading process in the app.
- BGS. Beckett took its websites and mobile app offline in September 2026 and is restoring them in phases. Beckett restored customer accounts on October 15, and its service updates page lists mobile app updates for a later phase. Sign in to your Beckett account to check a BGS order. If it doesn't show, contact Beckett with the number on your submission confirmation.
If you can't find an order, contact the grader with the number on your submission confirmation.
Keep each order's submission number in your tracker so you aren't digging through email when you need it.
A grader's status page shows where the order is and, at the end, the grades. It won't tell you what grading those cards cost you in total, which ones came back worth less than they cost to grade, or whether your last three submissions were worth sending. You have to track that part yourself.
What to track for every card you grade
Track one card per row, not one row per order. You decide to grade card by card, so measure the result card by card. One 10 can pay for an order full of 8s, or it can fall short.
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Card | Player, year, set, card number, and parallel, exact enough to pull comps. |
| Raw comp | Recent sold prices for the card raw, on the day you sent it. |
| Raw take-home | What a raw sale would have left you after selling fees and shipping. Grading has to beat this number. |
| Expected grade | Your honest guess before you send it. Next to the real grade, it shows how well you pre-grade. The PSA grade estimator covers the checks. |
| Grader and service level | PSA, BGS, SGC, or CGC, and the tier you paid for. |
| Submission number | The number on your submission confirmation. Use it when you ask the grader or shop about the order, and to tie the card to its order. |
| Submitted through | You, a shop, or a group submission, so you know who to ask about the order. |
| Date sent | Shows how long your money is tied up. |
| Declared value | The value you entered for this card on the form. |
| Grading fee | The per-card fee for the tier. |
| Upcharge | The extra fee if the grader moves the card to a higher tier because it's worth more than your tier allows. The PSA upcharge calculator explains how PSA does it. |
| Shipping and insurance | Both directions, split across the cards in the order. |
| Status | Your own stage: to grade, prepped, shipped, at grader, returned, listed, or sold. |
| Date returned | Turnaround from the day you shipped to the day the slab is back. |
| Grade and cert number | What came back. The cert number ties the slab to this row. |
| Graded comp | Recent sold prices for that card at that grade. Compare graded sales only with graded sales, as the comps guide explains. |
| Sale price, selling fees, and shipping | What the buyer paid and what came out of it. |
| Total grading cost | The grading fee, any upcharge, and this card's share of shipping and insurance, added up. |
| Grading ROI | Filled in once the card sells. The formula is below. |
Free grading tracker template
Copy this line into cell A1 of a new Google Sheet, then choose Data > Split text to columns. In Excel, paste it into A1 and use Data > Text to Columns with a comma delimiter.
Card,Raw comp,Raw take-home,Expected grade,Grader,Service level,Submission number,Submitted through,Date sent,Declared value,Grading fee,Upcharge,Shipping and insurance,Status,Date returned,Grade,Cert number,Graded comp,Sale price,Selling fees and shipping,Total grading cost,Grading ROI
The same sheet works as a PSA submission tracker and for BGS, SGC, and CGC orders, because the Grader column holds any grader. Put one card on each row, starting in row 2. The last two columns are formulas:
- Total grading cost, in column U:
=K2+L2+M2, the grading fee plus the upcharge plus this card's share of shipping and insurance. - Grading ROI, in column V:
=IF(S2="","",S2-T2-C2-U2), the sale price minus selling fees and shipping, minus the raw take-home, minus the total grading cost. The cell stays blank until you enter a sale price.
Copy both formulas down the column. This template measures grading ROI in dollars, as the extra money grading made over selling the card raw.
Here is an example with made-up numbers, not current grading prices. A card's raw comp is $100, and selling it raw would have left you $82 after fees and shipping. You pay a $25 grading fee and $5 as its share of shipping, so the total grading cost is $30. The slab sells for $180, and fees and shipping take $30, so you keep $150. Grading ROI is $150 minus $82 minus $30, or $38. If the card had come back at a grade that sells for $110, you would keep about $90 and end up $22 worse off than if you had sold it raw.
Use the raw value, not what you paid for the card. Grading is a decision about a card you already own, so the question is whether grading beat selling it raw. Profit on the original purchase is a separate number, and the true cost of collecting guide covers it.
Before a card goes in the box, run it through the PSA grading ROI calculator. If grading only pays at a 10, note that in the Expected grade column so you can check yourself later.
Tracking mistakes that hide whether grading pays
- Tracking by order instead of by card. An order total doesn't show which cards were worth sending.
- Comparing the graded take-home with the raw sticker price. Selling raw costs fees and shipping too. Compare what each sale would have left you.
- Leaving out upcharges and return shipping. They are easy to forget, and they can turn a small win into a loss.
- Pricing a slab from raw comps. Graded and raw cards sell in different markets. Price a slab from sales of the same card at the same grade.
- Losing the link between the raw card and the slab. Write the cert number on the card's row the day the slab comes back, before it goes into a box with twenty others.
- Counting grading costs twice. If you add a grading fee to a card's cost and also log it as a business expense, your profit comes out too low. Put each cost in one place.
The PSA submission checklist covers the mistakes to catch before an order ships.
Spreadsheet or app?
A spreadsheet works for a few submissions a year. It gets harder when you grade often and sell what comes back. Then the same card is in your grading sheet, your inventory sheet, and your eBay listings, and the three stop matching. The inventory spreadsheet vs app guide covers that tradeoff.
Where CardZen fits
CardZen doesn't have a grading submission tracker. It doesn't follow an order while it's at the grader, so keep that part in your tracker. CardZen helps once the slab is back.
- Scan the slab. When CardSense scans a graded card, it reads the grader, grade, and cert number off the label and marks the card Graded. If eBay doesn't accept that grader, CardSense leaves the grader blank instead of guessing. You can edit these fields later on the card page.
- Price it from graded sales. CardZen suggests a price from eBay sales in the last 30 days and compares a graded card only with graded sales. If there are no recent sales, it uses the median active listing price minus 10%. You can accept the price or set your own.
- List it on eBay. When you push the listing, CardZen sends the grade, grader, and cert number to eBay's Condition section.
- See the sale. CardZen pulls your eBay sales with eBay's fees. A sale's net profit shows once its fees and the card's cost are recorded.
- Log grading fees once. Record grading fees in business expenses under the Grading category, unless you already included them in a purchase's cost. The Cash flow report subtracts business expenses from your profit for the period. They don't change each card's profit, so keep each card's grading ROI in your tracker.
You can start with cards you already have. On the web, capture them with your phone or webcam or upload photos, or use Quick Scan in the iPhone app. You can also import a cost file, an Excel or CSV spreadsheet of what you paid for each card. When a row's cert number matches exactly one of your cards with no conflicting identifiers, CardZen links the row to that card. You review any row that matches more than one card.
Start free with CardZen. The free trial is 15 CardSense scans or 14 days, whichever comes first, with no credit card required. After that, Starter is $17/month for 1,000 CardSense scans and Pro is $30/month for 2,500. Both plans include every feature, as the pricing page shows.
Last reviewed October 27, 2026. Graders change their order pages, services, and fees, so check the grader's own site before you submit.