# Understanding PSA 9 vs PSA 10 Pokémon Card Prices: A Complete Guide
When you’re buying or selling Pokémon cards, one of the biggest decisions you’ll face is whether to invest in a PSA 10 or settle for a PSA 9. The price difference between these two grades can be absolutely staggering, sometimes reaching thousands of dollars for the same card. But here’s the thing that confuses most collectors: that massive price gap doesn’t always mean you’re getting better value. In fact, sometimes a PSA 9 is the smarter financial choice.
Let’s start with the basics. PSA grades cards on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being a perfect gem mint card and 9 being a mint card. The difference between these two grades might sound small, but the market treats them very differently. A PSA 10 Moonbreon, one of the most popular Pokémon cards in the world, can cost $2,700 more than the same card in PSA 9 condition. That’s an enormous premium for what amounts to a single grade difference.
The real question you need to ask yourself is this: does that price difference make sense? And the answer, surprisingly often, is no.
The Traditional Multiplier Rule
For years, the card grading market operated on what collectors call the multiplier rule. This is a simple formula that helps you decide whether a card is worth grading or worth buying in a particular grade. The basic idea is that a PSA 10 should be worth significantly more than the raw card to justify the cost of grading and the risk that your card might not come back as a 10.
The most common version of this rule states that if a card is worth $25 or more in raw condition, it might be worth grading. But here’s where it gets more specific. If a card is worth between $25 and $100 in raw condition, you want to see that card valued at roughly three times as much in PSA 10 condition. So if you have a raw card worth $50, you’d want to see it worth at least $150 in PSA 10 before you send it off to be graded.
This multiplier becomes even more important when you’re looking at cards that are already worth $100 or more in raw condition. In those cases, collectors typically look for at least a 2 to 2.5 times multiplier. So a $100 raw card should be worth at least $200 to $250 in PSA 10 condition to make grading worthwhile.
Why These Multipliers Matter
The reason these multipliers exist is simple math. When you grade a card, you have to pay for the grading service itself, which can range from $20 to $100 or more depending on the turnaround time you choose. You also take on the risk that your card might not come back as a 10. It could come back as a 9, an 8, or even lower. If you’re paying $50 to grade a card and it comes back as a 9 instead of a 10, you’ve just lost money.
Let’s look at a real example. There’s a Victor Wanyama 2024 Prism Sublime card that costs about $100 in raw condition. In PSA 10, it’s worth $189. In PSA 9, it’s worth $79. This is a perfect example of why the multiplier rule matters. If you took that $100 raw card and paid $50 to grade it, hoping it would come back as a 10 and be worth $189, you’d have $150 invested. But if it came back as a 9 worth $79, you’d have lost money. And even if it did come back as a 10, your profit would only be $39 after paying for grading. That’s not a good investment.
The Current Market Reality
Here’s what’s changed in recent years. The multipliers have gotten much tighter. There was a time when PSA 10s were getting 5 to 6 times the raw value, and PSA 9s were getting close to 2.7 times raw value. Those days are largely gone. Now, PSA 10s typically get between 2 to 3 times raw value, and sometimes even lower than that.
What’s even more interesting is that PSA 9s often sell for roughly the same price as raw cards. This is a huge shift in the market. It means that in many cases, buying a PSA 9 is almost the same as buying a raw card, but you get the security of knowing the card has already been graded and authenticated. You don’t have to worry about whether the card is actually in the condition you think it is.
This reality has led many experienced collectors to completely rethink their approach. Some collectors now say they basically never pay for a PSA 10 if they can avoid it. If a card is worth $300 raw and $600 in PSA 10, they’d rather have the extra $300 to spend on other cards and expand their collection. They’ll buy the PSA 9 or the raw card instead.
When PSA 10 Actually Makes Sense
That said, there are situations where a PSA 10 does make sense. If you’re looking at a card where the price difference is small, it might be worth it. For example, if a PSA 9 is $25 and a PSA 10 is $50, the difference is only $25. In that case, many collectors would spring for the 10 because the premium isn’t that steep.
The key is to look at the actual market data for the specific card you’re interested in. You can’t just assume that a PSA 10 is automatically a better investment. You have to do the math. You have to look at what cards are actually selling for, not just what they’re listed for. There’s a big difference between asking price and selling price.
The Importance of Population and Gem Rate
Another factor that affects the price difference between PSA 9 and PSA 10 is something called the population and gem rate. The population is how many copies of a card have been graded by PSA. The gem rate is what percentage of those graded copies came back as a 10.
If a card has a very low gem rate, meaning very few copies have come back as a 10, then the PSA 10s will be much more valuable. They’re rarer. But if a card has a high gem rate, meaning lots of copies have come back as a 10, then the premium for a 10 won’t be as high.
This is why you can’t just look at the price difference in isolation. You have to
