Nobody publishes a success rate for the CGC 8.5 to PSA 9 swap: not PSA, not CGC, not anyone holding the submission records. Our estimate, built from both companies’ population reports, says the answer depends almost entirely on the card, from no chance at all on Base Set Unlimited Charizard to practically every copy on the 1996 Japanese Base Set Charizard.
On a typical card in our sample the population math puts a CGC 8.5 at roughly a coin flip for PSA 9, but that middle figure hides a spread from zero to all. Finding out costs one full PSA fee, pass or fail, and the payoff is the gap between a CGC 8.5 sale and a PSA 9 sale, which on vintage Charizard has run to thousands of dollars.
As of October 23, 2026: the lowest-priced PSA service you can book is Standard, $59.99 per card (Value tiers paused since June 2, 2026). PSA charges the full fee even when a card misses your minimum grade and comes back in its CGC slab. On the nine cards we checked, the share of the CGC 8.5 band that lines up with PSA 9 or better ranges from none to all, with a median of 56%. A CGC 8.5 Base Unlimited Charizard sold on Goldin for $808 on 8/16/26; a PSA 9 of the same card sold minutes later for $3,386.
Why CGC 8.5 to PSA 9 has no published answer
PSA’s crossover page describes a process, not an outcome. The grader looks at the card through the CGC plastic and breaks the slab open solely when your stated minimum is reached: “If PSA deems the card worthy to cross over at the customer’s specified minimum grade or higher, the card will be removed from its holder and placed into a PSA holder. Regardless of the result, the grading price will be charged.”
Neither PSA nor CGC publishes how often that happens, for any grade pair. We searched both companies’ sites, Beckett’s, SGC’s and TAG’s help pages for a pass rate and found none. Forum tallies and grading-tool blogs circulate figures, but they contradict each other and none comes with records. So any number you see for CGC 8.5 to PSA 9 is somebody’s estimate. Ours is below, with the arithmetic shown, and it is labelled as ours.
There is also a popular rule of thumb that CGC grades run the same as PSA or a little lower, which would make a CGC 8.5 a likely PSA 9. The population data lets us test that on real cards instead of repeating it. It holds on some cards and fails badly on others.
PSA’s thin 8.5 band changes the question
CGC hands out half grades freely. PSA does too in principle (its standards say cards “between PSA 2 and PSA 9, may achieve a half-point increase”), but in practice PSA’s 8.5 shelf is close to empty. PSA’s printed population pages list only whole grades, so we derived each PSA 8.5 count from the Pop Higher column: the number of cards above PSA 8, minus the PSA 9s and PSA 10s.
| Card | CGC 8.5 slabs (read October 23, 2026) | PSA 8.5 slabs (derived, PSA snapshot) |
|---|---|---|
| Base Set Unlimited Charizard 4/102 | 1,672 | 530 (March 2026) |
| Base Set Unlimited Mewtwo 10/102 | 1,266 | 92 (June 2025) |
| Base Set 1st Edition Blastoise 2/102 | 68 | 32 (October 2025) |
| Base Set 1st Edition Venusaur 15/102 | 43 | 37 (July 2025) |
| Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX 215/203 | 186 | 18 (June 2025) |
| Scarlet & Violet 151 Charizard ex 199/165 | 742 | 158 (April 2025) |
| Van Gogh Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat (SVP 085) | 421 | 29 (January 2026) |
| Japanese Base Set Charizard (1996) | 243 | 50 (June 2025) |
| Eevee Heroes Umbreon VMAX 095/069 | 4 | 2 (July 2025) |
On Base Unlimited Charizard, 11.3% of CGC’s numerically graded copies are 8.5s. On PSA’s side the 8.5 slice is 0.6%. That has a practical meaning for a crossover. A CGC 8.5 sent to PSA almost never stays an 8.5: it lands on PSA 9 or drops to PSA 8, because PSA reserves the half point for cards it sees as high-end for the grade. Ask for a 9, get an 8.5 opinion, and you are left holding the same CGC slab plus a paid invoice.
CGC’s own words for the grade help explain the gap. Its scale says “A card graded 8.5 has relatively smooth edges with only minor touches of wear” and that “TCG cards could show small handing defects” (the typo is CGC’s). PSA 9 is Mint, with front centering of “approximately 60/40 or better” and 90/10 on the back. Those 60/40, 65/35 and 70/30 ratios on CGC’s scale page cover baseball-style cards; for Pokémon there is no CGC centering cutoff below Gem Mint 10 at all. A CGC 8.5 with a lopsided border can be fine by CGC’s description and still be capped below 9 at PSA.
Our estimate: where CGC 8.5s land on PSA’s scale
The method is a population-percentile comparison. For one card, rank every numerically graded CGC copy from best to worst. The CGC 8.5s occupy a slice of that ranking. Then find the same slice on PSA’s ranking of the same card and see which PSA grades sit there. The share of the slice at PSA 9 or better is the pop-implied chance.
Base Set Unlimited Charizard shows how it works. On CGC’s report, read October 23, 2026, 9.9% of numeric slabs grade 9 or better and 21.2% grade 8.5 or better, so CGC 8.5s are the copies ranked between the top 9.9% and the top 21.2%. On PSA’s report (Wayback capture, March 2026), only 9.5% of numeric slabs are PSA 9 or 10. The whole CGC 8.5 slice falls below that line. PSA’s 8.5 or better covers 10.1% and PSA 8 or better reaches 26.6%, so the slice sits almost entirely on PSA 8s. By population, a CGC 8.5 Unlimited Charizard is a PSA 8 card.
| Card | CGC 8.5 slice (top % of CGC numeric slabs) | PSA 9 or better (top %, snapshot) | Pop-implied share at PSA 9+ (our estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Set Unlimited Charizard | 9.9% to 21.2% | 9.5% (March 2026) | None; the slice sits on PSA 8 |
| Base Set Unlimited Mewtwo | 15.5% to 32.9% | 22.0% (June 2025) | 37% |
| 1st Edition Blastoise | 15.6% to 27.8% | 22.5% (October 2025) | 56% |
| 1st Edition Venusaur | 17.9% to 26.4% | 26.4% (July 2025) | 99.8% |
| Japanese Base Set Charizard | 11.5% to 19.1% | 27.7% (June 2025) | All of it |
| Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX 215 | 86.9% to 92.9% | 91.8% (June 2025) | 81% |
| 151 Charizard ex 199 | 79.3% to 91.2% | 80.6% (April 2025) | 11% |
| Van Gogh Pikachu | 87.5% to 93.2% | 90.7% (January 2026) | 56% |
| Eevee Heroes Umbreon VMAX 095 | 93.4% to 95.0% | 97.4% (July 2025) | All of it (only 4 CGC 8.5s) |
How to read a row: on Mewtwo, CGC 8.5s fill the band from the top 15.5% to the top 32.9% of CGC’s report. PSA 9s and 10s fill the top 22.0% of PSA’s. About 37% of the CGC 8.5 band falls above that PSA 9 line; the rest lands on PSA 8.5 and PSA 8. Every share in the last column comes from counts on the two reports; the method is ours.
Line the nine results up and the middle card sits at 56%. That is the basis for our headline estimate: on a typical card, a CGC 8.5 is about a 1 in 2 shot at PSA 9 by population. It is a weak central figure because the spread around it is so wide. If your card behaves like Base Unlimited Charizard, the population math gives you nothing; if it behaves like Japanese Base Charizard, the math says every CGC 8.5 sits in PSA 9 territory.
Vintage vs modern: why the answer flips
The obvious guess is that vintage cards cross badly and modern cards cross well. The table does not support that split. Two vintage cards (Venusaur and Japanese Base Charizard) map almost wholly to PSA 9, and one modern card (151 Charizard ex) maps mostly to PSA 8.
What does differ between eras is where the 8.5 slice lives. On vintage cards CGC 8.5s are a mid-table grade, ranked somewhere in the top tenth to top third of all copies. On modern cards nearly every copy grades high, so CGC 8.5s are the bottom tenth of the report: Umbreon VMAX 215’s 8.5s start below the top 86.9%. Down there a small shift in PSA’s distribution moves the answer a lot. On 151 Charizard ex, PSA 9 or better covers 80.6% of PSA’s copies, barely past where CGC 8.5s begin, so only a sliver of the band reaches PSA 9.
The bigger driver is who sends each card to each grader. On Base Unlimited Charizard, PSA 10s make up just 0.5% of PSA’s numeric copies, while CGC’s three 10 labels together cover 2.0%, which suggests PSA’s pile of that card is huge and full of played copies, or that PSA grades it harder, or both. On the two Umbreon cards, the PSA 10 share is higher than CGC’s. No rule of thumb about one grader being stricter survives contact with all nine cards.
Why real crossover odds can differ from the estimate
A population percentile is not a prediction for your card. It assumes both companies saw the same mix of copies, and they did not. Here is what pushes the real-world odds away from the table, in each direction.
- Pre-screening raises the odds. People only pay to cross a CGC 8.5 they think looks like a 9. A hand-picked group of 8.5s should do better than the average 8.5 in the population.
- Different submitter pools cut both ways. Collectors chasing PSA 10s send their best raw copies to PSA, which crowds PSA’s upper grades with strong cards. Other card lines draw bulk, older or lower-grade submissions at one company. None of these mixes is measured anywhere.
- Centering is the likeliest hard stop. PSA 9 needs about 60/40 on the front. CGC publishes no Pokémon centering requirement below Gem Mint 10, so an 8.5 that earned its grade despite off-center borders has a ceiling at PSA that the population table cannot see.
- The two reports were not read on the same day. Our CGC figures are live as of October 23, 2026, while each PSA figure is frozen in a Wayback capture from somewhere in the April 2025 to March 2026 window. Neither stands still.
- The minimum-grade rule limits the downside. A failed attempt costs the fee, not the card: “If your item doesn’t meet the minimum grade, it is returned to you in the original holder.”
For more grade pairs worked the same way, see our crossover grading hub, the companion piece on CGC 9 to PSA 9 crossovers and the reach from CGC 9 to PSA 10. If you want to read the raw counts yourself, our guide on how to read a population report walks through the columns.
What a CGC 8.5 crossover costs at PSA
PSA’s price list, read October 23, 2026, shows these card tiers. PSA’s page states that crossover uses the grading price, and PSA’s fine print says the minimum-grade option is “only available on select service levels” without naming which. Whether the newer Standard tier accepts crossovers is not stated anywhere we could find.
| Insurance ceiling | PSA service | Fee (read October 23, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Cards insured to $1,000 | Standard | $59.99 |
| Cards insured to $1,500 | Priority | $79.99 |
| Cards insured to $2,500 | Express | $199.00 |
| Cards insured to $5,000 | Super Express | $349.00 |
| $25,000 or less | Premium 1 | $999.00 |
| $50,000 or less | Premium 2 | $1,999.00 |
PSA quotes turnaround as business days: 90 – 100 for Standard, down to 10 – 15 at Super Express.
Two rules matter more than the sticker price. First, the fee is owed either way: “Full grading fee is charged even if item does not meet minimum grade.” Second, the tier follows the card’s value after grading. PSA’s FAQ says that if it finds an item is worth more than the tier’s insured maximum, PSA “will upgrade the service level for that item” and notifies you of additional fees. A CGC 8.5 worth $808 fits the Standard cap, but if it comes back a PSA 9 worth $3,386 it is a Super Express card.
The other graders do not offer a cheaper route into a PSA slab, because only PSA can put a card in one. CGC’s own crossover runs the other way (it takes PSA, Beckett and SGC slabs into CGC holders). TAG does not cross over at all. The only alternative is to crack the CGC slab yourself and submit raw, which gives up the safety net of the returned holder; our failed crossover explainer covers what you get back when a crossover misses. Fee history and tier changes this year are in our PSA grading cost guide.
CGC 8.5 vs PSA 9 prices: what the gap is worth
Goldin is the cleanest public record of the same card in different slabs. Each figure here is what the winner paid in total, including the premium Goldin lists as “Buyer’s Premium 22% ($19 min)”, and each date is the closing date shown on the lot page. These are single sales, not market averages.
| Card | CGC 8.5 sale | PSA comparison sale |
|---|---|---|
| Charizard, Unlimited | $808 (8/16/26) | PSA 9 $3,386 (8/16/26); PSA 8 $1,708 (9/13/26) |
| Charizard, 1st Edition | $18,605 (10/18/25) | PSA 9 $37,820 (10/18/25, same auction) |
| Neo Revelation Shining Gyarados | $1,513 (5/31/26) | PSA 8 $1,258 (3/22/26) |
On both Charizards the PSA 9 sold for roughly double to four times the CGC 8.5. On Unlimited, our arithmetic on those two sales puts the gap at $2,578; on 1st Edition it is $19,215. Notice also that the Unlimited CGC 8.5 sold below the PSA 8, which fits the population finding that a CGC 8.5 of that card sits where PSA 8s sit. The Shining Gyarados runs the other way, with the CGC 8.5 selling above a PSA 8, a reminder that one sale per slab is thin evidence.
Break-even arithmetic on those sales
Because the fee is paid whether or not the card crosses, the question is how often a crossover has to succeed to cover it. Divide the fee by the dollar gain. These are our worked examples using the sales above and PSA’s published prices; they leave out shipping, insurance, selling fees and the time value of a long turnaround.
- Unlimited Charizard at Standard. $59.99 against a $2,578 gain means the crossover pays for itself if it works 2.3% of the time, assuming Standard takes crossovers at all. If it crosses, PSA’s upgrade rule would move the card to Super Express.
- Unlimited Charizard at Super Express. $349.00 against the same gain needs a success rate of 13.5%. The population estimate for this card is none, so even this low bar is not cleared on paper; only a pre-screened card with strong centering changes that.
- 1st Edition Charizard at Premium 2. A PSA 9 at $37,820 falls in the $50,000 tier at $1,999.00. Against a $19,215 gain, the break-even success rate is 10.4%.
Run the same division with your own card’s sales and fee, then hold it against the population share for that card. Our break-even guide for CGC to PSA crossovers extends this to other grades, and the Unlimited Charizard price history tracks the PSA 9 and PSA 8 prices that set the gain.
Choosing the minimum grade on a CGC 8.5
PSA requires a minimum on every crossover. The choice decides what “failure” means. Set 9 and only a PSA 9 or 10 gets you a new slab; a PSA 8.5 or 8 opinion sends the card back in CGC plastic. Set 8.5 and you also accept the rare PSA 8.5. Set 8 and you accept a PSA 8, which on Base Unlimited Charizard is where the population says most CGC 8.5s belong; the Goldin sales above show that swap can be a step up in price on that card. PSA lets you enter 1 to accept any numerical grade, which turns the crossover into a straight regrade with no safety net.
Whatever minimum you set, PSA grades the card in the CGC holder, so it judges the card through plastic. That cuts both ways: no handling damage from cracking, but no second look at the edges if the slab hides them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a CGC 8.5 cross over to a PSA 9?
Yes, if PSA grades it a 9 or better and you set a minimum of 9 or lower. PSA grades the card in its CGC holder and only removes it if it meets your minimum. If not, the card comes back in the CGC slab and you still pay the full fee.
What are the odds a CGC 8.5 crosses to PSA 9?
No grader publishes them. Our population-percentile estimate across nine cards runs from none (Base Set Unlimited Charizard) to all (Japanese Base Set Charizard), with a median of 56%. A pre-screened card with good centering should beat its card’s population figure; an off-center one may not.
Does PSA give 8.5 grades?
It does, since half points run from PSA 2 up through PSA 9, yet very few cards end up there. On Base Set Unlimited Charizard we derived 530 PSA 8.5s against 1,672 CGC 8.5s, so a CGC 8.5 usually lands on PSA 9 or PSA 8 instead.
Do I pay if my CGC 8.5 does not cross over?
Yes. PSA bills the whole grading price on a miss, the same as on a success. The card is returned in its original CGC holder.
Is a CGC 8.5 worth more than a PSA 8?
It depends on the card. On Goldin, a CGC 8.5 Base Set Unlimited Charizard sold for $808 while a PSA 8 sold for $1,708, but a CGC 8.5 Shining Gyarados sold for $1,513 against $1,258 for a PSA 8. Compare recent sales of your own card.
What is the PSA fee for crossing a CGC 8.5 slab?
The grading price for the tier, read October 23, 2026: from $59.99 for Standard up to $1,999.00 for Premium 2 and beyond, set by the card’s value. PSA does not say which tiers allow the minimum-grade option, and Value tiers are paused.
Sources
- Crossover Service — PSA, read October 23, 2026
- Trading Card Grading: services and prices — PSA, read October 23, 2026
- Service Level Update: May 2026 — PSA, read October 23, 2026
- Grading Standards — PSA, read October 23, 2026
- Frequently Asked Questions — PSA, read October 23, 2026
- Grading Scale — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Cards grading services and fees — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- Population report: Base Set Unlimited — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- Population report: Base Set 1st Edition — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- Population report: Evolving Skies — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- Population report: Scarlet & Violet 151 — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- Population report: Scarlet & Violet Black Star Promos — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- Population report: Japanese Base Set — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- Population report: Eevee Heroes (S6a) — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- Auction Prices Realized: 1999 Pokemon Game Charizard-Holo (population columns) — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of March 2, 2026
- CardFacts: 1999 Nintendo Pokemon Game Mewtwo-Holo #10 (population columns) — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of June 9, 2025
- Auction Prices Realized: 1999 Pokemon Game 1st Edition Blastoise-Holo — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of October 21, 2025
- CardFacts: 1999 Nintendo Pokemon Game Venusaur-Holo 1st Edition #15 — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of July 6, 2025
- Auction Prices Realized: Evolving Skies Full Art / Umbreon Vmax #215 — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of June 26, 2025
- Auction Prices Realized: 2023 Pokemon Mew EN-151 Charizard Ex #199 — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of April 7, 2025
- Auction Prices Realized: Pokemon x Van Gogh Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of January 25, 2026
- Auction Prices Realized: 1996 Pokemon Japanese Basic Charizard-Holo #6 — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of June 20, 2025
- Auction Prices Realized: Eevee Heroes Full Art / Umbreon Vmax-Hyper #095 — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of July 17, 2025
- About Goldin (buyer’s premium table) — Goldin, read October 23, 2026
- 1999 Pokemon Base Set Holo #4 Charizard – CGC NM/MINT+ 8.5 — Goldin, auction ending 8/16/26, read October 23, 2026
- 1999 Pokemon Base Set Holo #4 Charizard – PSA MINT 9 — Goldin, auction ending 8/16/26, read October 23, 2026
- 1999 Pokemon Base Set Holo #4 Charizard – PSA NM-MT 8 — Goldin, auction ending 9/13/26, read October 23, 2026
- 1999 Pokemon Base Set 1st Edition Rare Holofoil #4 Charizard – CGC NM/MINT+ 8.5 — Goldin, auction ending 10/18/25, read October 23, 2026
- 1999 Pokemon Base Set 1st Edition Rare Holofoil #4 Charizard – PSA MINT 9 — Goldin, auction ending 10/18/25, read October 23, 2026
- 2001 Pokemon Neo Revelation Holo #65 Shining Gyarados – CGC NM/MINT+ 8.5 — Goldin, auction ending 5/31/26, read October 23, 2026
- 2001 Pokemon Neo Revelation Holo #65 Shining Gyarados – PSA NM-MT 8 — Goldin, auction ending 3/22/26, read October 23, 2026
No grading company publishes crossover pass rates. Any crossover odds on this page are Pokemon Pricing’s estimate, labelled as one, built from the published grading standards and population reports on the dates shown. Fees, populations and sale prices change; check the grading company’s current price list before submitting. This article is collector information, not investment advice. Pokémon and all card names are trademarks of Nintendo, Creatures Inc. and GAME FREAK inc.; Pokemon Pricing is not affiliated with them or with any grading company.