Questions, answered.

No. The Optic Grading app measures your card deterministically on your device — centering, corners, edges, surface — from the four calibration markers. Same inputs, same result, every time. No AI, no guessing.

Your PreGrade is your lowest subgrade, rounded down to the nearest half point. The exact measurement method is proprietary — but it's deterministic: same inputs, same result, every time. No AI, no guessing, no manual override.

No — and it's not trying to. Optic Grading tells you what to submit and what to skip, so you stop wasting official grading fees on cards that won't gem.

Never. You generate every report yourself, on your phone. No cards sent anywhere, no waiting on anyone else.

Standard-size sports cards, Pokémon, and TCG cards fit the cradle.

There's no clamp — your phone sits on the round magnetic puck at the end of the arm, held by magnets in the exact overhead position. The puck is MagSafe-compatible.

Kickstarter is planned with delivery targeted for May 2027. Backers get production updates throughout.

Planned Kickstarter pricing starts at $79 for early birds. Final tiers will be announced when the campaign launches.

Pre-grading is inspecting your trading card against professional grading standards — centering, corners, edges, and surface — before you pay to submit it. It tells you whether a card is worth the grading fee, so you stop wasting money on cards that come back lower than expected.

It’s a folding inspection station that holds your phone over an illuminated card cradle. Four camera-alignment markers guide the companion app’s scanner to capture your card from the exact right position every time. The app then computes a grade from those measurements — on your device, with no manual data entry.

The four pillars every professional grader evaluates: centering (how even the borders are), corners (sharpness and wear), edges (chipping and roughness), and surface (scratches, print defects, and gloss). The guided capture makes sure each one is measured consistently.

As of 2026, professional grading runs $60+ per card before shipping and insurance, with turnaround times measured in weeks. The tool pays for itself the second time it talks you out of a bad submission — two wasted grading fees cost more than the tool itself.

The tool measures against the published grading criteria used across the industry — professional grading companies all evaluate centering, corners, edges, and surface on the same fundamentals.

No tool can guarantee a professional grader’s result — human graders make judgment calls, especially on surface and eye appeal. What Optic Grading gives you is a consistent measurement so you submit with confidence instead of guessing.

Each unit includes 15 pre-grade credits through the companion app (flat, no expiry — check the Kickstarter tier details for exact counts), plus access to your My Cards library to track every card you’ve scanned.