Sorted Pokemon commons and uncommons are worth between $8 and $15 per 1,000 cards in cash right now, depending on which shop's buylist you use. We pay the top of that range: $15 per 1,000 in cash, or $19 in store credit, as of August 2026.
This is a living guide. We refresh it monthly at this same address, re-reading every shop's published rates the day we update, and we keep our old numbers in print so you can see how the market moved. This is the first edition, so the history starts here.
Pokemon bulk prices by category, August 2026
Bulk is not one price. Shops sort cards into tiers, and the tier decides the rate. Here is our full buylist as of August 28, 2026, with cash and store credit per 1,000 cards:
| Category | Cash per 1,000 | Credit per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Commons and uncommons, sorted | $15 | $19 |
| Commons and uncommons, unsorted | $9 | $11 |
| Trainers, non holo | $12 | $15 |
| Reverse holo commons and uncommons | $30 | $38 |
| Non holo rares | $25 | $31 |
| Holo rares | $35 | $44 |
| ACE SPEC | $100 | $125 |
| V and GX | $250 | $313 |
| ex and EX | $300 | $375 |
| VMAX and VSTAR | $400 | $500 |
| Illustration Rare, full art, secret | $450 | $563 |
The pattern to notice: the top tiers are priced per card in practice. $250 per 1,000 for V cards means 25 cents each, and $450 per 1,000 for Illustration Rares means 45 cents each. Nobody ships a thousand Illustration Rares; they ship twelve, and those twelve are worth pulling out of the pile before you do anything else with it.
What other shops pay
We checked every published competitor rate we know of on August 28, 2026, by reading their live pages. For sorted commons and uncommons per 1,000 cards, cash:
- Collectors Emporium pays $8, and lumps regular rares in with commons at that same rate (their rates page).
- Gray Gauntlet Games pays $10 sorted and drops to $5 for unsorted (their submission page).
- Dark Fox TCG pays $10, with the strongest reverse holo rate we found at $40 per 1,000 (their buylist).
- Untapped Games pays $15, which ties our cash rate, though their listing warns of a 50 percent sorting fee if the box arrives sorted wrong (their buylist).
Two caveats worth knowing before you pick a shop. Several of these are in store rates, so the gas or postage comes out of your side. And rates on the top tiers spread much wider than commons: on V cards specifically, Untapped pays 35 cents to our 25, while Collectors Emporium pays 8 cents for the same card. Reading two or three buylists before shipping a big collection is an hour that pays for itself.
Why the same card pays different amounts
The mechanism is sorting labor. A shop that buys unsorted bulk has to pay someone to sort it, so unsorted rates run around 40 to 60 percent below sorted everywhere we checked. That is also why our own unsorted rate is $9 against $15 sorted. If your collection is big, an afternoon of sorting into categories is the best hourly rate in this hobby, and we wrote up how our categories work on the buylist page with example cards for each tier.
Store credit is the other lever. Most shops pay 10 to 25 percent more in credit than cash, and we pay 25 percent more. Credit only makes sense if the shop sells something you want, which is why ours spends on singles and whole stacks of the same card rather than sitting as a gift card.
The other side of the counter
Retail is what makes these rates make sense. Assorted 1,000 card lots were selling for $29.99 at Card Game Cove and $34.99 at Pokemon Plug when we checked on August 26, 2026, and both were sold out. Buying at $15 and selling at $33 sounds like a wide gap until you price the sorting, the counting, the box, and the postage that sit between those two numbers. It is a real business, not a magic trick, and knowing both numbers makes you a sharper seller.
Buying bulk quantities of one card
Our own shop sits on the retail side a little differently: we sort every purchased box by card and sell bulk quantities of the exact card you pick, not blind assortments. Every card page carries a price break table, and the per card rate steps down at 4, 10, 25, and 100 copies, ending 40 percent under the base price, so a $0.99 common runs $0.59 a copy when you take 100. One sorted monster box really can put 200 copies of the same common on one page, which is what makes buying bulk Pokemon cards by the exact card possible at all. If you are stocking a classroom, building playsets, or speculating on one artwork, the deepest stacks and their as low as rates live on the bulk quantities page.
What to do with this in the next week
Pull anything with a V, ex, VMAX, VSTAR, or an Illustration Rare frame out of your pile first; at 25 to 45 cents each those cards earn more individually than a fistful of commons. Sort the rest into the categories above if you have an afternoon. Then price your pile against at least two published buylists, ours included, and ship to whichever pays best for your actual mix. Our portal at the sell your bulk page gives you an instant estimate before you commit to anything.
FAQ
How much is Pokemon bulk worth in 2026?
Sorted commons and uncommons bring $8 to $15 per 1,000 in cash at shops with published rates as of August 2026. Holos and reverses bring $20 to $40 per 1,000, and cards in the V and ex tiers earn 25 to 45 cents each. Unsorted bulk pays roughly half the sorted rate.
Is Pokemon bulk worth more sorted or unsorted?
Sorted, everywhere. The spread at our counter is $15 sorted against $9 unsorted per 1,000, and Gray Gauntlet's is $10 against $5. Sorting your own bulk before selling is unpaid work that roughly doubles the rate.
Do bulk prices change over time?
Yes, which is why this guide carries dates on every number and gets refreshed monthly at this same address. When our own rates move, the old figure stays in this guide's history so you can compare what bulk paid then and now.
