Free Card Centering Tool
Upload a photo of your card — the tool finds the borders, you fine-tune the guides, and it measures the centering and the grade ceiling at PSA, BGS, CGC and TAG. Free, right in your browser, before you pay to submit.
Card Centering Checker
Upload a photo — we find the borders, you fine-tune, it measures. Free, no AI, and the photo never leaves your browser.
Free tool by Midpoint — your photo is processed on your device and never uploaded.
No photo handy? Use the visual calculator instead
Card Centering Calculator
Match the card to yours — get the centering and an estimated grade
the green area is the printed image
Centering is one of four factors graders score (with corners, edges, surface). This estimates the front-centering ceiling only.
Add this free tool to your website
Embed the centering checker on your blog, store, or collector site. It is free, runs entirely in the visitor's browser, and works anywhere. Just copy this snippet and paste it into your page:
<iframe src="https://www.cardcenteringtool.com/widget/centering-checker" width="100%" height="760" style="border:none;max-width:600px" loading="lazy" title="Free Card Centering Checker"></iframe>
<p style="font:13px sans-serif">Free <a href="https://www.cardcenteringtool.com">card centering tool</a> by Midpoint</p>Tip: it drops straight into WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, or any HTML page.
What is card centering?
Centering measures how evenly the image sits within the card's borders. Graders express it as two ratios — left/right and top/bottom — where 50/50 is perfect. A card printed slightly off-center might be 60/40, meaning one border is 60% of the combined width and the other 40%. Centering is one of the four factors that decide a card's grade, alongside corners, edges, and surface.
How to check centering from a photo
Shoot the card straight-on against a plain, contrasting background, with the card filling most of the frame. The tool auto-detects the card edge (blue guides) and the printed art frame (yellow guides); drag any guide to match your card exactly. The left/right and top/bottom ratios update live, along with the best grade each company's front-centering tolerance would allow. Your photo is processed on your device and never uploaded.
PSA centering tolerances
These are PSA's published centering limits. A card must meet the front tolerance to reach each grade:
| Grade | Front (max) | Back (max) |
|---|---|---|
| PSA 10 — Gem Mint | 55/45 | 75/25 |
| PSA 9 — Mint | 60/40 | 90/10 |
| PSA 8 — NM-MT | 65/35 | 90/10 |
| PSA 7 — Near Mint | 70/30 | 90/10 |
| PSA 6 — EX-MT | 80/20 | 90/10 |
BGS, CGC and TAG use tighter or slightly different tolerances — the checker above shows all four side by side, and the full charts live in our grading standards section.
How accurate is this estimate?
This free tool does not use AI — it auto-suggests the guide lines with simple image analysis and you do the aiming, so the result is only as precise as your placement. It estimates the front-centering ceiling: the best grade your centering would allow. Your final grade can still come in lower if corners, edges, or surface have issues, and graders measure to fractions of a millimeter. Use it to screen cards before you spend on grading. For much more advanced centering — the AI places the guides for you with far better precision (still fine-tunable) — plus predicted grades, full surface analysis, and market pricing, log in to Midpoint on the web or in the app.