I'm getting confused - you say you get "a few" free submissions (the cheapest membership currently provides 6 for $110, or $18.33 per card) for cards valued under $500 BUT yours are valued at around $10? Doesn't that mean the plan works well for you? Why the "but"? And are you saying PSA also offers some $5 grading specials to its members, which would bring down the average submission cost? I'm not sure why you'd value the original membership vouchers at only $5 if that's only a special sale price for submissions incremental to the original purchase.

I plan on subscribing in a week or two, and going with the $189 membership with 15 free submissions. I have about 15 cards I'd like to grade, and that works out to about $12.50 each, which seems reasonable to me. I don't care much about the other "freebies", and I don't even really look at it as a membership. I'm just buying 15 submissions, and I'm okay with the price.