Gold Calculator
See what your gold is worth at the live spot price. Enter a weight and a karat. This is the metal’s own value, not an offer from a buyer.
Gold value
1 troy oz = 31.1 g · 1 oz = 28.35 g · 1 dwt = 1.555 g
On this page
Gold value equals weight × purity × price
Gold value = weight × purity × price. Purity is the karat divided by 24. The price is the spot price of pure gold, scaled to the same unit as the weight. Nothing is taken off for a buyer.
The worked example uses 10 grams of 14K and fills in from the price in the calculator.
Change the weight, the karat or the price in the calculator and this example follows it. A Sample label means the live quote has not arrived yet. A Custom label means the price was typed in. Live means the figure came from the feed, and the time next to it is the time on that quote.
A higher karat is worth more per gram, in proportion
24K, 22K, 18K, 14K, 10K and 9K, priced per gram, per pennyweight, per troy ounce and per regular ounce. The dollars use the same price as the calculator.
Per-gram, pennyweight and ounce values fill in from the price in the calculator.
Karat and carat are not the same word. Karat, written K, is gold purity out of 24 parts. Carat, written ct, is a gemstone weight of 0.2 grams. A “1 carat” diamond says nothing about the gold in the setting. Fineness is the same purity idea written out of 1,000: 750 means 75% gold, which is 18K. A hallmark is the mark struck into the metal, either a karat stamp or a fineness number.
The same weight is worth less as the karat drops
Common weights at 24K, 18K, 14K and 10K. These cells use the calculator’s price, so they match a single piece entered above.
These weights fill in from the price in the calculator.
The price per gram is the troy ounce price divided by 31.1034768
Gold trades in US dollars per troy ounce of pure metal. A gram is a smaller unit, so the price has to be scaled before it can price a piece of jewelry. The steps are always the same.
- Turn the weight into grams. One pennyweight is 1.55517384 g, one troy ounce is 31.1034768 g, and one regular ounce is 28.349523125 g.
- Multiply by the purity. Divide the karat by 24. 18K is 18 ÷ 24 = 0.75. The product is the pure gold weight.
- Divide the troy ounce spot price by 31.1034768. That is the price of one gram of pure gold.
- Multiply the pure gold weight by the price per gram. That is the melt value.
Pennyweight version: weight in dwt × 1.55517384 × (karat ÷ 24) × (spot ÷ 31.1034768). Because a troy ounce is 20 pennyweights, the price of one pennyweight of pure gold is the spot price divided by 20.
Troy ounce version: weight in troy ounces × (karat ÷ 24) × spot. A 1 troy ounce bar marked 999 is almost the spot price itself. Regular ounce version: weight in ounces × 28.349523125 × (karat ÷ 24) × (spot ÷ 31.1034768). The calculator uses these factors, not a second formula.
Quantity multiplies the weight. Two matching rings are twice one ring. Stones are not gold, so they should be off the scale before you type the weight. This page does not subtract a stone weight for you.
Spot is the market, melt is your metal, scrap is an offer, retail is the shop price
These four prices get mixed together in search. They answer different questions.
| Price | What it measures | On this site |
|---|---|---|
| Spot price | The market price of one troy ounce of pure gold, quoted in dollars. | The price box on this calculator. Edit it and the label switches to Custom. |
| Melt value | Spot applied to the pure gold inside a piece: weight × purity × price. | The large result on this page. Bullion with a premium can sell for more than melt. |
| Scrap value | What a buyer will pay. A bid under melt, after assay, refining and their margin. | Not calculated here. The scrap gold calculator estimates typical payout ranges. |
| Retail price | What a shop charges for a finished piece, including design, labor and margin. | Not a gold-content price. Melt will look low next to a jewelry receipt, and that is expected. |
The spot quote has a bid and an ask. The bid is what a dealer pays to buy gold. The ask is what they charge to sell it. The gap is their spread. A live “spot” feed is usually near the middle, not the bid a scrap buyer will actually write on a ticket. The LBMA Gold Price is a separate thing again: it is the benchmark from the London Bullion Market Association’s auction, published in dollars per troy ounce. The price on this page comes from gold-api.com, with the time shown beside it. It is a market quote, not the LBMA auction print and not a dealer’s bid.
Bullion often sells at a premium over melt, because the weight and purity are already known. Jewelry sold as scrap usually goes for less than melt, and a new piece in a shop goes for more. This calculator stops at melt. For an offer, use the scrap gold calculator.
A troy ounce weighs 9.7% more than a regular ounce
| Unit | Grams | How it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Gram (g) | 1 | The simplest unit, and the one the formula uses internally. |
| Pennyweight (dwt) | 1.55517384 | Common at US jewelers. Twenty pennyweights make one troy ounce. |
| Ounce (oz) | 28.349523125 | The avoirdupois ounce on a kitchen or postal scale. Not the gold-market ounce. |
| Troy ounce (oz t) | 31.1034768 | The unit of the spot price. Heavier than a regular ounce by 9.7%. |
The 9.7% gap is (31.1034768 − 28.349523125) ÷ 28.349523125. Someone who prices a kitchen-scale ounce as if it were a troy ounce overstates the gold. Someone who does the reverse understates it. The unit switch is there so the weight you typed stays tied to the scale you used. The hint under the switch is the same set of factors, rounded for reading: 1 troy oz = 31.1 g, 1 oz = 28.35 g, 1 dwt = 1.555 g.
The stamp on the metal is the karat
Look inside a ring, on a clasp, or on the plate of a bracelet. Solid gold is marked with a karat or a fineness number: 24K or 999, 22K or 916, 18K or 750, 14K or 585, 10K or 417, 9K or 375. The United States also uses 8K. If you see two marks, use the karat, not the maker’s logo.
A few stamps mean the item is not solid. GF means gold-filled, a layer of gold bonded to base metal. GP, GEP, HGE and RGP mean plated. Those pieces hold far less gold than the karat in the stamp. An unstamped piece is not “probably 14K”. A jeweler can acid-test it or read it with an XRF gun. Gold is not magnetic, but plenty of other metals are not magnetic either, so a magnet is only a rough screen.
When the stamp and the calculator’s karat list disagree by a fraction, use Custom purity. Type a percent, such as 58.5, or a fineness number, such as 585. Numbers up to 100 are read as a percent. Numbers above 100 are read as fineness out of 1,000. The karat menu itself stays on karat ÷ 24, so 14K remains 58.3% unless you choose the stamp on purpose.
The gold price moves with the dollar, interest rates and demand
The quote is dollars per troy ounce. When the dollar is strong against other currencies, the same ounce often takes fewer dollars. When the dollar is weak, it often takes more. That is a description of how the price is quoted, not a forecast of the next move.
Gold does not pay interest. When government bonds pay a higher yield after inflation, holding a bar has a higher opportunity cost, and some investors own less gold. When those real yields fall, gold tends to draw more of that money. Mining supply, recycling, jewelry demand in India and China, electronics, and purchases by central banks all add or remove metal from the market. Those flows are why the quote changes from hour to hour.
This page prices your weight at the latest quote it has, with the source and the time. It does not store a price history, and it does not predict the next move.
Gold calculator questions
How do I calculate the value of gold?
Multiply the weight in grams by the purity, then by the gold price per gram. Purity is the karat divided by 24, and the price per gram is the troy ounce spot price divided by 31.1034768. The calculator above does those steps for every piece and adds them up. The result is melt value, the raw worth of the gold, not a buyer’s offer.
How much is 1 gram of 24K, 18K, 14K or 10K gold worth today?
One gram is worth the price per gram times the purity. 24K uses the full price per gram, 18K uses 75%, 14K uses 14/24 (58.3%), and 10K uses 10/24 (41.7%). The table in this answer uses the same live price as the calculator, so it changes when the quote changes.
The 1 gram values fill in from the price in the calculator.
What is the difference between gold spot price and the price I’ll get?
Spot price is the market price of one troy ounce of pure gold. You do not receive that price for a ring. Melt value is the spot price applied to the pure gold in your piece. The price you get when selling is scrap value, a buyer’s bid after testing and margin, and it is lower than melt. The shop price of a new piece is retail, which is higher than melt because it includes making and the retailer’s margin. For a selling estimate, use the scrap gold calculator.
How much is a pennyweight of gold worth?
A pennyweight (dwt) is 1.55517384 grams, or one twentieth of a troy ounce. Its melt value is the per-gram price times 1.55517384 times the purity. Jewelers in the United States often weigh scrap in pennyweights, so the karat table has a per-dwt column.
The pennyweight value fills in from the price in the calculator.
Is a troy ounce the same as a regular ounce?
No. A troy ounce is the unit gold markets use, and it weighs 31.1034768 grams. A regular avoirdupois ounce, the one on a kitchen scale, weighs 28.349523125 grams. The troy ounce is about 9.7% heavier. Mixing them up changes the result by that much. This calculator keeps them as separate units.
Why do two gold calculators give different results?
They often use a different spot quote, or one is showing a dealer’s bid or ask rather than a midpoint. One may treat 14K as 14/24 and another as the 585 stamp (58.5%). One may be pricing a troy ounce while the other uses a regular ounce. A scrap calculator then takes a payout percentage off the melt value, so it will always land lower than a melt-only calculator. Stones left on the scale, a stale quote, or a currency converted at a different time will move the number too.
How do I convert grams to ounces for gold?
Divide grams by 31.1034768 to get troy ounces. Divide grams by 28.349523125 to get regular ounces. The other way, multiply troy ounces by 31.1034768 or regular ounces by 28.349523125. The unit switch on the calculator does this and keeps the melt value the same.
How often is the gold price updated?
While this page is open it requests a new quote about once a minute from gold-api.com and shows the time on that quote. The label reads Live, Sample or Custom. Sample means the live feed has not loaded and a stand-in price is on screen. Custom means you typed a price. Exchange rates come from ExchangeRate-API and move more slowly, about once a day. If a request fails, the last saved quote stays and the time still tells you how old it is.
Does the karat change the value that much?
Yes. Value scales in a straight line with karat, because purity is karat divided by 24. 18K is worth three quarters of 24K. 14K is worth 58.3% of 24K. 10K is worth 41.7%. 9K is worth 37.5%. The table uses 10 grams at the calculator’s current price so you can see the gap in money, not just in percent.
The 10 gram comparison fills in from the price in the calculator.
Can I use this for gold-filled or gold-plated items?
No. This page is for solid karat gold. Gold-filled and plated items carry a thin layer of gold over a base metal, so entering the karat stamped on the surface would overstate the value by a wide margin. A 1/20 14K gold-filled piece is only a few percent gold by weight. Use a gold-filled calculator for those, and treat a plated item as almost no gold unless a buyer assays it.
Related calculators and guides
- Scrap gold calculator — what refiners, jewelers and pawn shops typically pay, as a percentage of melt.
- 14K gold calculator, 10K gold calculator, 18K gold calculator, 22K gold calculator and 24K gold calculator — the same melt math with one karat already chosen.
- Gold price per gram today and gold price per ounce today — the spot price in one unit.
- Gold weight calculator — when you know the size and not the scale weight.
- Gold calculator — dwt, grams and troy ounces side by side.
- Gold glossary — spot, melt, fineness, hallmark, bid, ask, troy ounce and the words on the calculators.
- Gold guides — how stamps, assays and selling actually work.