Live gold rates for every karat, refreshed every 20 minutes from the XAU/USD spot market. Enter your karat and weight below to see what the gold in your piece is worth, and what a buyer will realistically pay for it.
↓ every karat below is calculated from this one price ↓
Every rate above is calculated from one live figure: the XAU/USD spot price of $4,090.16 per troy ounce. A karat's per-gram rate is spot ÷ 31.1035 × karat ÷ 24, so 14K is $131.50 × 14/24 = $76.70. One source means the rates, the chart and the 7-day table can never disagree with each other.
Look inside a ring band or on the clasp. It reads 14K, 585, or similar.
A kitchen scale is fine. Remove stones and non-gold parts first.
Pawn shops pay 55–70% of melt. Refiners pay 85–95%.
4.2 g of 14K holds 2.45 g of pure gold. Melt value covers the metal only. It ignores brand, craftsmanship and gemstones.
A gold calculator answers one question: how much is the metal in this object worth right now? It takes three things and multiplies them together. The live gold rate, the purity of your piece, and its weight. Everything else on this page is there to help you get those three numbers right.
People usually get the rate right, because we publish it above. They usually get the purity right, because it is stamped on the jewelry. Weight is where things fall apart, and I will come back to that.
Gold is quoted worldwide in US dollars per troy ounce. That figure moves every few seconds while markets are open, and it is the base for every other number you will see. Divide it by 31.1035 and you have the price of one gram of pure gold. Every karat rate on this page comes from that one number, multiplied by the purity fraction explained below. Nothing is estimated and nothing is quoted second-hand.
One thing worth knowing: the rate you see here is a wholesale benchmark. No shop sells jewelry at it, and no shop buys at it either. It sits in the middle, and both sides work outward from it.
Karat tells you how many parts out of 24 are gold. That is the whole system.
24K is pure gold, or as close as refining gets. 22K is 22 parts gold and 2 parts alloy, so 91.67 percent. 18K is 75 percent. 14K is 58.33 percent. 10K is 41.67 percent, and it is the lowest purity that can legally be sold as gold in the United States.
You will also see three-digit stamps. 999, 916, 750, 585 and 417 mean the same things as 24K, 22K, 18K, 14K and 10K. European and Middle Eastern pieces tend to use the numbers. American pieces tend to use the K.
Here is what surprises people: a 14K chain is a little over half gold by weight. The rest is copper, silver, nickel or zinc, and that alloy is worth close to nothing. So a 10 gram chain holds about 5.8 grams of gold, and 5.8 grams is what you are being paid for.
This one costs people real money. A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams. The ounce on your kitchen scale is 28.3495 grams. They are roughly 10 percent apart.
If you weigh a piece in regular ounces and price it as troy ounces, your answer comes out about 10 percent high, and you walk into a shop expecting more than you will get. Weigh in grams if you can. Grams are unambiguous.
There is a third unit you will run into in American shops: the pennyweight, written dwt. One pennyweight is 1.555 grams, or one twentieth of a troy ounce. Plenty of buyers quote in pennyweights. There is nothing dishonest about it, but a price per pennyweight is a smaller number than the same price per gram, so compare like with like before you react to an offer.
Say you have a 14K ring weighing 4.2 grams, and 24K gold is $131.37 per gram.
Pure gold per gram is $131.37 divided by 0.999, which is about $131.50. Multiply by 0.5833 for 14K and you get roughly $76.70 per gram. Multiply that by 4.2 grams and the ring holds about $322 of gold.
That is the melt value. It is the ceiling.
A buyer has to test the metal, refine it, cover the price swing between the day they buy and the day they sell, and still earn something. So they quote a percentage of melt.
Pawn shops usually land between 55 and 70 percent. Jewelers who buy scrap are often similar. Dedicated refiners and mail-in services pay more, commonly 85 to 95 percent, though they want larger lots and you wait for payment. Our calculator has a payout slider for exactly this reason. Set it to 60 percent and you will see a realistic pawn shop figure rather than a fantasy one.
If someone offers you 30 percent of melt, you now know enough to walk out.
A digital kitchen scale that reads to 0.1 g is good enough for an estimate. Take off anything that is not gold first. Stones, clasps made of steel, watch movements and any part that a magnet sticks to. Gold is not magnetic, so a fridge magnet is a crude but useful first test.
Hollow pieces are the exception. Hollow rope chains and some bangles weigh far less than they look, and there is no way around actually putting them on a scale.
Ask two questions before you sell. What rate are you using per gram, and what percentage of that are you paying? Any honest buyer answers both without hesitating. Then check their rate against the live figures at the top of this page.
Prices move during the day, so a small gap is normal. A large one is not.
The calculator values metal only. It does not know about brand, craftsmanship, gemstones or collectibility. A Cartier bracelet, a signed vintage piece or a pre-1933 US gold coin can be worth several times its melt value, and melting it destroys that premium permanently.
If a piece is old, signed, or unusual, get it looked at by someone who deals in jewelry rather than scrap before you sell it by weight.
Pure 24K gold is $131.37 per gram right now. That works out to $204.30 per pennyweight and $4,086.06 per troy ounce.
Divide the 24K gram rate by 0.999 to get the pure gold rate, then multiply by 0.5833. At today's rate that puts 14K at $76.70 per gram. Multiply by your item's weight in grams.
It means 585 parts gold per thousand, which is 58.5% pure. That is the European marking for 14K. You will also see 417 for 10K, 750 for 18K, 916 for 22K and 999 for 24K.
A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams and is the standard unit for precious metals. A regular avoirdupois ounce is 28.3495 grams. Mixing them up will overstate your gold's value by about 10%.
No. Pawn shops typically pay 55 to 70 percent of melt value, and refiners pay 85 to 95 percent on larger lots. Use the payout slider in the calculator to see a realistic figure.
Yes. 10K is 41.67% gold and is the lowest purity that can legally be sold as gold in the United States. At today's rate it is worth $54.80 per gram.