Gold Price Per Gram
Use the main calculator to convert the live troy ounce gold price into a clear gold price per gram estimate.
The gold price per gram formula
Gold spot prices are quoted per troy ounce, and a troy ounce is 31.1034768 grams - conventionally rounded to 31.1035. So the price of one gram of pure 24K gold is simply the spot price divided by 31.1035. At a spot price of $4,060 per troy ounce, a gram of pure gold is $4,060 ÷ 31.1035 = $130.53. That single number is the base for every other calculation on this page. For jewelry you then scale by karat purity, because almost nothing is pure gold. Multiply the pure-gram price by the karat decimal: 24K is 0.999, 22K is 0.9167, 21K is 0.875, 18K is 0.750, 14K is 0.5833, 10K is 0.4167 and 9K is 0.375.
Price per gram by karat
Holding the spot price at $4,060 per troy ounce to make the comparison clean, the per-gram gold content works out as follows. 24K: $130.40 per gram. 22K: $119.66. 21K: $114.21. 18K: $97.90. 14K: $76.14. 10K: $54.39. 9K: $48.95. The gap is wider than most people expect. A gram of 18K carries 1.80 times the gold value of a gram of 10K, and a gram of 22K carries 2.20 times. On a 30 gram lot that is roughly $1,632 against $3,590 - identical weight on the scale, nearly $2,000 apart. This is exactly why a per-gram offer means nothing until you know which karat it applies to. The live per-gram figures for your selected currency are shown above and refresh every 60 seconds.
Worked example: an 18K chain
Take an 18K gold chain weighing 12.8 grams, with spot at $4,060 per troy ounce. Convert weight to troy ounces: 12.8 ÷ 31.1035 = 0.4115 troy ounces gross. Apply purity: 18K is 75% gold, so 0.4115 × 0.750 = 0.3086 troy ounces of fine gold. Multiply by spot: 0.3086 × $4,060 = $1,253. You can get there per-gram instead and land in the same place: 12.8 g × $97.90 per 18K gram = $1,253. Use whichever direction is easier to check. That $1,253 is melt value - the ceiling. A specialist buyer paying 85% would offer around $1,065; a pawn shop paying 55% would offer around $689. Same chain, same day, a $376 spread that depends only on which door you walk through.
The three errors that break per-gram estimates
The wrong ounce. A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams; the avoirdupois ounce on a kitchen or postal scale is 28.3495 grams. Dividing by the wrong one makes every figure 9.7% too high. This is the single most common mistake in valuing gold, and it is why plenty of people feel low-balled by a perfectly honest buyer. Gross weight treated as gold weight. Buyers pay for recoverable gold only. Gemstones, glass, enamel, watch movements, steel spring bars and base-metal clasps all weigh something and contain no gold. A ring with a one-carat centre stone can carry half a gram of non-gold weight, and hollow rope or herringbone chains hold far less metal than their bulk suggests. Trusting a plating stamp. GP, GEP, HGE and RGP are surface treatments over brass or silver and have essentially no melt value however heavy the piece feels. Gold filled, marked GF or as a fraction like 1/20 12K GF, is genuinely refinable at around 5% gold by weight, but most buyers decline it.
Converting to pennyweight, tola and other units
Pennyweight is what many US jewelers and pawn shops quote in, and the conversion catches people out because a dwt price looks smaller than a gram price when it is in fact larger. One dwt is 1.5552 grams and 20 dwt make a troy ounce, so a per-dwt price is 55.5% larger than the equivalent per-gram price. Divide any dwt price by 1.5552 before you compare it against a gram price. Tola is the standard retail unit across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh at 11.6638 grams. A tola of 22K gold at $4,060 spot is 11.6638 × $130.53 × 0.9167 = about $1,395. The Thai baht unit is 15.244 grams for jewelry and is conventionally quoted on 96.5% gold. Grams are the safest unit to compare offers in, because they convert cleanly to everything else and carry no ambiguity. If two buyers quote in different units, convert both to grams first.
Why the per-gram price keeps moving
Gold trades nearly around the clock, from Sunday evening to Friday afternoon US time, so the spot price changes continuously. A 1% intraday move on a $4,000 ounce is $40, which is $1.29 per gram of pure gold - a $64 swing on a 50 gram lot between morning and afternoon. If you are not pricing in US dollars there is a second moving part, because gold is quoted in USD and your local figure is that price multiplied by an exchange rate. Your currency can move against the dollar even when gold is flat. This is what the manual price field is for. If a dealer quoted you at 10am and you want to check their arithmetic, enter their spot price rather than using the live feed - otherwise you are checking their quote against a different market than the one they quoted from.
What is the gold price per gram right now?
The live figure for your selected currency is shown at the top of this page and refreshes every 60 seconds from a market data feed. To calculate it yourself, divide the spot price per troy ounce by 31.1035 for pure 24K gold, then multiply by your karat decimal.
Is the gold price per gram the same for every karat?
No. The 24K per-gram price is the pure-gold base; every lower karat is worth proportionally less because it contains less fine gold. An 18K gram is 75% of the 24K figure and a 10K gram is only about 41.7% of it.
How do I convert a per-ounce gold price to a per-gram price?
Divide by 31.1035, which is the number of grams in a troy ounce. Do not use 28.3495 - that is the avoirdupois ounce on kitchen scales, and using it overstates gold value by 9.7%.
Why does a shop offer less than the per-gram price?
The per-gram figure is melt value: the market value of the recoverable gold. Buyers deduct assay, refining loss, shipping, insurance, price risk and margin. Specialist buyers commonly pay 80-95% of melt, jewelers around 70-90%, and pawn shops often 40-60%.
Can I get the gold price per gram in my own currency?
Yes. Select your currency first and the troy ounce price is converted before the per-gram calculation, so every figure on the page appears in that currency. Because gold is quoted in US dollars, your local price moves with both the gold price and the exchange rate.
How much is a gram of 14K gold worth?
A 14K gram contains 58.33% fine gold, so it is worth the pure-gram price multiplied by 0.5833. At a $4,060 spot price that is about $76.14 of gold content per gram before any buyer deduction.