Methodology
Every estimate on this site comes from a published formula and a live market feed — here is exactly how the numbers are produced, updated, and rounded.
Price source
Live gold prices come from an institutional foreign-exchange market data feed for XAU/USD, using the midpoint between the current bid and ask.
Update cadence
The spot price refreshes every 60 seconds while the page is open. Every price is shown with its timestamp.
Independence
We do not buy or sell gold and earn nothing from your result, so the estimate has no reason to lean high or low.
How a live price becomes your estimate
The live XAU/USD quote is fetched and the bid–ask midpoint is taken as the spot price per troy ounce. Your weight entry is converted to troy ounces (1 ozt = 31.1035 g, 1 dwt = 1.5552 g, 1 tola = 11.6638 g, 1 baht = 15.244 g). The karat purity ratio is applied: 24K × 0.999, 22K × 0.917, 18K × 0.750, 14K × 0.583, 10K × 0.417. The result is multiplied by the price and, if selected, by a dealer payout percentage (90%, 80%, or 70%).
Live prices, timeouts, and the cached-price notice
Price requests time out after 8 seconds. If the live feed is briefly unreachable, the calculator falls back to the most recent successfully fetched price and tells you it is showing cached data rather than silently displaying a stale number. When no price has ever been fetched and the feed is down, the calculator shows an error instead of inventing a value — you can always continue with the manual price field.
Currency conversion
The feed is quoted in US dollars. Other currencies are converted with exchange rates from a public foreign-exchange rate API (base USD), refreshed when the page loads. If the rate service is unavailable, recent fallback rates are used, so non-USD values should be treated as close approximations. For exact local pricing, enter your local per-ounce quote in the manual price field — the calculator then uses your number for everything.
Purity ratios and rounding
Karat ratios follow standard millesimal fineness: 999 (24K), 958 (23K), 917 (22K), 875 (21K), 750 (18K), 583 (14K), 417 (10K), 375 (9K), and 333 (8K). Monetary results are rounded to two decimal places for display only — no hidden rounding happens during the calculation itself. The full formula is printed on the calculator page so every result can be checked by hand.
What this tool is not
Estimates here are informational melt-value calculations, not appraisals, buyer offers, insurance valuations, or financial advice. Real offers depend on testing, refining costs, local demand, and dealer margin — which is why the payout selector exists. Corrections and questions are welcome at support@goldcalculator.co.
Why does your price differ slightly from other gold sites?
Sites can quote the bid, the ask, or the midpoint, and refresh at different moments. We use the bid–ask midpoint refreshed every 60 seconds, so small differences from sites quoting one side of the spread — or an older tick — are normal.
What does the "cached price" warning mean?
It means the last live fetch failed and you are seeing the most recent good price with its timestamp. The calculator retries automatically every minute; you can also enter a manual price at any time.
Can I verify the calculation myself?
Yes. Weight in troy ounces × karat purity ratio × price per troy ounce × payout percentage. Every input the calculator used — price, timestamp, purity, and payout — is shown alongside the result.