Free Gold Price Per Ounce Calculator – Live Price Estimate
If you have a spot price per troy ounce and a piece of gold to value, this calculator turns the two into a melt value: enter the weight in grams, troy ounces, pennyweight, kilograms or regular ounces, pick the karat or a custom purity, type the spot price you want to use, and add a buyer payout percentage to see what a dealer offer would actually leave you. One honesty note up front: this tool never fetches a live price. The spot field is yours to fill, and the $4,150 pre-filled below is the worked-example price used in this article on October 21, 2026, not a current quote.
Pre-filled with the worked example from this article: 10 grams of 14K gold at a $4,150 spot price and a 90% payout. The $4,150 figure is an example value used on October 21, 2026 to make the arithmetic checkable. It is not a live market price, and this calculator never downloads one.
Quick Answer
Melt value is weight in troy ounces × purity × spot price per troy ounce. For the pre-filled example, 10 grams of 14K gold at a spot price of $4,150: 10 g is 0.3215 troy ounces, the fine gold content is 0.1875 troy ounces, and the melt value is $778.32, worth $77.83 per gram or $121.04 per pennyweight at that karat. At a 90% buyer payout the estimated offer is $700.48. The spot price is one you type in yourself; this calculator does not fetch a live price, so swap in today’s figure before you rely on the answer.
- Quick Answer
- How to use this calculator
- The melt value formula and the unit conversions
- Worked example, checked against this exact tool
- Grading a dealer’s cash offer
- Price per gram by karat, at the worked-example spot
- What competing calculators miss
- What melt value leaves out
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
How to use this calculator
Weigh the piece, read its stamp, and bring your own spot price. Four steps, and the order matters, because the spot price is the one input this tool deliberately leaves to you.
- Weigh the gold in grams, troy ounces, pennyweight, kilograms or regular ounces, and pick the matching unit. Weigh gold only: stones and steel springs add weight that is not gold.
- Pick the karat from the stamp, or choose Custom % and type a fineness as a percentage: a 585 stamp is 58.5, a 750 stamp is 75.0.
- Type the spot price per troy ounce you want to use. That can be the current price from a dealer or a price site, the price behind a quote you were given, or a what-if price. The results table labels it “you entered this” so nobody mistakes it for a feed.
- Set the buyer payout percentage to model an offer: 90 in the example. The last results row converts melt value into the cash estimate at that percentage.
If your starting point is a pile weighed in grams and a price per gram instead, the grams to dollars calculator works that direction, and the grams to mass calculator handles the unit conversions on their own.
The melt value formula and the unit conversions
One formula does all the work: melt value = weight in troy ounces × purity × spot price, with purity as karat ÷ 24 for stamped gold. Everything else in the results is the same math viewed from a different unit.
- Weight conversion: grams ÷ 31.1034768, kilograms × 1,000 ÷ 31.1034768, pennyweight ÷ 20, avoirdupois ounces × 28.349523125 ÷ 31.1034768, troy ounces unchanged.
- Fine gold content: troy ounces × purity. This is the amount of pure gold in the piece, and it is what the market is actually paying for.
- Value per gram at your karat: spot ÷ 31.1034768 × purity. Value per pennyweight: spot ÷ 20 × purity, because 20 dwt make one troy ounce.
- Estimated buyer payout: melt value × payout percentage ÷ 100, calculated from the unrounded melt value, which is why it can differ by a cent from multiplying the rounded melt figure by hand.
The troy ounce deserves a sentence of its own, because it causes more bad valuations than any other step. A troy ounce is 31.1034768 grams; a regular kitchen ounce is 28.349523125 grams, about 9.7% lighter. Precious metals are always priced per troy ounce, a convention the Perth Mint’s explainer in the references walks through, so a scale reading in regular ounces has to be converted, never typed straight into a per-ounce price.
Worked example, checked against this exact tool
Ten grams of 14K gold at a $4,150 per troy ounce spot price, with a 90% buyer payout. The spot figure is the example price used in this article on October 21, 2026; it is here so you can check the arithmetic, not because the market owes you that price today.
- Weight in troy ounces = 10 ÷ 31.1034768 = 0.3215 ozt.
- Fine gold = 0.3215 × (14 ÷ 24) = 0.1875 ozt.
- Melt value = 0.1875 × $4,150 = $778.32.
- Value per gram at 14K = $77.83; value per pennyweight = $121.04.
- At a 90% payout: $700.48. The tool applies the 90% to the unrounded melt value and rounds once at the end; multiplying the rounded $778.32 by 0.90 by hand gives $700.49, a one-cent rounding artifact, not a different answer.
Two more runs worth trying, both verified against the tool: 20 pennyweight of 18K at a $4,000 spot and an 85% payout is exactly 1.0000 troy ounce, 0.7500 ounces fine, a $3,000.00 melt value and a $2,550.00 payout; and a custom purity of 58.5% on the same 10 grams at $4,150 lifts the melt value slightly to $780.54, which is the size of difference a 585 stamp makes against the nominal 14K figure.
Grading a dealer’s cash offer
A melt value on its own does not tell you whether an offer is fair; the offer as a percentage of melt does. Grade any quote by hand against the melt value from the calculator: percentage of melt = offer ÷ melt × 100.
A $700 cash offer on the $778.32 melt value from the worked example is 700 ÷ 778.32 × 100 = 89.94% of melt, inside the typical dealer range of 70% to 95% that covers refining, assay, and the buyer’s margin. Online buyers and refiners tend to sit at the top of that range on larger lots, local dealers in the middle, and pawn shops below it. Below 70%, get more quotes before you sell; the gold is not worth less just because the first counter you walked up to pays less.
Price per gram by karat, at the worked-example spot
At one fixed spot price, karat is a straight multiplier, so the per-gram ladder is worth memorizing before you negotiate. Every figure below is the tool’s own karat table at a $4,150 spot price, with the fineness stamps buyers look for.
| Karat | Purity used | Common stamp | Value per gram at $4,150 spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24K | 100% | 999 | $133.43 |
| 22K | 91.67% | 916 | $122.31 |
| 21K | 87.50% | 875 | $116.75 |
| 18K | 75% | 750 | $100.07 |
| 14K | 58.33% | 585 | $77.83 |
| 10K | 41.67% | 417 | $55.59 |
| 9K | 37.50% | 375 | $50.03 |
Stamps are a starting point, not proof. Under the US Federal Trade Commission jewelry guides in the references, a karat mark has to state the fineness honestly, but plated pieces marked GP, GF or HGE carry only a surface layer and are worth a small fraction of the solid-gold figures above. The calculator values the weight you enter as if it were solid at the purity you pick, so a plated piece typed in as 14K will be wildly overvalued; that judgment call stays with you and, at the counter, with the buyer’s acid or XRF test.
What competing calculators miss
Nearly every top-ranking gold calculator now leads with a live price feed, and that is genuinely convenient, right up to the moment it is not. A feed you cannot override cannot reproduce the quote a dealer gave you yesterday, test what your gold was worth at last month’s price, or model a what-if price before a sale. One leading scrap calculator loads its price automatically and lets you stack multiple items, which is useful, but its whole answer changes every ten minutes, so two visits never agree and a screenshot proves nothing. Another well-built rival does pre-fill an editable spot price, the closest approach to this page, but buries the payout as a separate offer checker instead of a first-class input.
This page takes the opposite trade on purpose: you supply the price, the tool labels it “you entered this” in the results, and the same inputs always give the same outputs, which is what you want when the numbers end up in a negotiation or a notebook. It also grades the selling end of the deal, not just the metal: the payout row and the percentage-of-melt check above answer the question sellers actually ask, which is not “what is it worth” but “is this offer any good.” Sellers comparing stones rather than metal will find the same per-unit logic on the diamond cost per carat calculator.
Key takeaways
- The spot price is your input here, never a hidden feed. Date any price you write down; gold moves daily.
- Melt value is the ceiling, not the offer. Expect 70% to 95% of it from a dealer, and grade every quote as a percentage of melt.
- Troy and regular ounces differ by about 9.7%. Picking the wrong unit is the most expensive mistake in this calculation.
- Weigh each karat as its own lot. Averaging a mixed pile prices your 18K pieces at 14K money.
What melt value leaves out
Melt value prices the metal and nothing else. Craftsmanship, brand, stones, and collectible value sit on top of it: a signed piece or a rare coin can be worth far more than its gold content, and a coin’s numismatic value does not melt. Stones also cut the other way at the scale, since their weight is counted in your grams but contains no gold, which is why buyers remove or discount them. Finally, the payout percentage is an estimate you choose, not a quote. Two buyers on the same street can be ten points apart on the same lot, and the only way to know your local number is to get the second quote.
Frequently asked questions
No. The spot price is typed by you, and the calculator never downloads a price feed. The $4,150 value pre-filled in the spot field is the worked-example price used in this article on October 21, 2026, included so the example arithmetic can be checked. For a valuation you plan to act on, replace it with the current spot price from a dealer or price service first.
A troy ounce is 31.1034768 grams; a regular (avoirdupois) ounce is 28.3495231 grams. Precious metals are always priced per troy ounce, so divide a spot quote by 31.1035 to get the per-gram price.
Melt value = weight in troy ounces × purity × spot price per troy ounce. For karat gold, purity = karat / 24, so 14K is 58.33% pure.
Buyers must cover refining, assay, overhead, and their own margin. Expect 70% to 95% of melt depending on quantity and the dealer; grade any quote with the percentage-of-melt check above.
Because the payout is applied to the unrounded melt value and rounded once at the end. The exact melt value is a fraction of a cent below the rounded $778.32 shown, so 90% of it rounds to $700.48. Multiplying the already-rounded melt value by hand gives $700.49. The one-cent gap is a rounding artifact, and the calculator’s figure is the more accurate one.
Usually, but plating and counterfeits exist. A strong magnet test (gold is non-magnetic) and an acid scratch test are common quick checks; a professional assay settles disputes.
Craftsmanship, brand, stones, and collectible value. A finished piece with diamonds or a maker’s mark is often worth more than its metal content.
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References
- The Perth Mint. Troy ounce vs ounce: what’s the difference? Accessed October 21, 2026.
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST Handbook 44: Specifications, tolerances, and other technical requirements for weighing and measuring devices (2026 edition). Accessed October 21, 2026.
- Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. 16 CFR 23.10: Additional guidance for the use of quality marks (FTC Jewelry Guides). Accessed October 21, 2026.
- U.S. Federal Trade Commission, via govinfo. 16 CFR Part 23: Guides for the Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries (PDF). Accessed October 21, 2026.
- World Gold Council, Goldhub Research. Central bank considerations when pricing ASGM purchases: appendices, on LBMA-based pricing. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- Kitco News. LBMA snapshot survey predicts gold price average near $4,500/oz by year-end. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- FocusEconomics. Gold price data, LBMA series in US dollars per troy ounce. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- Quantum Asset Management Company. The new gold fix: how the LBMA Gold Price replaced the London fixing. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). Precious metal benchmarks: how the LBMA Gold Price is set as the global benchmark. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- World Gold Council, Goldhub Data. Gold spot prices and market history: LBMA Gold Price benchmark data per troy ounce. Accessed October 21, 2026.