Gold offer checker
Type the carat, the weight and what the buyer offered: you see what share of your gold’s value you are being paid. Most buyers never tell you that figure. The checker works out the gold in your item from the share of gold UK hallmarking law sets for each carat and today’s gold price in pounds, read from gold-api.com, with the time of the price shown. It then gives the offer as a percentage of that gold value, the amount the buyer keeps, and the offer per gram. A percentage is the fair way to compare offers, because it stays meaningful when the gold price moves between one quote and the next, and it is the figure the buyers’ own pages leave out. Gold by Carat is an independent site, not a gold buyer or a dealer, and has no stake in which offer you take.
Example: this offer pays
69.6%
of the £373.58 the gold is worth in this example of 10 g of 9ct
Is it a good offer? No law or official body publishes what buyers pay, so nobody can tell you a normal percentage. Your yardstick is other quotes: ask one or two other buyers about the same gold today, and if one pays clearly less than the others, walk away. 100% would be all the gold is worth. Every 10 percentage points on this gold is £37.36.
Got two or three quotes? Compare them side by side →
| Value of the gold | £373.58 |
| Offer | £260.00 |
| Difference kept by the buyer | £113.58 |
| Offer per gram | £26.00 |
What the buyer keeps pays for melting and refining, staff and the risk that the price falls: it is not all profit.
Before you say yes
- Ask for the weight and the carat the buyer wrote down, and compare them with yours.
- Get one or two more quotes for the same gold today: the highest share is the best offer.
- A signed, antique or stone-set piece may be worth more to a second-hand jeweller than its gold.
Figures and rules checked by the site’s publisher, Radif Partners · How the values are worked out · Editorial policy
Why a percentage beats a price
A percentage stays comparable when the gold price moves; a sum of money does not. Gold moves every minute the markets are open. An offer of £260.00 for 10 g of 9ct might be good on one day and poor a week later. Turned into a share of the metal at the moment of the quote, it becomes a number you can compare across buyers and across days. The checker reads today’s gold price when you open the page; if you are checking an old quote, keep in mind that the price may have moved since.
| Share of the gold value | Offer on 10 g of 9ct | Kept by the buyer |
|---|---|---|
| 60% | £224.15 | £149.43 |
| 70% | £261.51 | £112.08 |
| 80% | £298.87 | £74.72 |
| 90% | £336.23 | £37.36 |
“Kept by the buyer” is not profit. It pays for refining, for carrying the price risk until the gold is sold on, for the shop, the staff and, for postal buyers, insured delivery. What it tells you is how much room there is between one offer and another.
More detail below: tap a heading to open it.
Check the weight and the carat too
A percentage is only as good as the weight and carat behind it. Ask the buyer for both, in writing if possible. If its weight is lower than yours, ask why: stones removed, a spring taken out, or a scale error. If it says the carat is lower than the hallmark, ask for the test result. A British hallmark from an official testing office means the piece met the legal standard when it was marked.
Checking several gold offers at once
Got two or three quotes? Type them below to see which pays the biggest share of your gold. The comparison puts them side by side as percentages; the figures already filled in are only examples. For a lot of several carats, use the scrap gold calculator instead: it takes the weight of each carat and one offer for the whole lot. The guide to where to sell explains how each type of buyer works.
Compare two or three quotes
Example: Offer B pays the most
74.9%
of the £373.58 the gold in 10 g of 9ct is worth
| Offer A: £245.00 | 65.6% |
| Offer B: £280.00 | 74.9% |
| Gap between best and worst | £35.00 |