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What is your gold
Enter the weight and tap the karat. The calculator multiplies the weight by that karat's legal gold content and the live gold price to give the melt value, then shows the range a South African buyer typically pays for it. Fine gold is R2 195,95 a gram today.
9ct = 37.5% gold · 3,75 g fine
Worked from today's live gold price, timestamped on the board.
How the number is worked out
There is no mystery to what gold is worth. Every piece has a karat stamp that tells you its purity: 9ct is 37.5% gold, 14ct 58.5%, 18ct 75%, 22ct 91.67% and 24ct 99.9%. Multiply the weight in grams by that fraction and you have the grams of pure gold in the item. Multiply that by the live price of pure gold and you have the melt value. The 24ct fine figure you see quoted, R2 195,95 a gram, is 99.9% of the pure price.
A worked example: a 9ct chain weighing 10 grams contains 3.75 grams of pure gold (10 × 0.375). At today's price that is R8 243 of metal. A scrap buyer paying 80% of melt would offer about R6 594. The gap between those two numbers is the buyer's margin, and it is the single thing worth shopping around.
Melt value versus payout
The melt value is the metal floor: what the gold in your item is worth at the spot price. It is not automatically what you will be paid. For scrap jewellery, SA buyers typically pay between 70% and 90% of melt, and the honest ones tell you their percentage up front; Prodiam, for one, publishes spot less about 10% on scrap. Coins are different: a Krugerrand is resold as a coin, not melted, so it changes hands much closer to its melt value. Before you sell, read what buyers actually pay and check the methodology behind these figures.
The Goldza desk
Common questions
Working out gold value, answered
- How much is my gold worth?
- Weigh it in grams, read the karat stamp (375, 585, 750, 916 or 999), and multiply the weight by that karat's gold fraction to get the grams of pure gold, then by the live gold price. Ten grams of 9ct, for example, is 3.75g of pure gold, worth R8 243 in metal at today's price. A buyer then pays a percentage of that.
- How much is 1kg of gold worth in rands?
- One kilogram of fine 24ct gold is R2 195 948 at 27 Jul 2026, 12:30 SAST. A kilogram of 9ct gold, which is only 37.5% gold, is worth R824 306. Always work on the fine gold content, not the gross weight.
- Does the calculator show what a buyer will pay?
- It shows both. The large figure is the melt value, the pure gold in your item at today's price. The band below is what SA buyers typically pay for scrap, roughly 70 to 90 percent of melt. Coins like Krugerrands trade much closer to melt because they are resold as coins, not melted.