# Gold is quoted per ounce. You buy it by the gram. > The headline gold price is one troy ounce of pure gold in a London vault, set twice a day. Turning it into the price of a 22-carat bracelet takes one division and one multiplication, and both numbers are published. - **Publisher:** VOTVS (Fair coverage for everyone) — https://votvs.com - **Author:** VOTVS - **Published:** 2026-08-19 - **Language:** en - **Topic:** Money - **Canonical URL:** https://votvs.com/en/articles/gold-price-per-gram - **Tags:** gold, money, prices, explainer - **Facts last verified:** 19 August 2026 --- The number you see quoted as "the gold price" is precise, and it is not the number you will be asked to pay. Both facts are worth understanding, because the distance between them is the only part of a jewellery purchase you can actually check. ## What the quoted price is The benchmark most gold prices trace back to is the **LBMA Gold Price**, administered by ICE Benchmark Administration. It is set twice each business day, at **10:30 and 15:00 London time**, in **US dollars per troy ounce**, through an electronic auction that is physically settled — participants enter buy and sell orders by volume, the price moves each round until the imbalance falls within a 10,000-ounce tolerance, and the trades are confirmed. It has been a regulated benchmark under UK law since 1 April 2015. So the quoted price describes one specific thing: a troy ounce of pure gold, deliverable in London. ## A troy ounce is not a kitchen ounce This is the first place the arithmetic goes wrong. Precious metals are weighed in troy units, which are not the ounces on a food packet. From the NIST tables: 24 grains make one pennyweight, 20 pennyweights make one troy ounce, and a troy ounce is **480 grains exactly**. A grain is **64.79891 milligrams exactly**. Multiply those two and the troy ounce is exact: > 480 × 64.79891 mg = 31,103.4768 mg = **31.1034768 grams** The everyday ounce is about 28.35 grams. Mix them up and you overstate what you are holding by roughly a tenth. **Price per gram = price per troy ounce ÷ 31.1034768.** ## Then the purity Almost nothing sold as jewellery is pure gold. The stamp on the piece tells you how much of it is, and the number means exactly what it looks like: parts per thousand. Assay Office London calls this the millesimal fineness mark, and it is one of the three compulsory marks in a UK hallmark, alongside the assay office mark and the sponsor's mark. | Stamp | Carat | Gold content | | --- | --- | --- | | 999 | 24 | 99.9% | | 990 | 23.5 | 99.0% | | 916 | 22 | 91.6% | | 750 | 18 | 75.0% | | 585 | 14 | 58.5% | | 375 | 9 | 37.5% | Because the stamp is parts per thousand, you do not need a table for a number that is not on it. Divide whatever is stamped by 1,000 and multiply. ## The whole calculation, once Take a benchmark of **$4,000 per troy ounce** as a worked example — for the live figure, our [gold page](/en/gold) carries it per ounce and per gram. 1. **Per gram, pure:** 4,000 ÷ 31.1034768 = **$128.60** 2. **22 carat:** 128.60 × 0.916 = **$117.80 per gram** 3. **18 carat:** 128.60 × 0.750 = **$96.45 per gram** A 15-gram 22-carat bracelet therefore contains about **$1,767** of gold at that benchmark. ## Why the shop asks for more Because a bracelet is not bullion. The gap between the metal value and the counter price covers manufacturing, the retailer's margin, and usually the spread between what they sell at and what they will buy back at. None of that is published. It varies by piece, by shop and by how intricate the work is, and no honest article can give you a percentage for it. What the calculation above gives you is a **floor**: the value of the metal itself, which you can work out in thirty seconds and take into the shop with you. That is the useful thing here. You cannot negotiate the LBMA price. You can see, before you agree to anything, how far above the metal you are being asked to go. ## Questions people ask ### How do I convert the gold price per ounce to the price per gram? Divide by 31.1034768. A troy ounce is 480 grains and a grain is exactly 64.79891 milligrams, which makes a troy ounce exactly 31.1034768 grams. ### Is a troy ounce the same as a normal ounce? No. A troy ounce is about 31.10 grams. The ounce used for food and post is about 28.35 grams. Precious metals are always quoted in troy ounces, so using the wrong one overstates the weight by roughly 10 per cent. ### What does 916 stamped on gold mean? Fineness, expressed in parts per thousand. 916 means 91.6 per cent pure gold, which is 22 carat. 750 is 18 carat, 585 is 14 carat and 999 is effectively pure. ### Why is the shop price higher than the gold price? Because you are buying a manufactured object, not bullion. The difference covers making, retail margin and often a buy-back spread. It is not published anywhere and varies by piece and by shop, so the calculated metal value is a floor to compare against, not a price you should expect to be quoted. ## Sources - LBMA Gold Price FAQs — London Bullion Market Association. https://www.lbma.org.uk/prices-and-data/lbma-gold-price/lbma-gold-price - NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C: General Tables of Units of Measurement — National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2026 edition. https://www.nist.gov/document/2026-nist-handbook-44-appendix-c - What is a hallmark — Assay Office London, the Goldsmiths Company. https://www.assayofficelondon.co.uk/hallmarking/what-is-a-hallmark --- Published by VOTVS. Free to quote with attribution and a link to https://votvs.com/en/articles/gold-price-per-gram.