How this site's figures are produced

Every figure on this site comes from a published benchmark and an independent international price. The process is mechanical, with readings refused when they fail a set of checks. This page describes the method, its limits, and what a reader should not conclude from it.

Making two prices comparable

The Indian benchmark is quoted in rupees per ten grams; the international price is in dollars per ounce. Both are converted to one gram before anything is stored, and the dollar price is converted to rupees using a rate read at the same moment. Only then are the two prices in the same unit and the gap measurable. The conversion is arithmetic, but it matters because the two sources report in different currencies and different weights, and a comparison made before conversion would be meaningless.

The association publishes gold and platinum per ten grams and silver per kilogram. Every figure here is converted to one gram before anything is stored, so the table on the home page and the subtopic pages all use the same basis. The conversion is applied once, at the time of reading, and the original figures are kept for audit. This prevents a mismatch between the benchmark and the international price, which is converted from ounces to grams and from dollars to rupees.

Why the international price is never taken from the domestic page

The domestic benchmark already includes import duty, landing costs and a domestic premium. To measure the gap, the international price must be independent of those components. Reading it from the same page would be circular: the difference would always be zero by construction, and the premium would never be visible. The international price comes from two independent sources: a gold price in dollars an ounce and a dollar-rupee rate. Both are read at the same moment as the domestic benchmark, but they are never taken from the association's page.

Keeping the international price separate is a deliberate choice. The association's rate is the reference used for tax, for lending against jewellery and for buy-back counters. It is a domestic price, already shaped by local policy and demand. The international price is a wholesale quote for metal delivered abroad. Mixing the two would make the premium unmeasurable, and the site would lose the one thing it exists to show.

The band a premium has to fall inside to be published at all

A reading whose domestic premium over the international gram falls outside a band of zero to twenty-five per cent is refused, and nothing is written that run. The band is wide enough to accommodate normal variation in import duty, landing costs and domestic demand, but narrow enough to catch a misread price or a broken feed. A premium below zero would mean the domestic price is below the international price, which is not possible once duty and tax are included. A premium above twenty-five per cent would suggest an error in one of the sources.

Readings are also refused if the purity ladder does not fall with purity, or if the published rate is more than five days old. The association does not publish on weekends or on holidays, so the most recent rate is sometimes a day or two old; the date it carries is shown rather than hidden. These checks are mechanical and are applied to every run. They do not guarantee that a figure is correct, but they remove the most common failures.

Why a measured gap is not an opportunity

The premium measured here is the difference between a domestic benchmark and an international wholesale price. It is not a saving anyone can capture, because the international price is not something a reader can buy at. It is a quote for metal delivered abroad, in large quantities, before duty and tax. To bring that metal into India costs import duty and landing charges, and to buy it at a shop costs a domestic premium and GST. The measured gap is a description of policy and demand, not a profit to be made.

A reader who sees a large premium might conclude that gold bought abroad is cheaper, but that ignores the costs of moving metal across a border and the taxes charged on the purchase. The premium is also not constant: it rises and falls with local demand, and a reading taken on one day may not hold on the next. The site's figures are a measurement, not a recommendation. Nothing on this site should be read as advice to buy or sell gold.