Where our rates come from

Gold: the IBJA benchmark

Our gold rate is published by the India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA). This is not one website’s opinion of the price — it is theIndian benchmark. The Reserve Bank of India uses IBJA’s 999 closing price to price and redeem Sovereign Gold Bonds, and RBI’s lending directions name it as the reference for valuing gold pledged against a loan.

IBJA arrives at the rate by polling 29 physical market participants — bullion dealers, refiners, importers and jewellers — twice every business day, then averaging their quotes after discarding the highest and the lowest. It is published at about 12:05 PM and 5:05 PM IST.

There is no new rate on weekends or public holidays.When markets are shut we show the last published rate and the date it was published. We will never pass an old number off as today’s.

Silver: MCX

Our silver rate comes from the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), India’s SEBI-recognised commodity exchange. RBI’s own directions accept “IBJA or a SEBI-recognised commodity exchange” as a valid reference, so this is a sound source — but it is a different source from our gold rate, and we say so on the page rather than quietly implying everything comes from one place.

How we work out 22K and 18K

IBJA publishes the 999 (24K) rate and derives every other purity from it by multiplying by the fineness. We do exactly the same:

• 22K = 24K rate × 0.916
• 18K = 24K rate × 0.750

Note that 22K is 0.916 — not 22 ÷ 24 = 0.9167. It looks like a rounding quibble. It is about ₹95 per 10 grams, and several well-known sites get it wrong.

Why we do not publish a “gold rate in your city”

Because it does not exist, and we will not invent it.

Gold in India is priced nationally. We checked: on a single day the big rate sites publish the identicalfigure for Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Kochi — down to the paisa. Where a “city rate” does differ, it is a small fixed offset from a lookup table, not a measurement. One popular site groups Patna with Surat and Vadodara: cities 1,700 km apart with no shared bullion market.

Two facts settle it:

• Gold routinely moves more in a single day than the gap between the cheapest and the priciest city in all of India. Being an hour out of date costs you more than being in the wrong city.
• Different websites disagree about the same city by roughly nine times more than the cities differ from each other. Which site you read moves the number far more than where you live.

The genuine exceptions are Tamil Nadu and Kerala, whose jewellers’ associations really do set their own rates. If we ever show those, we will label them by their source — not dress a national number up as a local one.

What our rate does not include

The benchmark is the metal value only. Your bill at the counter adds:

• Making charges— the jeweller’s labour, typically 8–25%. This is the single biggest variable, and it is negotiable.
• 3% GST on the metal value.
• 5% GST on the making charges, when billed separately.
• Hallmarking — a flat BIS fee of about ₹45 per article.

These dwarf any daily price move or city difference — which is why our calculator matters more than a per-city page ever could.

Why there is no platinum here

We removed it. IBJA does publish a platinum rate, but the consumer websites that republish it disagree with each other by up to 15%, and one contradicts itself on a single page. There is no MCX platinum contract, and Indian jewellers sell PT950 while the benchmark quotes 999 — so the published number is not even for the thing being sold.

A number that is 15% away from what the shop will quote is worse than no number at all. So we show none.

When the feed fails

We show you nothing, and we say so. We do not fall back to a cached figure, an estimate, or a price derived from international spot. A wrong gold price is worse than a missing one.