Key Takeaways
- Online gold buyers make their margin on the spread between spot price and what they pay you. Reputable buyers pay 90–98% of spot for common bullion, but jewelry and numismatic coins routinely fetch 70–80% or less.
- A ‘price lock’ quote is only as solid as the buyer’s terms of service. Most online buyer agreements reserve the right to revise the offer after physical inspection; read that clause before you ship.
- Always get at least three quotes on the same day, since spot price moves. Convert every offer to a percentage of spot so you’re comparing the same thing.
- Ship with full insurance equal to your expected payout, not spot value. Some buyers’ prepaid labels cap coverage at a fraction of what your metal is worth.
- Compare Gold IRA companies and fees if you’re considering moving proceeds into a precious-metals retirement account after selling.
What Online Gold Buyers Actually Pay. And Where the Margin Hides
Here’s the quick version: the best online gold buyers pay 95–98% of spot for standard bullion, ship you a prepaid label, and return your metal at their expense if you reject the offer. The worst pay 70% of spot, cap your shipping insurance at $1,000, and charge a “processing fee” if you walk away. The quotes look similar on the homepage. The difference is in the terms of service.
If you’ve got gold coins, bars, or jewelry sitting in a drawer and you’d rather have cash, selling online is a legitimate option. Often better than a local pawn shop, sometimes competitive with a local coin dealer, and far more convenient than either. But “convenient” doesn’t mean “the same price everywhere.” You’re selling into a spread, and the buyer’s margin is the number that’s never on the front page.
Before you ship anything, you need to know three things: what the buyer actually pays as a percentage of spot, what the price-lock clause says when your metal arrives and gets inspected, and what happens to your shipment if something goes wrong in transit.
How Online Gold Buyers Make Their Money
Every online buyer works on a spread. They buy your gold at some percentage below spot price, then sell it (or the refined metal from it) at or near spot. That spread is their margin and your cost of selling.
For standard government-minted bullion. American Gold Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs, South African Krugerrands, 1-oz bars from LBMA-approved refiners like PAMP Suisse or Valcambi. Competitive online buyers currently pay roughly 95–98% of spot. On a single 1-oz Gold Eagle at a $3,300 spot price, that’s a $66–$165 haircut. Annoying but reasonable for the convenience and speed.
For gold jewelry, the math changes. A buyer testing a 14-karat gold chain is working with metal that’s 58.3% pure. They’ll calculate the spot value of just the gold content, then offer 70–85% of that melt value. The craftsmanship, the brand, the sentimental value: none of it moves the needle for a bullion refiner. If your jewelry has genuine design or antique value, a specialist jeweler or auction house will outperform any online bullion buyer by a meaningful margin.
Numismatic coins. Anything priced partly on rarity and collector demand rather than just metal content. Are a separate category. Most online bullion buyers will buy them but price them as melt, which means you’d be leaving numismatic premium on the table. A coin dealer who understands the numismatic market is the right venue for those.
The Price-Lock Clause: What the Fine Print Actually Says
Most online buyers offer a “price lock” when you submit your gold for sale. You describe what you have, they quote a dollar-per-ounce price, and you have 24–48 hours to ship under that locked price regardless of where spot moves. This sounds clean. The operative word is “conditional.”
I’ve read the standard agreements from several of the larger online gold buyers, and they share a clause that goes roughly like this: the price lock is valid provided the received metal matches the seller’s description in weight, purity, mint, and condition. If the physical inspection reveals any discrepancy, the buyer reserves the right to revise the offer.
That’s not deceptive. It’s sensible. A buyer who locks a price before seeing the metal needs some protection against someone who describes a pristine American Gold Eagle and ships a worn, counterfeit, or differently-marked coin. But the practical implication is that “price lock” means “price lock contingent on inspection”. Not an unconditional commitment. If your coin grades lower than you think, or your bar turns out to be from a refiner the buyer considers non-standard, the offer can change after your metal is already across the country.
The remedy clause is where things get interesting. In most standard agreements, if you reject the revised offer, the buyer ships your metal back at their expense. That’s the right answer. But some agreements allow a handling or processing fee on rejected offers. Any buyer whose terms include that fee is telling you something important about how they plan to make money off people who don’t read the terms. Don’t ship to them.
Shipping Insurance: The Number Most People Get Wrong
Online buyers almost universally provide prepaid shipping labels. This is convenient and removes the hassle of finding a carrier who’ll take precious-metals shipments. The catch is coverage limits.
Many prepaid labels from online buyers default to $1,000–$5,000 in declared value coverage. That’s fine if you’re shipping a single 1-oz coin. It’s inadequate if you’re sending a roll of Eagles or a collection of bars worth $15,000 or $30,000.
Before you seal the box, find the buyer’s shipping terms (usually a separate document from their purchase agreement) and confirm: What is the maximum declared value covered by their label? Is there an option to purchase additional coverage? What’s the claims process if the package is lost or damaged in transit?
If the label caps out below your shipment’s value, either insure the difference through a third-party jewelry and valuables insurer or arrange your own fully insured shipment with a carrier that handles high-value packages. Take photographs of every piece before it goes in the box. Timestamped, with a reference to the buyer’s purchase number in frame. If there’s a dispute about what was shipped, those photos are your documentation.
Getting a Real Comparison: The Percentage-of-Spot Method
Spot price moves throughout the trading day. A quote you pulled at 9 a.m. and a quote you pulled at 2 p.m. are denominated in different underlying prices. Comparing dollar figures across buyers without anchoring to spot is meaningless.
The method that works: pull quotes from at least three buyers within a one-hour window, note the spot price at the time of each quote (Kitco and APMEX publish live spot prices; pull from the same source each time), and convert each offer to a percentage of spot.
If Buyer A offers $3,234 per ounce and spot is $3,300, they’re paying 98.0% of spot. If Buyer B offers $3,218 when spot was $3,280 an hour earlier, they’re paying 98.1% of spot. The dollar figures looked like Buyer A was winning. The percentage-of-spot math says Buyer B is marginally better, and the gap closes depending on how spot moves before you lock.
For standard 1-oz bullion, the difference between 95% of spot and 98% of spot on a $3,300 gold price is $99 per ounce. On ten ounces, that’s $990. Spend 30 minutes pulling percentage-of-spot quotes from three reputable buyers before you decide where to ship. That’s a reasonable hourly rate.
Which Buyers Are Worth Considering. And How to Verify One You’re Not Sure About
I’m not going to give you a ranked list of specific companies and commit to terms that may have changed by the time you read this. What I’ll give you is the verification framework.
A reputable online gold buyer will, without exception:
- Publish their price-lock terms and return policy in plain language before you submit your gold (not buried in a PDF you have to request)
- Have a trackable BBB history with a complaint-response pattern. Not zero complaints (unrealistic for a high-volume buyer) but a pattern of resolving them
- Carry a state precious-metals dealer license where required by state law
- Use a shipping carrier with insured precious-metals service and offer a clear path to increase declared value coverage
- Return your metal at their expense if you reject the final offer
Run any buyer you’re considering through the BBB complaint database before shipping. Look specifically for the pattern of complaints, not just the rating. A buyer with 40 complaints and a pattern of resolving them quickly is probably operating legitimately at volume. A buyer with 8 complaints and a pattern of non-response or blaming the seller is a different story.
Membership in the Industry Council for Tangible Assets (ICTA) is a useful positive signal but not a guarantee. State licensing requirements for precious-metals dealers vary significantly, and some states have virtually no licensing framework. The CFTC regulates gold futures, not spot physical purchases, so there’s no federal licensing database the way FINRA’s BrokerCheck covers broker-dealers. The due-diligence work here is on you.
If you’re weighing what to do with gold that’s currently inside an IRA or a precious-metals retirement account, the considerations shift considerably. The best gold IRA companies operate under different rules than retail buyers, and selling metal from an IRA has IRS distribution consequences. That’s a different transaction.
For any sale large enough that the tax implications matter. Gold held for more than a year is taxed as a collectible at a maximum 28% federal rate, higher than the long-term capital gains rate on stocks. A conversation with a tax-aware financial advisor before you sell is worth the time. The best financial advisors for this kind of situation are fee-only planners who can model the after-tax proceeds without selling you anything.
The Jewelry and Non-Bullion Problem
If you’re selling anything other than standard government-minted bullion or LBMA-approved bars, the online bullion buyer market is probably not your best venue.
Gold jewelry goes to a refiner after purchase. The buyer prices it at melt value, period. A 1990s Tiffany gold bracelet and an unmarked 14-karat chain from a department store get the same treatment: calculate gold content by weight and karat, offer 70–85% of that melt value. The brand premium disappears.
If the piece has design value, a jewelry estate buyer, a specialist auction house, or even a high-quality local estate jeweler will almost always do better. The trade-off is time and effort versus the convenience of dropping everything in a prepaid box.
For numismatic coins. Morgan dollars, Saint-Gaudens double eagles, key-date American Eagles, anything where the price in a coin guide exceeds the melt value by more than a few percent. A coin dealer specializing in numismatics will pay you the premium that a bullion buyer won’t. Online bullion buyers price by metal content. Numismatic value requires a numismatic buyer.
The honest framing: online gold buyers are optimized for one thing. They’re efficient markets for standard bullion at reasonable spreads. Outside that lane, they’re the wrong tool.
Before You Ship Anything
The sequence that protects you:
Pull percentage-of-spot quotes from at least three buyers on the same day. Verify each buyer’s BBB history, return policy, and shipping insurance terms before committing. Check the price-lock clause specifically for what happens after physical inspection and whether they can levy a fee if you reject the offer. Photograph everything before it goes in the box. Confirm the shipping coverage is adequate for your shipment’s value and arrange supplemental coverage if it isn’t.
Then ship to whoever is paying the highest percentage of spot with clean terms. You’re not looking for perfection. You’re looking for the buyer who takes the smallest spread and gives you the clearest recourse if something goes sideways.
Gold is not a complicated thing to sell. The complications come from skipping the terms-of-service reading and trusting the quote page instead of the contract.
