Live ·
What gold buyers
The melt value of your gold, its mass times its purity times the live gold price, is not what you get paid. Payout is melt minus the buyer's margin, so the one honest metric is the percentage of melt you actually receive. For scrap gold in South Africa that is typically 70 to 90 percent. Coins like Krugerrands trade much closer to full melt, because they are resold as coins rather than melted.
Fine gold content
10 g of 9ct scrap, at 37.5% gold
3.75 g pure
Melt value
the metal floor, 10 g of 9ct at R824,30/g
R8 243
Payout at 70% of melt
the low end of the band
R5 770
Payout at 90% of melt
the high end of the band
R7 419
The band between R5 770 and R7 419 on the same 10 grams is the buyer's margin. It is the only number worth shopping around, and it is what this whole page is about. Melt is fixed by the market; the percentage is not.
Melt is not payout
Melt value is what the pure gold in your item is worth at today's spot price: mass in grams, times the karat's gold fraction, times the live price of pure gold. It is a fact of physics and the market, and it is the same wherever you carry the item. Payout is what a buyer hands you, and it is always melt minus a margin. The number that actually decides whether you were treated fairly, the only honest metric in this trade, is the percentage of melt you walk out with.
There is no published "scrap gold price" in South Africa the way there is a spot price. The scrap price you are quoted is simply a percentage of that day's melt, chosen by each buyer. For scrap jewellery that percentage typically sits between 70 and 90 percent. Coins are the exception: a Krugerrand is resold as a coin, not refined, so it changes hands much nearer its full melt value. Work out your own melt figure first with the gold calculator, and every offer becomes a percentage you can check.
Why the gap exists
The margin is not automatically a rip-off. A scrap buyer melts and refines what they take in, and refining has a real cost and a small metal loss. They carry the price risk between paying you and selling the refined metal on, they have overheads, and they need a profit. That is why a fair scrap payout sits below melt rather than at it. The gap widens when a buyer is opaque, quoting a headline gold price to draw you in and then paying a much lower figure with no breakdown. It narrows for coins, and for larger, cleaner lots. Knowing roughly where a fair offer lands, 70 to 90 percent of melt, is what lets you tell a normal margin from a fleecing, and it is the first defence against the common cash-for-gold scams.
Where the 70 to 90 percent comes from
Being straight about our own number: the 70 to 90 percent band is Goldza's editorial reading of the South African scrap market, not a rate quoted by any named buyer and not a surveyed average. The reason we can only estimate it is the whole point of this page. The buyers do not publish the figure, so nobody, us included, can hand you an exact market average. Treat the band as a sense-check, not a promise: work out your melt value, and judge any offer as a percentage of it.
How to shrink the gap
- Know your carat before you go. SA jewellery is mostly 9ct (375), with 14ct (585), 18ct (750) and 22ct (916) also about. A buyer who tests 18ct as 9ct pays you less than half of what the metal is worth, so read the stamp yourself.
- Get the melt breakdown in writing. Ask for five figures: the weight in grams, the carat, the melt value at today's price, the percentage offered, and the final rand payout. An honest, compliant buyer will show all five and weigh and test in front of you.
- Get at least two quotes. Melt value is the same everywhere, so the only thing that differs between buyers is the percentage they pay. A confident buyer will not object to you comparing.
The one honest number in this market
Here is what actually separates the buyers, and it is not the one you would expect. Some publish nothing at all and quote you in the shop. Some do publish a rand-per-gram buying price, which is genuinely useful, but a fixed rand figure only helps while it is current: gold moves every day, and a published table that has not been updated is worse than no table, because it looks checkable and is not. The third approach is to publish a percentage of the live spot price, which cannot go stale, because it moves with the market by definition. Almost nobody in this market does the third thing, and it is the only one that lets you check an offer before you travel.
| Where you sell | How the price is set |
|---|---|
| Counters that publish no price | A valuation in the shop, after they weigh and test. Pot of Gold, for example, calls its pricing market-linked and explains the method, but puts no figure or percentage on the page, so there is nothing to check before you go. |
| Counters that publish a rand-per-gram table | A fixed price per gram by carat. Zeek Gold published 9ct at R800 a gram, stamped as updated that morning, when we checked on 27 July 2026. Gold Buyers Johannesburg also published per-gram figures, but at 9ct R350 against a page still citing May 2026 gold prices, which shows the weakness of a fixed table: it is only as good as its last update. |
| Counters that publish a percentage of spot | A stated share of the live gold price, so the number cannot go stale. Rare in this market. Prodiam publishes the live price less a flat 10% on scrap, with coins and branded pieces priced better. |
| Pawnshops | An in-store offer, often structured as a loan against the item rather than an outright buy. |
| Coin and bullion dealers | Coins priced off the live spot; scrap jewellery is usually a counter quote. |
| Online mail-in buyers | You post the gold in, then receive an offer to accept or decline. |
It is also why a worked melt figure and a stated percentage, like the ones on this page, are worth more than any "we pay the most" banner. Do the melt arithmetic yourself, demand the percentage in writing, and get a second quote, and you have turned a blind quote into a number you can check. That is the entire trick to selling gold for what it is actually worth.
So which buyers actually show a price?
Two we checked on 27 July 2026 do, and they do it differently, which is worth understanding before you pick one. Zeek Gold publishes a rand-per-gram buying table by carat. Prodiam publishes a percentage instead, the live gold price less a stated 10% on scrap, with coins and branded pieces priced better.
The trade-off is real and it runs both ways. A rand table is concrete: you can see the exact figure before you go, and on the day we checked, Zeek's 9ct price sat close to the metal value, above the 70 to 90 percent band this page describes. A percentage cannot be that precise, but it also cannot go stale, because it moves with the market by definition. A published rand table that has not been updated is the worst of both, and we found one of those too. So the honest advice is not a name, it is a test: whichever you use, take the published number, work out your own melt value with the calculator, and check that the offer in front of you still matches what was advertised. Then get a second quote anyway.
The Goldza desk
General information, not financial advice. Melt figures on this page are computed live from the fine gold price of R2 195,95 per gram at 27 Jul 2026, 12:30 SAST. The 70 to 90 percent payout band is a general observation of the SA scrap market, not a quoted rate from any named buyer, and the percentage an individual buyer pays will vary. See the methodology.
Common questions
What buyers pay, answered
- What is the scrap gold price in South Africa?
- There is no single official scrap gold price. Scrap is priced off the live gold price: the metal in 9ct scrap is worth about R824,30 per gram right now, and a South African buyer typically pays 70 to 90 percent of that melt value. So the real scrap price is a percentage of melt that each buyer sets, not a published figure. Work out your item's melt value first, then judge the offer as a percentage of it.
- How much do gold buyers pay for scrap gold?
- Typically between 70 and 90 percent of the melt value, which is mass times purity times the live gold price. On 10 grams of 9ct scrap, worth about R8 243 in metal today, that is roughly R5 770 at the low end and R7 419 at the high end. The honest buyers tell you their percentage up front. Coins like Krugerrands trade much closer to full melt because they are resold as coins, not melted.
- What is the cash for gold price per gram?
- It depends on the carat, because only part of each gram is gold. For 9ct (37.5% gold) the metal is worth R824,30 per gram, so a cash-for-gold payout of 70 to 90 percent works out to roughly R577 to R742 per gram. Higher carats are worth more: 18ct metal is R1 648,61 per gram before the buyer's percentage. Always confirm which carat the buyer is paying you for.
- Why is the payout lower than the gold price I see quoted?
- Because the quoted gold price is the melt value, what the pure gold is worth, and a buyer pays melt minus a margin. Refining costs money and loses a little metal, the buyer carries the price risk until they resell, and they need a profit, so a fair scrap payout sits below melt at 70 to 90 percent. A payout far under that band, or one with no written breakdown of weight, carat, melt and percentage, is the warning sign, not the margin itself.