How today's gold rate is actually set

Ask why a gram of 22K costs what it does today, and most showrooms will point at a board on the wall. The board is correct. It is also the end of a chain that starts about seven thousand kilometres away.

It starts in London

The reference price for gold is set twice a day by the LBMA auction in London, quoted in US dollars per troy ounce. Every gold market on earth takes its cue from that number. Nothing about it is Indian, and nothing about it is negotiable.

Then it becomes rupees

A troy ounce is 31.103 grams, so the dollar price is divided down to a per-gram figure and multiplied by the day's USD/INR rate. This is the step people forget: when the rupee weakens, gold gets more expensive in India even if the global price hasn't moved at all. Two variables, one number.

Then the government takes its share

Import duty and cess are added, because virtually all of India's gold is imported. That lands you at the landed cost of pure, 24K gold.

Then purity is applied

22K is 91.6% gold — the rest is alloy that makes it hard enough to wear. So the 22K rate is roughly 91.6% of the 24K rate. 18K is 75%. This is why our 18K rate is always lower than our 22K rate, and why a piece that weighs the same can cost meaningfully less in 18K.

What we do with it

We publish that figure every morning and build every price on this site from it. When it moves, our prices move — visibly, on the product page, with the breakup shown.

One thing never moves: the rate on an order you have already placed. That figure is frozen the moment you pay. If gold jumps twenty percent overnight, your invoice does not.