Methodology

What you see on every page

Each canonical bullion product gets one page. We pull current offers from reputable retail dealers, normalize the price for the default scenario (1 unit, wire or ACH payment, shipping excluded), and rank by total estimated cost. The lowest total wins rank 1. No exceptions, no sponsored placements, no affiliate weighting.

How "total estimated cost" is computed

Default ranking: total = unit price × quantity. Shipping and tax are both excluded by default so the ranking matches what each dealer advertises on their product page. Toggle Shipping (or Tax, when that control lands) to switch to full landed cost: total = unit price × quantity + estimated shipping + estimated tax.

Unit price is whatever the dealer publishes for the requested payment method; if a dealer doesn't list that method, we walk a documented fallback chain (wire → ACH → check → cash → listed → card) and mark the offer as a fallback.

When the Shipping toggle is on, shipping is free over the dealer's published free-shipping threshold; otherwise we use the dealer's flat rate when documented, or a conservative configured default ($9.95) with reduced confidence.

How premium is computed

melt_value = spot × pure_metal_weight × quantity
premium_dollars = total − melt_value
premium_percent = premium_dollars / melt_value × 100

Because the default ranking excludes shipping, the displayed premium reflects what the dealer charges over spot for the metal itself — not your final out-the-door cost. Turning the Shipping toggle on adds estimated shipping into total, which rolls into the premium calculation: a small-quantity order will then show a much larger premium than a tube or monster-box order of the same product, because the shipping cost gets amortized over fewer ounces.

Freshness and exclusion

Every offer carries an observed-at timestamp. Tiers:

• Fresh: ≤30 minutes old
• Recent: 30–60 minutes old (still ranked by default)
• Stale: >60 minutes old (excluded from the default ranking)
• Very stale: >24 hours old (always excluded)

Out-of-stock offers are excluded from the default ranking. Offers below a composite confidence score of 60/100 are excluded as well — confidence weights parser certainty, mapping certainty, freshness, shipping policy clarity, spot-feed health, and dealer crawl health.

Tie-breakers

When two offers come within a cent or two of each other on total cost, we prefer the offer with (in order) higher confidence, fresher data, and higher dealer reputation tier. We never tie-break on commercial relationship.

Dealer ownership transparency

Some dealer brands may share corporate ownership or be part of the same larger precious-metals platform. Where we can verify this from public company releases, SEC filings, or dealer disclosures, we show it on dealer pages and as a small chip next to the dealer name on the main board.

Ownership information does not affect rankings. Rankings are based on observed prices, product mapping, freshness, and the selected board assumptions. Where we don't have sourced data, we display "No known common ownership in our dataset" instead of asserting independence. Ownership data can change over time.

What we don't do

• Sell bullion or take custody of metal or funds
• Take payment for ranking position
• Hide dealers based on affiliate relationships
• Quote a state-by-state sales tax (excluded by default; a state selector will land later)

Final word

Prices change constantly. The dealer's own checkout is the final word on price and terms. Verify the cart total before completing any purchase.