What the terms of business do to a gold buyer’s headline rate

Start with the concession

On the date this page was checked, GoldPaid was not the buyer with the strongest per-gram rate of the four on it. Cash For Your Gold published £38.43 a gram for 9ct on 31 August 2026, against GoldPaid’s £37.53. That is a real difference of 90p a gram, about 2.4% more for the same weight, and on a heavy parcel it is a large amount of money. Anyone comparing buyers deserves to read that in the first paragraph rather than find it in a footnote.

What the rest of this page does is show the terms that sit behind each rate, because the rate is only the first of the numbers that decide what reaches your bank account. Every quotation below is taken verbatim from the named company’s own published pages, read on 31 August 2026. Terms change without notice, so read the current version on the company’s own site before you post anything to anyone, us included.

How the percentages were worked out. Each published per-gram rate was divided by the 9ct fineness (0.375) to give pounds per gram of fine gold, then divided by one single fine-gold spot figure: £105.3349 a gram, GoldPaid’s own spot feed on 31 August 2026. Using one spot source for all four buyers is the only way the ordering means anything. Every percentage in that column is GoldPaid’s calculation from another company’s published pounds per gram, not a figure that company publishes. Gold Traders are the exception, and their own figure is dealt with below. Cash For Your Gold’s cell is left blank on purpose: their rate table carries their own date stamp of 18 August 2026, and a percentage drawn from a table dated thirteen days earlier would not sit fairly beside figures read on 31 August. A different spot source shifts every percentage by a fraction of a point and changes none of the ordering, because the ordering is a ratio.

What comes off the payment afterwards. A published per-gram rate is not always the last word on the money. Cash For Your Gold’s clause 10 sets out two payment charges: “FPS direct bank transfer. This service is charged at £5 per transfer to clients holding compatible bank accounts and is our preferred payment method, the fee being deducted from the valuation figure.” and “CHEQUE PAYMENTS will be charged at £10 per transaction to offset our bank charges and admin/postal costs when using this method of payment, the fee being deducted from the valuation figure.” On their own wording both come off the valuation, so £5 or £10 sits behind the headline rate. Read 31 August 2026; terms change, so check the current version on their own site.

Gold Traders publish their own percentage, and it stands up. Their 9ct page states: “As of 31st August 2026, we’re paying £36.67 per gram for 9 carat gold. That’s £366.70 for 10 grams and £1,140.55 per troy ounce. We’re paying 92.9% of the live spot price. There are no fees to come off this, and you get the same rate whether you post your gold or visit us.” Against the single spot figure used throughout this page, £36.67 works out at 92.8% of fine-gold spot on 31 August 2026, so their published claim is honest to within rounding. Publishing the percentage at all is unusual in this trade and it deserves saying.

Per-gram rates move with the market every day. Treat the table as a photograph of one morning, not as a standing claim about any company, and read each buyer’s live figure from their own page before you decide. GoldPaid’s own current 9ct rate is £37.17 a gram, reviewed 9 September 2026, and the full carat table is on gold price today. That figure is the live one and carries its own date; every figure in the table above is frozen at 31 August 2026 so the four buyers can be read against one another.

Where a free label stops covering the gap

Cash For Your Gold published 90p a gram more than GoldPaid for 9ct on 31 August 2026, about 2.4% more for the same weight. That gap is the difference between two published rates, not a claim about what share of spot either buyer pays. Their published terms leave the outbound postage with the seller. GoldPaid sends a free prepaid Royal Mail Special Delivery label. The two trade off against each other, and the arithmetic is short enough to show in full.

1. Start with the postage, because that is the fixed number. Royal Mail’s published price for Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm, for a 100g parcel at the £750 cover level, is £9.95 at a Post Office counter and £9.45 online. Higher cover levels cost more: £12.95 at the £1,000 level and £19.95 at the £2,500 level. Royal Mail published prices, tariff effective 7 April 2026.
2. Divide the postage by the rate gap. A gap of 90p on a £37.53 rate earns the seller about 2.4p in every pound GoldPaid would pay for the same parcel. £9.95 divided by 0.024 is £415, so at the standard cover level the two cancel out at roughly £415.
3. The break-even moves with the cover level, not with the rate. At £12.95 for the £1,000 cover level it is about £540, and at £19.95 for the £2,500 cover level it is about £830. On postage alone the truthful answer is therefore a range: roughly £400 to £830 of parcel value, depending on the cover level the parcel needs.
4. Their published payment charge moves it again. Cash For Your Gold’s clause 10 deducts £5 for a Faster Payments transfer, quoted in full below. Adding that to the postage puts the crossover at roughly £625 at the standard cover level and roughly £1,040 once the parcel needs the £2,500 cover level. The net-proceeds table in the next section works two parcels through with every published deduction applied.
5. Above those figures the higher rate wins, whoever pays for the label. On a parcel GoldPaid would pay £2,000 for, the rate gap is worth about £48 and the postage and payment charge together are about £25. On price alone the buyer with the higher rate is the better deal on a parcel that size. This page would be worth very little if it did not say so.

That arithmetic covers price only. It says nothing about what happens if you decline, what happens to a stone, or who carries the parcel in the post, and those are the terms that decide the rest of the outcome.

The same two parcels, worked through to what reaches your bank

Every headline rate on this page is a gross figure. What a seller actually receives is that rate multiplied by the weight, less whatever the buyer takes off the payment, less whatever the seller has to spend to get the parcel there. Those three numbers are published by all four buyers, so they can simply be added up. Below are two ordinary parcels of 9ct gold, 10 grams and 30 grams, at each buyer’s published 31 August 2026 rate, with every published deduction applied. Rows are in order of what reaches the bank.

Read the two tables together, because they do not say the same thing. On the 10 gram parcel GoldPaid is ahead by £5.95, not because the rate is higher but because nothing comes off it. On the 30 gram parcel Cash For Your Gold is ahead by £2.05, because 90p more on every gram has outgrown a £5 payment charge and a £19.95 postage bill. That crossover is the whole point of the page. A free label and no deductions are worth a fixed amount of money, so they matter most on a small parcel; a higher rate is worth a proportion, so it matters most on a large one.

What is in these figures and what is not. The rates are each buyer’s own published 9ct figure read on 31 August 2026 and they move with the market. The postage is Royal Mail’s published price for Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm at a Post Office counter, tariff effective 7 April 2026; posting online is 50p cheaper at the £750 level. Hatton Garden Metals also publish a route where you use your own packaging, which carries no pack fee but puts the postage back on the seller. Vintage Cash Cow is not in these tables because they publish no per-gram rate to work from. Nothing here is a claim about what any buyer offers after inspection: every one of these companies, GoldPaid included, sets the real figure after assay. Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market.

The arithmetic is deliberately shown rather than summarised, so you can run it on your own weight. Take your carat rate from each buyer’s own page, multiply by the grams, subtract their published deductions, subtract the postage you would have to buy, and compare the last column. That is the number that arrives.

What happens to the stones in your jewellery

This is the term most sellers never think to check, and it is the one that can cost the most. Cash For Your Gold’s published terms on 31 August 2026 state:

That is a clearly written term and the company is entitled to trade on it. It is stated openly rather than buried, and the reasoning is given with it. What matters is that a seller reads it before posting a stone-set ring, because it applies to the diamond in an engagement ring as much as it does to a chip of glass in a dress ring.

GoldPaid’s position is the opposite one, and it is written into how offers are produced: nothing is removed from a piece of jewellery without your written instruction, and your written offer shows the metal figure and the stone figure on separate lines. Stones are never disposed of. Decline the offer and a stone-set ring comes back exactly as it arrived, stones in place, by tracked post at our cost. The full policy is on what happens to diamonds and gemstones.

When the metal is melted, and what that means for changing your mind

Melting is irreversible, so the timing of it decides how long a decision stays reversible. Cash For Your Gold’s published terms on 31 August 2026 state:

Read carefully, that clause describes what happens after a sale is made, not before one. It is an honest warning that a completed sale cannot be undone, and every outright buyer including GoldPaid has the same problem in principle once metal reaches a refiner. The practical point for a seller is to know exactly when a buyer treats the sale as made.

At GoldPaid nothing is melted before you accept. Your items are weighed and XRF-assayed, a written itemised offer is sent, and the parcel sits intact until you answer it. There is no countdown on the offer and no expiry date attached to it. You may also accept part of a parcel and decline the rest: there is no minimum acceptance and no penalty for splitting it. Once you accept, it is an outright sale like anyone else’s, and that is the point at which it stops being reversible.

What it costs to say no

A return policy is only worth what it costs to use. What each buyer attaches to it is set out in their own published terms, read on 31 August 2026.

• Cash For Your Gold. Their terms state: “In such circumstances CashForYourGold.co.uk reserves the right, at its absolute discretion, to charge the user £10 per package for postage, packing and insurance of the returned consignment. Post Office terms and conditions may require us to divide a high value consignment (over £2,500) or a heavy consignment (over 500gms) between multiple packages and in such a case we will charge £10 per package required.” It is a right they reserve rather than a fee they say they always apply. The second sentence is the one that costs money: on a consignment over £2,500 or over 500g the charge is £10 for each package, not £10 in total.
• Gold Traders. Declining an offer gets a free return with no deadline for UK customers, per their clause 4 above. Two limits sit alongside it, both from the same clause: a £3.00 handling charge on non-precious items you ask to have returned, such as removed stones or base metal components, sent by standard post; and international customers paying for their own returns.
• Vintage Cash Cow. Their terms state that offers are “valid for a period of twenty one (21) days” (clause 5.9), that appraisal happens “within 14 days” with “time shall not be of the essence” (clause 5.4), and that a box which does not identify its sender is “treated as abandoned” after 30 days (clause 5.22). A second 30-day abandonment route covers items whose redelivery fails (clause 5.21). Those are ordinary commercial timings, clearly written, but they are clocks and a seller should know they are running.
• GoldPaid. Decline and everything comes back free of charge by tracked, signed-for post. There is no time limit on the decision, no fee, no condition and no follow-up. That is the term we would ask you to hold us to; it is set out on what happens if I decline the offer.

Who carries the parcel while it is in the post

This is where the published terms differ most, and where one competitor is plainly ahead of us.

Cash For Your Gold’s terms on 31 August 2026 state: “CashForYourGold.co.uk accepts no responsibility for the loss or damage of goods whilst in transit to us.” Gold Traders’ published terms make no postal cover claim of their own, direct the seller to arrange cover for the journey, and state that “Gold-Traders (UK) Ltd cannot be held liable for any loss or damage during transit to or from our premises”. Both positions are common in this trade and both are stated in the open. Terms change, so read the current version on each company’s own site.

Read the scheme as well as the homepage. The scheme itself says what it is not: “This is a compensation-based scheme and is not insurance-based, and therefore not regulated. It does not guarantee reimbursement of retail value, purchase price, sentimental value, or The Customer’s own assessment of value.” It adds that “the presence of a Maximum limit does not guarantee payment at that level”. Their homepage FAQ, read the same minute, describes the same £300 as “automatically insured”, says “we pay for and insure every parcel you send for up to £300”, and offers to “raise your insurance to £1,000 or £10,000”. Both halves are that company’s own published words on 31 August 2026, and a seller should read both. The scheme names no carrier at all; Parcelforce is named on the homepage FAQ, which is a different document.

Two facts about Royal Mail’s own policy that apply to every parcel on this page. Royal Mail’s Retail Compensation Policy for Loss excludes compensation “where the item contains valuables (i.e. money and jewellery) unless posted using an appropriate Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed® service”. Jewellery is compensatable on that service and not on the ordinary ones, which is the reason every GoldPaid label is that service. The same policy pays “the lower of the market value of the item and the maximum level of compensation purchased”, so paying for a higher cover level does not create protection above what the items are actually worth. A £900 parcel remains a £900 claim.

GoldPaid’s position, stated in full so you can compare it properly: Royal Mail cover may be available up to £2,500 depending on the postal method and cover level used. The cover level is confirmed with you before the label is issued. GoldPaid’s own liability is limited to the value of the items, the Royal Mail compensation claim is the seller’s claim to make, and GoldPaid helps you make it. That is the honest shape of it, and it is weaker than a named in-house scheme. If your parcel is worth more than the cover level, message before posting and we split the items across more than one prepaid label, each within its own cover. See postage and cover.

A note on how a free pack can be netted off

Hatton Garden Metals published the lowest 9ct payout of the four buyers here on 31 August 2026, at £34.31 a gram, which is about 86.9% of fine-gold spot on the same single spot source used throughout this page, before the pack fee below is netted off. They are also the only one of the four with a walk-in counter, and they publish a per-gram rate card openly, which is more than most of this trade does.

One thing a rate comparison will not show you is the pack fee, which is a three-tier scale rather than a single figure. Hatton Garden Metals set it out in an asterisked footnote at the foot of their pack request form: “* The postage fee for the pre-paid bag will be deducted from your payment based on the insured value of your items. Insured up to £750: £8.95, Insured up to £1,000: £9.95, Insured up to £2,500: £10.95”, from the Hatton Garden Metals pack request page, read 31 August 2026. Those three cover levels are Hatton Garden Metals’ own, quoted from their own form; they are not a description of GoldPaid’s postage, which is free in both directions. Their homepage states “no hidden fees, no misleading headlines”, and the pack is described as free on the same form. Both statements were on their published pages on 31 August 2026 and both are reported here as written. We draw no conclusion about intent. The practical point is only that a cost netted off a payout does not appear in the per-gram figure, so a seller comparing per-gram figures alone will not see it.

Said in fairness, because it matters: Hatton Garden Metals also publish a route with no pack fee on it at all. Package the items yourself and no pack fee arises, and their pack request page states that if you decline their offer they return the items free of charge. The criticism here is about where the fee is disclosed relative to the word free, not about the existence of a fee. There is a fuller, separately dated comparison on GoldPaid vs Hatton Garden Metals.

The terms side by side

Every cell describing another company records what that company’s own published pages said on 31 August 2026. It is not a test of what any buyer does in practice, it is not independent research, and terms change without notice.

The terms of ours that cost you something

A comparison page written by one of the companies in it has an obvious problem, so here are the GoldPaid terms a seller might reasonably dislike, in plain words.

• The postal cover is Royal Mail’s, not ours. Royal Mail cover may be available up to £2,500 depending on the postal method and cover level used. GoldPaid’s own liability is limited to the value of the items, and the Royal Mail compensation claim is yours to make, with our help. Vintage Cash Cow’s published in-house scheme is a stronger structure than that.
• We did not publish the higher rate on the day this page was checked. Cash For Your Gold did, by 90p a gram on 9ct, and on a parcel of about 30 grams or more that gap outgrows the free label and their own payment charge put together.
• Photo ID is required from every seller, on every transaction. That is friction, and some people will not want to send it. It is our own practice as a precious-metals buyer rather than a regime we are supervised under; the detail is on payments, cash and money laundering rules.
• There is no shop. GoldPaid is postal only and UK-wide, with no counter anywhere. If you want to hand items across a desk and be paid in the room, this is the wrong service and a high-street buyer is the right one.
• No figure is firm before inspection. Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market. If you want a number locked before posting, some buyers offer that and we do not.

How to check any of this yourself

1. Open each buyer’s terms and conditions page and use your browser’s find function for four words: stone, melt, return and transit. Those four searches surface most of what matters in under ten minutes.
2. Note the date you read them, because terms change without notice and an undated note is worth very little later.
3. Take the published per-gram rate for your carat, divide it by the fineness (0.375 for 9ct, 0.750 for 18ct, 0.916 for 22ct) and divide the result by the live fine-gold price per gram. That gives you each buyer’s share of spot on one consistent basis.
4. Add the postage you will pay, and subtract any pack fee that is netted off a payout, before you compare anything.
5. Ask each buyer the same question in writing: what happens to a stone-set ring if I decline. The answer, or the absence of one, tells you most of what you need.

How this page was checked, and how to correct it

Every competitor statement on this page was read from that company’s own published pages on 31 August 2026 and is quoted verbatim or reported as written. The pages read were cashforyourgold.co.uk/terms-and-conditions, /frequently-asked-questions, /how-it-works and /gold-price-per-gram-by-carat; gold-traders.co.uk/terms/, /prices-we-pay/ and /prices-we-pay/gold-prices/9ct/; vintagecashcow.co.uk/terms-and-conditions and its homepage; and hattongardenmetals.com/customer/ordergoldpack.aspx and its homepage. Older paths that are sometimes quoted for these companies no longer resolve, so they are not cited here. We have not mystery-shopped anyone, we make no claim about what any company does in practice, and we do not claim that GoldPaid pays more than any named firm. Terms of business change without notice, so the date is part of the fact: check the current version on each company’s own site before you act on anything here.

If anything on this page is out of date, incomplete or wrong, including if you work for one of the companies named, tell us and we will correct it and re-date the page. Call or message 07944 014111 on WhatsApp. GoldPaid is the trading name of GOLDPAID LTD, company number 17382540, registered in England and Wales. It is a postal service, UK-wide, with no shop and no counter.

How selling works here

1. Start on WhatsApp. A couple of clear photos of your gold and silver are enough for us to give you a quick indicative figure at no charge.
2. Claim your free postage. We issue a prepaid, tracked, signed-for Royal Mail Special Delivery label, or a QR code for the Post Office.
3. Post in your own time. Any padded envelope works, and there is no deadline to meet.
4. Get a written valuation. Each item is weighed on calibrated scales and read by XRF spectrometry, and the itemised offer is sent to you in writing, usually on the working day your parcel arrives.
5. Accept or walk away. Acceptance means payment by Faster Payments; declining means a free, fully tracked return.

When your parcel reaches us it is signed for, opened on camera and photographed exactly as it arrives, before anything is weighed or tested. The contents are logged against the description you gave when you asked for the label, so what we record and what you sent are checked against each other on day one. Those arrival photographs exist for every parcel and you can ask for them at any point.

How we value what you send

Every offer is built from three measurable facts: confirmed purity, accurate weight, and the live precious-metal market rate on the day we assess your items. You see each figure in a written breakdown before you decide anything. See how we value gold and XRF testing explained for the full method.

Every item is weighed on calibrated scales and XRF-assayed, and the written offer shows purity, weight, the rate used and the figure on separate lines so you can rebuild the total yourself. Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market.

One parcel gets one written figure, itemised piece by piece. The rates published on this site are a rough guide to what your weight comes to at the last published rates, with our margin already inside the figure. Your written offer follows an XRF assay of your specific items, and shows the confirmed purity, the payable weight and the rate used. Collectables, sovereigns, watches and signed pieces are valued individually by hand.

How your parcel is protected

Your items travel on Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed: fully tracked and signed for on delivery, and Royal Mail cover may be available up to £2,500 depending on the postal method and cover level used. Cover level is confirmed with you (WhatsApp, email or the form’s description) before the label is issued. Worth more than that? Tell us before you post. £2,500 is the highest cover level Royal Mail sells, so we split the items across separate prepaid labels, each within its own cover, at no charge to you. See postage and cover for the full picture.

If you decide not to sell

There is never any obligation to accept. If the offer is not for you, simply decline, and we return everything free of charge by tracked, signed-for post, with no fee and no follow-up pressure. The full return process is on what happens if I decline the offer.

Two things worth knowing before you post. There is no countdown on the offer and no expiry date attached to it, so you can take the time you need and forward the written valuation to anyone else who has to see it. And you may accept part of a parcel and decline the rest: there is no minimum acceptance and no penalty for splitting it.

Being paid

If you accept, payment follows by Faster Payments within one working hour of acceptance, transferred directly to your bank account. It is the last step, and a simple one.

Common questions

Not the question you had? The full GoldPaid FAQ covers the rest, from postal cover and ID checks to what happens if you decline the offer.

Related pages

• Compare UK gold buyers
• GoldPaid vs Hatton Garden Metals
• GoldPaid vs Vintage Cash Cow
• Diamonds and gemstones policy
• What happens if I decline the offer
• Postage and cover
• Our position
• Sell watches by post, old and new
• Sell 18ct gold
• Sell Art Deco gold jewellery
• Our programme for charity shops