Walk into a jewellery shop, a coin dealer and a bullion counter on the same afternoon, and ask for a gram of gold. You’ll be quoted three different prices for the same metal.
None of them is wrong. They’re different products with different costs attached. Here’s what you’re paying for in each case.
Jewellery
The gold in a chain is the same element as the gold in a bar. What differs is everything around it.
Jewellery prices include design, craftsmanship, finishing and retail overheads. That’s a legitimate cost — you’re buying an object made to be worn, not a commodity.
Two things are worth knowing before buying jewellery as a way to own gold.
GST applies. Singapore exempts qualifying Investment Precious Metals from GST. Jewellery doesn’t qualify, so it’s taxable at the prevailing rate.
The craftsmanship doesn’t come back. When jewellery is sold back, it’s typically valued on gold content, less a deduction — not on what you paid. The design premium is a cost of the object, not a stored value.
Coins
Bullion coins carry a fabrication premium like any minted product, and often a collectability premium on top — driven by mintage, condition, year and demand from collectors rather than by the gold inside.
For a collector, that premium is the point. For someone who simply wants to own gold, it’s a cost that may or may not be recoverable when selling.
Small bars over the counter
A 1g bar contains one-hundredth of the gold in a 100g bar. But minting, assaying and packaging it costs nowhere near one-hundredth as much.
So the premium per gram rises sharply as bar size falls. Buying gold in small physical denominations is the most expensive way to own it per gram — not because anyone is overcharging, but because manufacturing costs don’t scale down.
This is the real trade-off for smaller buyers: buy small and pay more per gram, or wait until you can afford a larger bar.
Buying through a platform
A platform that sells physical gold online has a different cost structure again. Bars are acquired and vaulted in bulk rather than fabricated per transaction, and there’s no retail floor space.
That structure isn’t automatically cheaper. It simply means the costs sit in different places, and the sensible comparison is the total, not the label.
How to compare properly
The purchase price is one line in a longer sum:
Cost to buy + cost to own + cost to exit.
Ask four questions of any provider:
- What’s the all-in price per gram, including everything, before I confirm?
- What does it cost to store, and for how long?
- What will you buy it back at today?
- What does it cost to take physical delivery, and what’s the minimum?
A provider with a low entry price and expensive storage costs more over five years. A cheap purchase with a wide buy-back gap hurts if you exit early. Add it up across the whole journey.
Where FinMet sits
We won’t claim to be the cheapest gold in Singapore. Any provider can undercut any other on a given product on a given day, and a claim like that would be worth nothing by the time you read it.
What we will say is what our pricing does:
One all-in price per gram, refreshed every 30 seconds, shown in full before you confirm. Nothing is added at checkout.
Storage free for three years from each purchase.
Whole grams from one gram — no need to save up for a larger bar to avoid small-denomination premiums.
A live buy-back price, published alongside the buy price, so you can see both sides of the market before you commit.
Compare that against anything. That’s the point of publishing it.
Frequently asked questions
Is jewellery a good way to own gold? It’s a good way to own jewellery. The gold content is real, but the price includes design and craftsmanship that generally isn’t recovered on resale, and GST applies because jewellery isn’t classed as Investment Precious Metals.
Why do gold coins cost more than bars? Coins carry minting costs and often a collectability premium tied to mintage and condition. That premium is separate from the gold content and may not be recoverable when you sell.
Is it cheaper to buy one 100g bar than a hundred 1g bars? Per gram, yes. Fabrication, assaying and packaging costs don’t fall in proportion to bar size, so small denominations carry higher premiums per gram.
Do I pay GST on gold in Singapore? Not on qualifying Investment Precious Metals, which must meet IRAS criteria including a minimum gold purity of 99.5%. Jewellery and non-qualifying products remain taxable.