Ask the price of gold in Chennai and you may be quoted per sovereign. In Kochi it's per pavan, in an old Delhi family per tola, and on every bank, exchange and hallmarked bill per gram. They're all the same gold measured differently, and mixing them up is one of the easiest ways to misread a quote. This guide explains each unit and how to convert between them.
The units at a glance
| Unit | Grams | Where you'll hear it |
|---|---|---|
| Gram | 1 | Everywhere: bills, hallmarks, banks, IBJA rates |
| 10 grams | 10 | The most common way rates are quoted in the media |
| Sovereign / pavan | 8 | Tamil Nadu, Kerala, parts of Karnataka and Andhra |
| Tola | 11.6638 | North and West India, older family records, the Gulf |
| Troy ounce | 31.1035 | International spot prices (in US dollars) |
Today's 24K rate in each unit, at the national rate:
- Per gram: ₹14,171.02 per gram (24K, 26 Oct 2026)
- Per sovereign: ₹1,13,368.16 per sovereign (24K, 26 Oct 2026)
- Per tola: ₹1,65,287.94 per tola (24K, 26 Oct 2026)
- Per troy ounce: ₹4,40,768.32 per troy ounce (24K, 26 Oct 2026)
The gram: the only unit on your bill
Since hallmarking and GST invoicing became the norm, the gram is the legal and commercial unit for gold in India. The IBJA reference rate is per gram, hallmarking records are per gram, and a proper tax invoice states the weight in grams to two or three decimal places. Whatever unit a jeweller quotes verbally, the bill is calculated in grams, so it's worth converting any quote to grams before comparing two shops.
The 10-gram rate isn't a separate unit, just a convenient multiple. News reports quote it because the per-gram figure for 24K is in the thousands and the 10-gram one is a rounder lakh-scale number.
The sovereign and the pavan: 8 grams
In Tamil Nadu and Kerala, gold jewellery is traditionally counted in sovereigns (Tamil: savaran) or pavan (Malayalam). Both mean exactly 8 grams. A "5-pavan necklace" weighs 40 g, and a bride's "50-sovereign" set is 400 g.
The name comes from the British gold sovereign coin, which weighed about 7.99 g. The coin circulated in South India in the colonial era, and the round 8 g figure stuck as a jewellery unit long after the coin itself disappeared. Two points to keep straight:
- A sovereign is a weight, not a purity. It's usually quoted for 22K (916) jewellery gold, so a "per-sovereign rate" in a Chennai showroom normally means 8 × the 22K per-gram rate. Today that's ₹1,04,440.80 per sovereign (22K, Chennai, 26 Oct 2026).
- It includes nothing but metal. The sovereign rate on a board outside the shop is metal value only. Wastage (often quoted as VA, value addition), making charges and GST come on top, exactly as with a per-gram quote.
The Chennai gold rate and Kochi gold rate pages show the per-sovereign price for every purity.
The tola: 11.6638 grams
The tola is the traditional unit of North and West India and is still widely used across the Gulf. One tola is 11.6638 grams. The figure comes from the British Indian standard of 180 grains, which was also the weight of the old silver rupee coin.
You'll meet the tola in three places today:
- Family records and older jewellery. A grandparent's "two-tola chain" weighs about 23.3 g.
- Bars from the Gulf. The popular "TT bar" (ten tola) weighs 116.64 g. It isn't a 100 g bar, and the difference is worth over ₹2 lakh at today's 24K rate.
- Informal quotes. Some traders loosely say "tola" when they mean 10 grams. If a quote seems about 17% off, ask which tola is meant.
Traditional subdivisions you may still see on very old bills: 1 tola = 12 masha, and 1 masha = 8 ratti. That makes a masha about 0.97 g and a ratti about 0.12 g.
The troy ounce: how the world prices gold
International gold is priced in US dollars per troy ounce, and one troy ounce is 31.1035 g. It's slightly heavier than the everyday (avoirdupois) ounce of 28.35 g. Indian rates start from this international price, convert it to rupees, then add import duty and GST, which is why the Indian per-gram rate is always higher than a straight dollar-to-rupee conversion of the spot price. What moves the gold rate in India explains each layer.
Converting a quote: worked examples
Everything converts through the gram:
- Per sovereign → per gram: divide by 8. If the 22K rate is quoted at ₹1,07,000 per sovereign, the per-gram rate is ₹13,375.
- Per tola → per gram: divide by 11.6638. A ₹1,70,000 per tola quote is ₹14,575 per gram.
- Per gram → per tola: multiply by 11.6638. ₹14,500 per gram is about ₹1,69,125 per tola.
- Weight in pavan → grams: multiply by 8. A 3½-pavan chain weighs 28 g.
- Weight in tola → grams: multiply by 11.6638. A 5-tola set weighs about 58.3 g.
Then multiply the weight in grams by the per-gram rate for the right purity to get the metal value. The jewellery calculator does this and itemises wastage, making and GST. The price table on the home page lists the rate per gram, 10 g, tola, sovereign and ounce for every purity.
Common mistakes
- Comparing a sovereign quote with a gram quote. ₹1,07,000 and ₹13,400 can be almost exactly the same price: one is per 8 g, the other per gram.
- Assuming a sovereign is 24K. Showroom sovereign rates are normally 22K. Coins sold "per sovereign" may be 22K or 24K, so check the hallmark (916 or 999).
- Using the 10-gram "tola". If a seller converts at 10 g to the tola, a 5-tola piece is 50 g, not 58.3 g. That's a 14% gap in your favour or theirs.
Whatever the unit, the hallmark and the bill are in grams, and that's the number to trust.