Silver is cheaper than gold. It is not calmer — we measured 180 days

Silver is sold as the affordable metal. A gram costs ₹249.90 against gold's ₹15,268 — one sixty-first of the price — so it is where people go for coins, gifts, utensils and a first purchase.

Cheaper per gram, yes. Calmer, no. We went back through 180 days of our own daily records, 28 March to 23 September 2026, and silver turned out to be the more violent of the two by a wide margin.

The six-month scoreboard

	Silver	24K gold
Start (28 Mar)	₹245.00 /g	₹14,812 /g
End (23 Sep)	₹249.90 /g	₹15,332 /g
Change	+2.0%	+3.5%
Period high	₹310 /g (13 May)	₹16,397 /g (24 Aug)
Period low	₹230 /g (17 Jul)	₹14,018 /g (25 Jun)
Worst fall from a peak	−25.8%	−13.6%

Silver gained less and fell nearly twice as hard. Its worst stretch took it from ₹310 a gram on 13 May to ₹230 on 17 July — in per-kilogram terms, the units silver is actually bought in, from ₹3,10,000 to ₹2,30,000 a kilogram in nine weeks.

Month by month it is not subtle:

Month	Silver	Gold
April	−2.0%	−0.1%
May	+9.8%	+4.3%
June	−16.1%	−10.3%
July	−2.1%	+2.7%
August	+8.5%	+8.7%

Now the part most write-ups get backwards

Look at how often each metal moved at all:

	Days it moved	Days flat
Silver	72 of 179 (40%)	97 (54%)
24K gold	151 of 179 (84%)	28 (16%)

Silver stood completely still on more than half the days. Gold barely ever did.

Read casually, that says silver is the steadier metal. It says nothing of the kind. The explanation is in how the two are quoted.

Over 180 days, gold took 136 different values and its smallest non-zero move was ₹1 a gram. Silver took 20 different values, and its moves came in steps of ₹5, ₹10, ₹15 and ₹20 a gram — essentially never anything in between.

Silver is published in ₹5-per-gram steps. Gold is published in ₹1 steps. That is ₹5,000 per kilogram as the smallest increment silver is normally quoted in.

So silver's price does not drift; it sits, then jumps. When it did move, the median move was ₹5 a gram — ₹5,000 a kilogram, 2.0% of the price in one day. Gold's average day was 0.73%.

This is worth being precise about, because it cuts against a statistic we could have quoted and left alone. Silver's average daily move works out to 1.11% of its price against gold's 0.73%, which makes silver look about half again as jumpy. The truer picture is starker: silver is flat most days and then moves in 2% jumps. A run of quiet days is a quoting convention, not a calm market.

What that means if you are buying

A week of "no change" is not information. With gold, a flat day is genuinely unusual and tells you something. With silver, it is the default. Do not read a still silver rate as a stable market — the next revision may be 2% in one step.

The city barely matters. Across 96 cities today, silver had two distinct prices, ₹244.90 and ₹249.90 a gram. A ₹5 spread nationally, which is one quoting step. Where you buy is not the variable.

Per kilogram is the honest unit. Silver's per-gram price makes moves look tiny — ₹5 sounds like nothing. The same move on a one-kilogram purchase is ₹5,000. If you are buying utensils or a kilo bar, convert before you judge.

Making and wastage charges bite harder. On gold, a jeweller's making charge is a percentage of a large metal cost. On silver the metal cost is small, so the same percentage is a much bigger share of what you hand over. For a silver article, ask for metal cost and making charge as separate lines and look at the ratio between them — it is often nothing like the gold equivalent.

The gold-to-silver ratio, measured

The ratio — how many grams of silver buy one gram of gold — is the number people quote to argue that one metal is cheap relative to the other. Ours over the period:

	Ratio
28 March	60.5
23 September	61.4
Lowest	52.3 (13 May)
Highest	63.3 (19 August)

It travelled from 52.3 to 63.3 and ended roughly where it started. On 13 May, silver's best day relative to gold, it took 52 grams of silver to match a gram of gold; by 19 August it took 63.

That is a 21% swing in the ratio inside five months, which should be enough to retire the idea that it is a reliable signal about anything. It is a description of where two prices happen to be, and it moves as much as they do.

So which should you buy

Different jobs, and the honest answer depends on which one you have.

For gifting and festivals, silver does what it is asked to at a price that does not need discussion. Coins and small articles, and the metal price is a modest part of what you pay.

For utensils and articles you will keep, buy on the article, not the timing. You are mostly buying craft, and waiting for a ₹5 step to go your way is not worth the delay.

For holding value, understand what you are taking on. Silver fell 25.8% from its peak inside our six months and still ended up only 2.0%. Gold's worst fall was 13.6% and it ended up 3.5%. Silver is the more industrial metal and it behaves like one.

For a first purchase, silver is the cheaper way in, which is a real advantage and the main one. Just do not buy it under the impression that a cheaper metal is a quieter one.

Today's rate for your city is on our silver page, with gold alongside it and the full list on our city pages.

Frequently asked questions

Is silver more volatile than gold? Yes, clearly. Over our 180 days silver's worst fall from a peak was 25.8% against gold's 13.6%, and its worst month was −16.1% against gold's −10.3% — while gaining less overall, 2.0% to gold's 3.5%.

Why does the silver rate stay the same for days? Because silver is quoted in steps of about ₹5 a gram, or ₹5,000 a kilogram. It sat unchanged on 97 of 179 days and then moved in a single step. Gold is quoted in ₹1 steps and barely ever sits still.

How much does silver move when it moves? The median move was ₹5 a gram, which is ₹5,000 a kilogram, about 2.0% of the price in one day.

Does the silver rate differ between cities? Hardly. Across 96 cities on 25 September 2026 there were just two prices, ₹244.90 and ₹249.90 a gram — a ₹5 spread, which is one quoting step.

What is the gold-to-silver ratio right now? About 61 on our last reading. Over six months it ranged from 52.3 to 63.3, a 21% swing, which is why it is a poor basis for a decision.

Is silver a good investment? We publish measurements, not advice. What the measurements say is that silver moves further in both directions than gold and, over this particular six months, gained less while falling harder.

Figures are national medians from our own daily collection, 28 March to 23 September 2026. They describe what happened, not what will. Nothing here is investment advice.