One of the first things that confuses new gold buyers is the units. A price quoted “per ounce” means something different from “per gram,” and across Asia and the Middle East you will meet the tola, the baht, and the vori too. Knowing what each unit is — and how they convert — makes comparing prices effortless.
The gram and the kilogram
The gram is the everyday metric unit, used worldwide for jewelry and small bars; most local prices are quoted per gram. A kilogram is 1,000 grams (about 32.15 troy ounces) — the format favoured by institutions and serious investors because kilo bars carry the lowest premium per gram.
The troy ounce — the global benchmark
When you read that gold is “$X an ounce,” that is a troy ounce: about 31.1035 grams, slightly heavier than the standard (avoirdupois) ounce of 28.35 grams used for groceries. The troy ounce is the unit the international market prices gold in, and one-ounce coins like the Eagle and Britannia are built around it. Mixing up the two ounces overstates a valuation by roughly 10%, so always use the troy ounce for gold.
The tola and other regional units
The tola, about 11.6638 grams, is deeply rooted in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Gulf, where gold is often bought and gifted by the tola at weddings and festivals. Bangladesh uses the vori (the same weight as the tola), Thailand uses the baht (about 15.244 grams), and parts of East Asia use the tael. These traditional units coexist with grams, so the same shop may quote both.
Converting between units
Every conversion runs through grams: to value any weight, convert it to grams, divide by 31.1035 to get troy ounces, and multiply by the price per ounce and the karat purity. For example, one tola of pure gold is 11.6638 ÷ 31.1035 ≈ 0.375 troy ounces. Rather than doing this by hand, our gold converter handles grams, tolas, troy ounces, kilos and more instantly at the live price — and our unit reference table lists the grams in every unit.