Price Comparison

The price we show is the typical customer price.

Most dealer sites publish multiple prices for the same product depending on payment method (wire / ACH / credit card / crypto) and quantity (1 unit / tube / monster box). The advertised "as low as" price you see at the top of a product page is almost always the wire-transfer-with-bulk-discount price — which most customers don't qualify for.

To represent what a typical customer actually pays, we collect every published price for each dealer-product combination and use the median across all observations. The median sits in the middle of the distribution: above the wire/bulk teaser but below the highest credit-card-no-discount price. It's a more honest signal of what's in your cart at checkout.

Two data sources, both transparent.

Sanity floors.

Each product has a floor for the median premium it can plausibly have (e.g., a 100 oz silver bar median can't realistically be below 3% over spot). When a scrape returns a row below the floor, we treat it as a parse error or a wire-tier teaser and fall back to the static estimate. This is what stops a "0.2% premium" from ever appearing on the leaderboard.

What "premium" means.

Premium is the markup over spot price. If silver spot is $80/oz and an American Silver Eagle costs $84.32, the premium is $4.32 (5.4%). Premium covers the dealer's cost to stock, handle, and ship the coin, plus their margin. Lower premium = better deal for the same metal content.

What we don't show.

• The "as low as" wire-tier price. If you pay by bank wire and qualify for bulk pricing, you'll typically save 3–5% below what we show. The dealer's product page will quote the exact wire price.
• Sales tax. Tax depends on your state and the dealer's nexus. Always check at checkout.
• Shipping cost. Where a dealer's free-shipping threshold is shown (e.g. "Free over $199"), we factor that into our recommendations. Below the threshold, expect $5–25 shipping.

How we make money.

Silver Linings earns affiliate commission when you click through to a dealer and complete a purchase. Commission rates do not influence ranking. The lowest premium always sorts first. We disclose dealer relationships transparently, and you can always cross-check our numbers against the dealer's own site before you buy.