Market Calendar
The Retail Premium Index

Silver Round Premiums Relative to Spot, Month by Month

In August 2026 the Generic 1 oz silver round carried 1.9% over spot, or $1.25 an ounce over the metal value, against 3.4% for the silver composite in the same month.

Retail Premium Index, August 20261.9%$1.25 per ounce over spotbelow every prior month of its own history
August 20268 of 12 silver benchmarks this month
1-year average5.4%
All-history average8.2%155 months
Retail Premium Index silver composite, August 20263.4%

The year's range so far1.9% in August 2026 to 8.7% in February 2026

captured 31 Aug 2026 · How these numbers are made

Month by month

Compare against:
-10.0%0.0%10.0%20.0%30.0%40.0%50.0%April 2013April 2015December 2016August 2018April 2020December 2021August 2023April 2025
See the figures
Generic 1 oz silver round and Silver composite, by month
CategoryGeneric 1 oz silver roundSilver composite
April 201316.0%
September 20135.4%10.0%
October 20134.8%9.5%
November 20136.0%9.5%
December 20136.0%8.1%
January 20147.7%9.7%
February 20148.5%
March 20148.6%8.9%
April 20145.3%9.2%
May 20146.3%10.0%
June 20144.9%10.0%
July 20145.3%7.4%
August 20145.4%8.5%
September 20145.5%9.1%
October 20146.0%12.8%
November 20146.2%17.1%
December 20146.9%15.9%
January 20158.3%13.8%
February 20158.9%14.1%
March 20156.6%13.9%
April 20156.8%13.8%
May 20155.7%14.2%
June 20156.6%14.7%
July 20157.3%18.7%
August 201512.7%19.4%
September 201517.2%20.3%
October 201514.0%17.1%
November 20158.3%15.5%
December 20159.6%15.9%
January 20166.6%15.2%
February 20165.0%14.2%
March 20164.8%13.3%
April 20164.8%13.8%
May 20164.9%13.7%
June 20164.1%12.5%
July 20163.7%10.1%
August 20164.1%11.0%
September 20163.4%9.8%
October 20164.3%11.1%
November 20164.3%11.9%
December 20163.6%11.4%
January 20173.7%11.5%
February 20173.7%8.9%
March 20174.3%9.1%
April 20174.6%10.9%
May 20174.4%11.6%
June 20173.2%11.2%
July 20173.7%11.8%
August 20174.1%10.9%
September 20173.4%10.6%
October 20173.2%8.1%
November 20172.7%8.0%
December 20173.2%7.7%
January 20183.2%8.2%
February 20183.8%6.3%
March 20183.5%7.9%
April 20183.6%11.2%
May 20183.3%11.2%
June 20183.0%10.5%
July 20183.2%9.8%
August 20183.7%10.4%
September 20184.1%8.6%
October 20184.3%12.8%
November 20185.1%11.0%
December 20185.6%12.3%
January 20195.0%11.9%
February 20194.9%11.8%
March 20195.1%11.7%
April 20195.3%11.2%
May 20195.5%11.0%
June 20194.6%10.6%
July 20195.0%11.2%
August 20194.4%10.2%
September 20194.3%10.0%
October 20194.0%9.0%
November 20194.5%10.8%
December 20194.8%8.5%
January 20204.4%10.6%
February 20204.8%10.1%
March 202016.7%16.6%
April 202023.6%38.8%
May 202017.9%29.6%
June 202014.1%17.8%
July 202012.5%16.8%
August 202012.3%15.8%
September 202011.5%15.1%
October 20208.6%13.8%
November 20208.4%10.7%
December 20207.8%9.3%
January 20218.5%11.1%
February 202120.3%20.1%
March 202119.1%20.6%
April 202119.1%22.9%
May 202116.7%20.2%
June 202115.6%18.8%
July 202114.4%16.7%
August 202111.3%16.1%
September 202113.1%16.1%
October 202113.6%17.2%
November 202113.5%15.3%
December 202115.4%17.8%
January 202214.1%17.0%
February 202213.6%16.9%
March 202215.3%19.3%
April 202219.0%24.8%
May 202220.8%27.5%
June 202216.8%24.6%
July 202222.2%24.8%
August 202221.5%25.8%
September 202220.8%28.9%
October 202227.4%31.9%
November 202219.9%30.8%
December 202217.1%17.9%
January 202310.1%15.9%
February 202312.6%15.5%
March 202316.8%18.3%
April 202318.6%20.4%
May 202316.9%19.4%
June 202314.9%17.5%
July 202312.2%16.6%
August 20239.7%16.8%
September 20238.9%13.2%
October 20238.8%14.0%
November 20237.8%13.9%
December 20237.2%14.8%
January 20247.7%14.9%
February 20245.9%14.1%
March 20247.2%13.0%
April 20248.5%10.6%
May 20245.2%9.4%
June 20244.7%10.4%
July 20244.9%10.2%
August 20244.9%9.6%
September 20244.9%9.6%
October 20245.9%9.4%
November 20244.7%9.1%
December 20247.6%9.6%
January 20254.8%6.9%
February 20255.0%6.8%
March 20254.2%6.5%
April 20255.1%7.7%
May 20255.8%9.8%
June 20254.3%6.9%
July 20254.4%5.5%
August 20254.5%6.1%
September 20254.4%4.8%
October 20255.9%7.8%
November 20254.9%5.7%
December 20254.7%5.9%
January 20266.4%7.5%
February 20268.7%10.9%
March 20266.3%7.6%
April 20265.8%6.0%
May 20266.1%6.1%
June 20263.0%3.5%
July 20266.2%7.7%
August 20261.9%3.4%
Monthly premium over spot, September 2013 to August 2026, against the silver composite.

Based on SD Bullion transaction data. Figures before March 2019 are historical estimates.

Some months of this series were revised at the latest publish. See Revisions

Silver premiums | Compare with Silver Eagle

Look up a month

The month's premium
1.9% · $1.25/oz
2026 range
1.9%-8.7%

What moves this premium

Privately minted one-ounce silver rounds from recognised refiners, .999 fine, no face value and no government backing. Rounds are silver in its most commodity-like retail form: the premium covers minting, distribution and the dealer's margin, and little else. This is the floor series of the index. The distance between the round premium and the Eagle premium is the price of the sovereign brand, and the round series itself is the clearest read of pure retail-market tightness.

What miners pay to produce an ounce is the other half of the picture: see what the tracked producers spend against the metal price.Miner margins

About the Generic 1 oz silver round

Manufacturer
Various private mints
Product type
Private bullion round
Silver content
1 troy oz
Fineness
.999, typically
Legal tender
No
Face value
None
Design
Varies by mint

Premium benchmark: standard 1 oz silver rounds of every brand; excludes themed and collector designs, proofs and graded pieces.

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The Retail Premium Index

Questions buyers ask

Why are silver rounds cheaper than Silver Eagles?

A round is silver with a design, not a coin with a government behind it. No mint seigniorage, no legal-tender standing, no single brand to pay for. What you pay over spot is the refiner striking it, the distributor moving it and the dealer stocking it, and that is a thinner stack than the Eagle carries. The series averages every brand of one-ounce round sold, so it reads as the market for plain silver, not one design.

What is a normal silver round premium?

Low and steady most of the time: the round is the closest thing to buying spot silver in a form you can hold. Two things push it up: a rush that empties the shelves of everything one-ounce, and a squeeze in the Eagle that sends buyers looking for the cheaper ounce. Watch the gap between the Eagle and the round on the silver page: when it widens, buyers are paying for the brand, not the metal.

Is a round as easy to sell as a coin?

Easy, not effortless. Rounds trade on their silver content, and in normal markets dealers have historically bought them back close to melt, which is why the premium going in is small. That is not a promise: through the heavy selling of the past year and a half the spread between bid and ask widened, and rounds were at times bought back ten to fifteen percent under spot. A coin tends to bring a stronger bid because the next buyer wants that coin; a round brings whatever the market for plain silver is paying that week.

How to read this page

The Retail Premium Index publishes the average premium paid on retail orders at SD Bullion, month by month, for each benchmark bullion product. A premium is what a buyer pays above the metal value of the piece, as a share of that value; a dollar figure is shown only where the record carries it. It includes the mint's and the distributor's charges as well as the dealer's, so it is not a measure of dealer margin.

A premium can also be negative: when the metal price moves very fast, some products have sold for less than the metal in them, and the series shows that as it happened.

Where next

The Retail Premium Index is a free public resource published for educational purposes only. It is compiled from real transaction records and from market data we license, using the methods described on the methodology page, and we correct it when we find errors. It is not a price quote, an offer to buy or sell, or investment advice, and it may not match figures compiled by other dealers or from other sources, whose products, pricing and methods differ from ours. The methods, the products covered and the period covered may change over time; nothing about the continuation, consistency or method of the index is guaranteed, and any figure may be revised or withdrawn. Past premiums do not indicate future premiums. The figures come from one retailer's own records of completed orders, and for the months before March 2019 from estimates of what the metal was worth at the time of each sale.

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