What's the Cheapest Way to Buy an Ounce of Silver in 2026?
By G&SS Founder · April 23, 2026 · 7-minute read
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Educational only: This article is for general information and is not investment, tax, or legal advice.
The quick answer
The cheapest ounce of silver you can buy online today is a generic 1 oz silver round, currently listed at , a premium of over spot. If you're stacking for pure spot exposure and don't care about the design on the coin, that's your answer. Stop reading, click through, done.
If liquidity and resale matter and in my experience they usually do, the answer changes. Keep reading.
The three ways to buy an ounce of silver
Every retail buyer is choosing between three formats, and each one trades premium for something else:
Generic silver rounds. Private-mint rounds — 1 oz of .999 silver, often with interesting designs or simple finishes, but non-government issued. Always the cheapest option by a meaningful margin, typically 3–5% over spot. You give up perceived government brand recognition and some resale liquidity, though not much if you buy from reputable mints.
Government coins. The most popular are American Silver Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs, Austrian Philharmonics, and British Britannias. These coins are guaranteed by a sovereign mint, technically serve as legal tender, and are globally recognized. You pay for that with a premium that runs 8–15% over spot in most market conditions, sometimes higher for Silver Eagles specifically. It's common, however, that when you go to sell your sovereign coins, buyers tend to pay a higher premium on the resale, so you recapture some of that. They make for a solid stack in my opinion. I recommend you always buy these in their best condition possible, typically labeled as BU (Brilliant Uncirculated) condition, for resale purposes.
1 oz silver bars. Private-mint bars from refiners like Sunshine, Asahi, and Scottsdale. Premiums sit between rounds and coins, usually 4–7% over spot. Slightly easier to stack and store than rounds.
Live pricing: cheapest 1 oz silver across every format
A few things to notice in that table. The generic round is almost always cheapest on sticker price. But the dealer shipping the cheapest round isn't necessarily the dealer shipping the cheapest Eagle, these are separate sales and often depend on the dealer's inventory. The payment method you choose can erase a full percentage point of the premium difference, which we'll get to.
How we rank "cheapest"
A word on what "cheapest" actually means here, because it's the question savvy stackers always ask and most aggregators dodge.
We compare premium over spot, not sticker price. Sticker price changes every minute as spot moves; premium is what you're actually paying the dealer to get silver into your hands. All prices are pulled live from each dealer's listed wire-transfer price (the lowest tier), exclude shipping, and reflect what's in stock right now. If a dealer is out of stock, they don't show up in that ranking until inventory comes back.
We make it our goal to only provide prices from reputable online dealers, and we don't rank dealers we don't have an affiliate relationship with. That's a real limitation and worth naming. The trade-off is that we can tell you honestly which of the dealers we do list is currently cheapest, without hiding behind "contact us for a quote."
Why premiums are different across government coins, rounds, and bars
The premium gap between generic rounds and Silver Eagles isn't arbitrary. Three things drive it:
Mint margin. The US Mint charges authorized distributors a premium over spot, currently around $2.00/oz for Silver Eagles. That premium gets marked up again by the dealer. Private mints producing generic rounds have much lower overhead and much thinner margins.
Demand. Silver Eagles are the most-searched silver coin in the US. When demand spikes i.e. 2020, 2022, briefly in early 2025, Eagle premiums can blow out to 30%+ over spot while generic rounds stay in the 5–7% range. You're paying for a name brand that everyone knows and trusts.
Resale liquidity. If you need to sell 10 or 100 ounces fast, a local coin shop will buy Silver Eagles back at 3–5% under spot without blinking. They'll buy generic rounds too, but often at 5–8% under spot. Government coins typically hold their resale premium; generic rounds don't.
Payment. Here's the thing that surprises most first-time buyers. The "cheapest" price listed on every major bullion dealer's site is the wire transfer price. If you pay by credit card, almost every dealer adds a 3–4% surcharge. We wrote about this specifically in Wire Transfer vs Credit Card.
That surcharge can make a government coin paid by wire cheaper than a generic round paid by credit card.
Shipping. Dealers often provide free shipping on orders over a certain amount. These days, that's not hard to accomplish and it's worth getting the free shipping.
Sales tax. Also worth noting: be aware of your state's sales tax policy. Some states, not all, will charge sales tax if the order minimum doesn't meet a certain threshold. For example, in California, if you order less than $2,000 worth of gold and silver bullion, sales tax will apply.
So which one should you actually buy?
Three honest recommendations depending on what you're actually trying to do:
If you want maximum silver for minimum dollars: buy generic 1 oz rounds, pay by wire, and accept that you're giving up some resale flexibility and premium recapture.
If you want silver that any buyer anywhere will recognize: buy American Silver Eagles. You'll pay a higher premium, but you're also buying a liquidity guarantee and, frankly, a really cool coin. The current cheapest Eagle sits at , with a premium of over spot.
If you're stacking volume and storing for years: 1 oz silver bars are the quiet compromise. Cheaper than coins, more recognizable than generic rounds, easier to stack.
An experienced stacker will begin to accumulate all three types because each serves a different purpose, and often online dealers will run specials where you can pick up certain items at really good premiums, sometimes even at or below spot.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked
Why are generic silver rounds so much cheaper than Silver Eagles?
The US Mint charges dealers a premium of about $2/oz to produce Silver Eagles, and dealers mark that up again. Private mints producing generic rounds have overhead measured in pennies per ounce, so the savings flow through to you. You're paying for the US Mint's logistics, not for silver you don't get.
Is the cheapest silver always the best choice?
No. "Cheapest" optimizes for one thing, premium over spot today and ignores resale, recognition, and storage. For a first purchase under $1,000, most stackers are better served buying recognizable government coins even at a higher premium. For volume stacking above $5,000, the math starts favoring generic rounds and bars.
Why does the ranking change if I pay by credit card?
Credit card fees (typically 3–4%) are added by the dealer on top of the listed price. Because those fees are a percentage, they compound the premium you're already paying. A 5% premium on a generic round paid by credit card becomes an effective 8–9% premium. Wire transfers avoid the fee entirely.
Why aren't dealers like Costco listed?
Our rankings only include dealers we have affiliate relationships with, which lets us verify pricing in real time and disclose commissions honestly. Costco, warehouse clubs, and a few smaller retailers operate outside that system. Their pricing is sometimes competitive for specific products, but we can't rank them live.
Is the cheapest dealer today the cheapest dealer tomorrow?
Rarely. Dealers run promotions, rotate loss-leader products, and adjust premiums based on inventory. The "cheapest" dealer on Silver Eagles this week might be 2% more expensive next week. The whole point of a price comparison site is that you don't have to remember which dealer was cheapest yesterday, you just check today.
The bottom line
Cheapest-per-ounce means generic silver rounds paid by wire. Cheapest-when-you-also-care-about-liquidity means government coins paid by wire. The worst buy in almost every scenario is a credit-card purchase of anything.
