Where Is the Cheapest Place to Buy Silver? 90 Days of Premium Data Across Tracked US Dealers

About this page. INGOTX tracks every major US bullion dealer's daily silver pricing across 60+ product categories and ranks them by actual median premium over spot. This page draws on 90 days of pricing observations through June 30, 2026, on the nine tracked US dealers with silver coverage. We earn affiliate revenue when readers click through to dealers, including dealers named below. The dealer that wins a category in our tracking is the dealer we name; the ranking is determined by data, not by commission rate. Several recommended winners have no affiliate relationship with INGOTX, and we still recommend them. How we track premiums →

The short answer

There is no single cheapest place to buy silver. The dealer with the lowest premium on American Silver Eagles is not the dealer with the lowest premium on Silver Maple Leafs, and neither is the dealer with the lowest premium on junk silver. Across 90 days of independent tracking through June 30, 2026:

• American Silver Eagles — Golden State Mint was the lowest-premium dealer on 63.0% of tracked days (46 of 73), with Kitco second at 28.8%.
• Silver Maple Leafs — Kitco won 65.8% of days (48 of 73), with SD Bullion second at 19.2%.
• Silver Britannias — Provident Metals won 61.6% of days (45 of 73), with BGASC second at 21.9%.
• Junk silver (pre-1965 US 90%) — Money Metals Exchange won 53.4% of days (39 of 73), with SD Bullion second at 37.0%.
• Silver rounds and silver bars — Money Metals Exchange led both, the latter at 55.7% of observed days.

The four largest US retail bullion dealers — APMEX, JM Bullion, SD Bullion, and Money Metals Exchange — collectively had the lowest premium on American Silver Eagles on zero of 73 tracked days. Across the three biggest sovereign silver flagships (Eagles, Maples, Britannias) and 219 observation days, APMEX was lowest on 0, JM Bullion on 3, and Money Metals on 7. SD Bullion managed 22, all on Silver Maples. The cheapest silver on a given day is almost always coming from a specialist — a mint-direct seller, a refiner-aggregator, or a focused-catalog retailer — not from the broad-catalog dealer most stackers default to.

Buy what's cheap on what you want, not at a single dealer for everything.

How we compare silver prices

INGOTX tracks daily pricing on roughly 12,000 distinct products across 11 dealers, with continuous coverage on every major US online bullion retailer dating to mid-2025. For this page we used the 90-day window ending June 30, 2026, yielding 58 to 73 observation dates per dealer (industry scrape cadence is 5 days per week, not 7).

For each observation, we computed the dealer's median percentage premium over the prevailing silver spot price for every silver product category — American Silver Eagles, Silver Maple Leafs, Silver Britannias, Silver Krugerrands, Silver Philharmonics, Silver Pandas, junk silver, silver rounds, and a longer tail of world coins and themed series. All observations are in-stock only; observations with computed premiums outside the 0–100% band are excluded as data-quality outliers. "Lowest premium on a given day" means the dealer's category median sat below every other tracked dealer's that day.

The nine tracked dealers with material silver coverage in the 90-day window are APMEX, JM Bullion, SD Bullion, Money Metals Exchange, Golden State Mint, Hero Bullion, Provident Metals, Kitco, and BGASC. Bullion Exchanges and Silver Gold Bull are excluded from silver rankings — not because they don't sell silver, but because INGOTX's tracking coverage for those dealers is gold-only as of June 2026. That is a gap in our tracking, not in their catalogs. We do not track Costco, Walmart, eBay, or in-person coin shops; pricing on those venues is outside this page's scope.

Two specialists carry catalog-size asterisks. Golden State Mint is a private mint that wholesales most of its silver production to other dealers and runs a narrow retail catalog (roughly 16 tracked products, 3 silver SKUs). Kitco is a refiner-aggregator with a 26-product silver catalog. Both maintain 100% 30-day in-stock rates on their tracked silver products. We include them in peer comparisons with the catalog-size note; excluding them would suppress the dealers that actually win on price.

Cheapest American Silver Eagles

The most-searched silver bullion product in the United States. The headline finding: Golden State Mint was the lowest-premium dealer on 63.0% of tracked days; Kitco was second at 28.8%; the four largest US retail dealers were never the lowest on a single day across 73 observations.

*Hero Bullion's median is computed on 7 observation days; thinner sample than the other dealers.

Golden State Mint's structural lead on Silver Eagles has held across two prior INGOTX reviews — the dealer is a private mint operating one layer closer to feedstock cost than the broad retailers, and Silver Eagle premiums tend to come out 8 to 12 percentage points below peer median. Kitco's narrower catalog still posts the lowest single-day median premium when in stock, and the two dealers split the daily-lowest crown on roughly 92% of the observation window between them.

Hero Bullion is the dealer to watch on Silver Eagles — when their inventory turns up, the median premium runs lower than Golden State Mint's or Kitco's, but only 7 observation days in the 90-day window means their pattern isn't fully characterized. Treat Hero Bullion as a worth-checking dealer, not yet a default.

The two specialists' 100% 30-day in-stock rates matter here. Golden State Mint and Kitco are the only tracked dealers where the lowest-premium listing on Silver Eagles is reliably also a listing you can actually buy. Money Metals Exchange and SD Bullion both maintain high Silver Eagle availability (99.4% and 88.8%) at higher premiums; APMEX, JM Bullion, and Provident Metals run 28-34% in-stock on Silver Eagles despite carrying the deepest catalogs.

Compare to our Golden State Mint review →

Cheapest Silver Maple Leafs

Kitco's category. Across 73 observation days, Kitco was the lowest-premium dealer on Silver Maples on 65.8% of days, with SD Bullion second at 19.2%.

Kitco's Silver Maple Leaf dominance is the cleanest single-product specialist finding in the silver field after Golden State Mint's Silver Eagle win — and Kitco's 100% in-stock rate on their tracked Silver Maple SKUs over the last 30 days means the cheapest listing is also a buyable one. SD Bullion takes the runner-up spot at 19.2% of days; SD's Silver Maple premium runs about 2.3 percentage points below peer median across the window. The dealer also maintains an 87.9% Silver Maple in-stock rate — a real second option if Kitco is sold out of the specific SKU you want.

The pattern repeats: the broad retailers don't win this category. APMEX's Silver Maple median runs 23.92%, roughly 10 points above Kitco's. JM Bullion's Silver Maple sample is thin in the 90-day window (the dealer experienced a scraping gap in mid-June 2026, which has since been resolved) but the comparison reviews from earlier in the cluster show JM at 17-21% median, also well above Kitco. Read our APMEX vs JM Bullion comparison →

Cheapest Silver Britannias

A thinner category in INGOTX tracking — 6 dealers with material data — but the ranking is clear, and it carries the most important in-stock caveat on the page.

Provident Metals wins Silver Britannias on listed price 61.6% of days — and across the last 30 days, only 9.9% of Provident's Silver Britannia observations were in stock. The listed-cheapest dealer is rarely a buyable dealer on this category. BGASC posts the lowest median Silver Britannia premium (13.43%) but with 15.0% in-stock at category level. SD Bullion and Money Metals Exchange are the two dealers where Silver Britannia inventory is actually reliable (75.0% and 79.5% in-stock) and where the listed price is materially above the daily winners.

The honest read for a Silver Britannia buyer: check Provident first, expect to be out of stock most of the time, then go to SD Bullion or Money Metals at a 4-7 percentage-point premium above Provident's listed median, with the understanding that you can actually complete the order. This is the section where the in-stock caveat does the most work.

Cheapest junk silver (pre-1965 US 90%)

Junk silver — circulated pre-1965 US dimes, quarters, and half dollars — is the category that runs structurally lowest of any silver product in the tracked field. The premium is measured against the silver melt value, not face value, and the field is thin: only three tracked dealers carry material junk silver inventory.

SD Bullion's median junk silver premium of 1.23% is the lowest of any tracked silver category at any tracked dealer — junk silver is the place where retail premium gets closest to spot. Money Metals wins the daily-lowest crown more often (53.4% vs SD's 37.0%) because Money Metals' inventory is more consistently present in stock at observation time, but SD Bullion's median premium when listed is materially lower. The right play on junk silver is: check both, expect SD Bullion to win on premium when in stock, and treat Money Metals as the reliable backstop.

Both dealers maintain near-perfect 30-day in-stock rates on junk silver — Money Metals at 100.0%, SD Bullion at 94.1%. The listed-cheapest dealer on this category is also the actually-buyable dealer. That is not true of the sovereign silver flagships above.

APMEX and JM Bullion show no tracked junk silver inventory in our coverage. APMEX absolutely sells junk silver on its actual site — this is a gap in INGOTX's product mapping for APMEX, not an APMEX catalog gap. JM Bullion's site lists 90% silver products that don't currently map cleanly to our junk silver category. Treat the rankings above as the honest answer for the three dealers we can confidently report on.

Compare to our SD Bullion review → · Compare to our Money Metals review →

Cheapest generic silver rounds and bars

The lowest-premium silver products in the market generally, and the category where the broad retailers occasionally compete with the specialists. Generic 1-ounce silver rounds and silver bars run premiums in the 5–15% range over spot; sovereign silver coins run 15–40%.

Silver rounds — Money Metals dominates the category cleanly.

Money Metals' longstanding relationship with Sunshine Minting and its in-house production give it cost structure peers don't easily match. The dealer is the lowest-premium silver rounds source on 75.8% of tracked days at a 92.6% in-stock rate — the only silver category on the page where one dealer essentially owns both the win rate and the buyable-inventory rate. SD Bullion runs the lower median premium when it lists rounds but only carries 6 tracked round SKUs across 16 observation days; treat SD as a price check rather than a default on rounds.

Silver bars — Money Metals also leads, less decisively.

*SD Bullion (14 days observed) and Hero Bullion (19 days) have thinner observation windows than the field; their per-day rates are computed against their actual days observed, not the full 73-day window. Numbers are honest but reflect smaller samples.

The cleanest broad-retailer competitive category on silver. The four broad retailers don't disappear from silver bars the way they disappear from Silver Eagles — Money Metals wins outright, and APMEX, JM Bullion, and Provident Metals all show median bar premiums within 1-6 percentage points of the winner. The gap narrows because silver bars carry less brand-driven markup than sovereign coins; refiner-supplied stock prices closer to wholesale cost for everyone. Caveat: the bar median is rolled across 1-ounce, 10-ounce, and 100-ounce sizes, which structurally have different premium bands. A buyer focused on a specific bar size should check the INGOTX live silver bar tracker for size-specific pricing.

At-a-glance — cheapest silver dealer by category

The page in one table. Each row links to the live INGOTX tracker for the category, where current premiums update against today's spot.

*See in-stock caveat below — Provident Metals wins the listed price most days on these categories but runs sub-10% in-stock rates across the last 30 days, so the listed winner isn't usually the buyable winner.

Why the big dealers aren't usually the answer

The pattern across 90 days of tracking is structural and worth naming clearly. The four largest tracked US retail bullion dealers — APMEX, JM Bullion, SD Bullion, and Money Metals Exchange — were collectively the lowest-premium dealer on American Silver Eagles on zero of 73 days. Across the three biggest sovereign silver flagships (Silver Eagles, Silver Maples, Silver Britannias) and 219 observation days, APMEX won 0, JM Bullion won 3, and Money Metals Exchange won 7. SD Bullion managed 22 — all on Silver Maples, the one sovereign flagship where the broad retailers occasionally surface.

The structural cause is supply chain. Golden State Mint is a private mint that operates one layer closer to silver feedstock than the broad retailers, who buy from the same wholesalers Golden State Mint mints for. Kitco is a refiner-aggregator with margin economics that don't run through full retail markup. BGASC operates on a thinner-catalog basis with structurally lower carrying cost. Provident Metals' Britannia and Panda pricing reflects an aggressive listed-price strategy that's not always backed by inventory but holds the daily-lowest crown when their listings are alive. The broad retailers compete with each other on shipping speed, catalog completeness, graded coin depth, IRA infrastructure, payment-method flexibility, and brand reliability — not on premium on flagship silver. Their margin compression on Silver Eagles and Silver Maples runs into the wholesale cost the specialists mint or refine to, and they don't cross it.

This is not a recommendation to never use APMEX, JM Bullion, SD Bullion, or Money Metals. The broad retailers are the right answer for several specific things a specialist can't provide. APMEX has the deepest graded numismatic catalog in the field, the broadest IRA-eligible scope, and the only Bullion Card loyalty program. JM Bullion is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gold.com, Inc. (NYSE: GOLD) — formerly A-Mark Precious Metals (Nasdaq: AMRK) until December 2, 2025 — the only NYSE/Nasdaq-listed counterparty in the US retail bullion field. SD Bullion is the most consistent price competitor among broad retailers on gold sovereign coins. Money Metals Exchange wins multiple silver categories outright — junk silver, silver rounds, silver bars, Silver Tudor Beasts, Silver Koalas, Silver Libertads, Australian Silver Lunar — and operates an in-house IRA depository with New Direction Trust Company as custodian. But on the literal question "where is silver cheapest" — the question this page exists to answer — the answer on the biggest sovereign silver flagships is reliably a specialist.

Read our APMEX review → · Read our JM Bullion review → · Read our SD Bullion review → · Read our Money Metals review →

The in-stock caveat — when "cheapest" isn't actually buyable

Some dealers post low premiums on products that are rarely in stock. The cheapest listing on the dealer's display shelf is not always the cheapest listing in the dealer's warehouse. The categories where this matters most:

Provident Metals' pattern is the most striking — wins three silver categories on listed price (Britannias 61.6%, Pandas 62.5%, Queens Beasts 71.2%) at 30-day in-stock rates of 9.9%, 0.0%, and 6.1%. A buyer checking the live Provident listing for a Silver Panda over the last 30 days has found nothing buyable 100% of the time. The listed price is real; the inventory to fulfill it usually isn't.

This is the distinction that separates a longitudinal independent tracking page from a static comparison snapshot. Comparison sites like the position-#1 search result for "cheapest place to buy silver" measure listed price at observation time and rank dealers by that listing — they do not measure whether the listing is reliably stocked across the days a real buyer might shop. INGOTX's daily observation cadence over 90 days surfaces the gap. The rule for a careful buyer: when Provident Metals is the listed winner on a silver world coin, check whether they're actually in stock today before treating them as the answer. If they're not, the next dealer on the per-category ranking is your practical first check.

The opposite pattern — strong in-stock backing the listed winner — holds on Silver Eagles (Golden State Mint and Kitco both 100% in-stock), Silver Maples (Kitco 100%), junk silver (Money Metals 100%, SD Bullion 94.1%), and silver rounds (Money Metals 92.6%). On those categories the listed winner is also the buyable winner.

How often these rankings change

The per-category daily winner shifts day-to-day; the per-category structural pattern is stable across the 90-day observation window. Golden State Mint has been the dominant Silver Eagle dealer on every 30-day slice of the window. Kitco has held the Silver Maple Leaf lead consistently. Money Metals has owned junk silver, silver rounds, and the Tudor Beast / Koala / Lunar category cluster across the full window. Provident Metals' Silver Britannia and Panda listed-price dominance has not shifted, nor has the in-stock caveat on those categories. The broad retailers' absence from sovereign silver flagship wins is the most stable pattern in the data.

This page is refreshed quarterly against the most recent 90-day window of tracking. For day-of pricing, use the live INGOTX silver trackers linked from each category section above — the rankings on this page hold structurally; the daily numbers update in real time.

A note on affiliate disclosure, since this is a buying-intent page where the reader's natural skepticism is correctly high. INGOTX earns affiliate revenue when readers click through to several of the dealers above. We do not earn commission on Golden State Mint, Kitco, Provident Metals, or BGASC — yet four of those dealers are the named winners on the most-searched silver categories on this page. The ranking is determined by 90 days of pricing observations, not by what we earn when you click. If we wrote this page to favor affiliate revenue, we would lead with APMEX and JM Bullion. We did not, because the data does not.

Live INGOTX silver trackers → · Read our methodology → · See all dealer reviews →

Last verified: June 30, 2026. Premium data through June 30, 2026. Next refresh: October 2026.