Gold Investment: What is it, Gold rates & Calculators

By Team Gullak
Aug 1, 2025
7 min read
gold-investment

What is Gold investment?

Gold investment is when you buy gold in any form, be it Physical Gold, Digital Gold, Gold ETFs, Gold Mutual Funds, Sovereign Gold bonds and any other asset that is backed by gold and follows its price. While this sounds the same as buying Gold, modern gold buyers refer to it as Gold investment because the intrinsic value of Gold as an asset and its ability to create massive wealth in the long-term.

What are Gold Investment Returns in India?

On an average Gold has given 12-13% returns per annum over the last 10 years. To share a clearer picture, let's take a look at Gold investment returns in India historically:

Table: Gold investment returns in India

TenureCAGR Returns
Last 6 months18.73%
Last 1 year40%
Last 3 years23.65%
Last 5 years12.73%
Last 10 years13.44%

(All data of Gold returns calculated until 1st August 2025)

The table above shows the value of Gold as a superior asset class & its ability to generate returns. Take a look at possible gold investment returns with our gold calculator

Gold rate in India

If you're looking to buy Gold, knowing the current Gold rate is absolutely crucial. Find the current Gold rate in India in the table below:

Table: Gold rate in India

Grams24K Today24K Yesterday
1 gram8,0008,000
Grams24K Today24K Yesterday
5 gram40,00040,000
Grams24K Today24K Yesterday
10 gram80,00080,000

What are the different types of Gold investment?

There are 6 major types of Gold investment:

  • Physical Gold
  • Digital Gold
  • Gold ETF(Exchange Traded Funds)
  • Gold mutual funds
  • SGB or sovereign Gold bonds
  • Gold leasing

Let's discuss these gold investments in detail:

  1. Physical Gold: Physical Gold refers to buying Gold in physical form, it can be from a jewellery store or online orders. Physical Gold generally comes with significant wastage and making charges making it not the most lucrative for hard-core investors. On the flip side, India also has historical customs of passing down wealth to the next generation in the form of Gold, which is generally in the form of jewellery. While, Physical gold isn't the most attractive gold investment because of the additional charges, it still bears great returns over the long-term since the underlying asset is Gold. Physical jewellery sales generally skyrocket during the wedding season, on Akshaya Tritiya and Dhanteras. During Dhanteras 2024, 25 tonnes of Gold was sold nation wide.
  2. Digital Gold: When you buy Digital Gold, you're essentially buying physical gold in a digital form. Here, you do not have to pa any making charges as long as you don't get this gold delivered. The gold is stored in secure lockers and gold investments start from as low as ₹10. You can explore leading apps like Gullak to start investing in Digital Gold. Gold is bought at the live 24Karat Gold price and sold at live sell price of gold.
  3. Gold ETFs and Mutual Funds: Gold ETFs are Exchange traded funds that track the live price of gold. Here, you can't order physical gold since ETFs don't involve any physical gold purchase. One ETF is equivalent to 1 gm of Gold. Buying Gold ETFs requires a demat account and there are no lock-in periods on gold investments. As of mid-2025, Gold ETFs have surpassed over ₹60,000 Cr in assets under management. Gold Mutual Funds involve investing in a mix of various gold assets, such as stocks, physical gold, or stocks of gold mining companies. The returns on gold mutual funds closely mirror that of physical gold. Some of the famous Gold mutual funds include SBI Gold Fund, Aditiya Birla Sun Life gold fund etc. Both, Gold ETFs and Gold Mutual Funds involve buying gold without physically owning it and hence are called paper gold.
  4. Sovereign Gold Bonds(SGBs): These are gold bonds released by the RBI that allow you to buy gold in a digital form(as bonds). Here, you get an additional 2.5% extra return on the the principal investment on top of Gold price increase. This interest is credited to investors on a semi-annual basis. SGBs come with a lock-in period of 5 years. They can be sold before that in the secondary markets at 6-7% discounted rate
  5. Gold leasing: Gold leasing is a gold investment option where you can lease your digital Gold to jewellers who use this Gold as working capital. Since you have leased Gold to jewellers, the jewellers give you extra 5% Gold per annum as interest on the gold. On apps like Gullak, you can explore Gold leasing using features such as Gullak's Gold+. For example, If you invest 100 grams of Gold, you receive extra 5 grams in year 1 and 148 gms in by year 8 - all of this 148 grams will benefit from Gold price appreciation.

Find the detailed comparison between Gold assets & more on Gold leasing here.

How to invest in Gold Online?

Here's how to how to invest in Gold Online across different gold assets:

  1. For Physical Gold: You can either visit jewellery stores or order gold coins from apps like Gullak. You can also systematically save in 24K digital gold on Gullak & redeem Gold jewellery at India's top jewellers like Tanishq, Malabar, Kalyan using your Gold on Gullak. Gullak users get additional discounts when physical gold when claiming jewellery.
  2. For Digital Gold & Gold leasing: You can use digital gold apps like Gullak where you can invest in 24K gold and even get extra gold every year using Gullak Gold+. Investments start from just ₹100/day. You can choose between daily/weekly/monthly/one-time investments. Investors can pause or withdraw anytime. Withdraw options include cash, 24K gold or redeem jewellery at India's top jewellers.
  3. Sovereign Gold Bonds: Earlier you'd have invested in SGBs via using brokerage apps, bank sites, as post office schemes. However, as of 2025, Sovereign Gold Bonds have been discontinued.
  4. Gold ETFs and mutual funds: You can navigate to any brokerage apps, open a demat account, choose a suitable Gold ETF and start investing

What are the Benefits of Gold Investment?

  1. Comparable Returns to stock market indices: Both Gold and NIFTY have given ~12% returns over historical periods.
  2. Stable asset: If you're saving for any long-term goals, gold is the perfect asset to bank your funds because its high stability as an asset and ability to provide stellar returns even during economic turmoils
  3. Inflation counter: Gold is generally directly proportional to inflation. So, when the inflation increases, gold prices also increase
  4. Guaranteed benefit: With innovations like gold leasing, investors are guaranteed an extra 5% gold pa.

Get the Highest Returns on Gold in India

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Frequently Asked Questions
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