Refiner or grade buyer? The economics of selling a lot
There are two ways to sell scrap and they are priced completely differently. Picking wrong costs more than any sorting mistake.
The two routes
Grade buying pays a flat rate per pound based on a visual category. No visible fees, minimums measured in dollars rather than tons, payment in days, and the price is known before you ship. It credits gold implicitly and nothing else.
Assay-based settlement pays for actual measured metal content at 97–98%, minus explicit fees. It credits gold, silver, platinum, palladium and often copper. Minimums run into thousands of pounds and settlement takes weeks.
What assay-based settlement actually costs
One US refiner publishes its full schedule, which is unusual and useful:
- Minimum lot: 5,000 lb, with smaller accepted if the grade is high enough
- Lot fee: $350 flat
- Treatment charge: $1.35/lb from 5,000–9,999 lb, $0.85/lb to 25,000 lb, $0.60/lb above that
- Payout: 98% gold and silver, 97% platinum and palladium
- Settlement: 25–35 business days
Note the cliff. A 25,000 lb lot costs $0.864 a pound all in. A 25,001 lb lot costs $0.614. Crossing that single pound saves roughly $6,250.
Freight is not a rounding error
Parcel carriers cap at 150 lb per package and surcharge above 110 lb, which is why grade buyers commonly ask you to keep packages under 45 lb. Above about 150 lb total you are into less-than-truckload freight, which runs roughly $0.22–0.42 per pound plus a fuel surcharge of 20–35%, plus accessorials like liftgate or residential delivery at $50–150 each.
At the 5,000 lb assay minimum, freight at $0.22 a pound is about $1,100 on top of $7,100 in fees. That is $8,200, or $1.64 a pound, before you are paid anything. For ordinary mid-grade material that lot can lose money on gold alone.
The worked comparison
Take mid-grade board material assaying 50 g of gold per tonne — about $2.96 a pound of gross gold at $4,060 an ounce.
| Route | Net per pound |
|---|---|
| Grade buyer, flat rate | $3.25 |
| Assay at 5,000 lb | $1.48 |
| Assay at 10,000 lb | $2.02 |
| Assay at 30,000 lb | $2.29 |
On gold alone, assay never wins on typical material — not even at thirty thousand pounds. It wins in exactly two situations: when the silver, palladium and copper credits are added, which flat-rate tables ignore entirely, or when your material assays materially above what its visual grade assumes.
Practical guidance
- Under 5,000 lb: grade buying is your only option, and for typical material it usually wins anyway.
- 5,000 to 10,000 lb: grade buying usually still wins on gold alone. The $1.35 treatment charge is brutal at the bottom tier.
- Above about 10,000 lb, and especially above the 25,001 lb cliff, assay becomes genuinely competitive — but the real justification is being paid for the non-gold metals.
- Always assay material with no clean grade category: unusual telecom, military, plating residues, or anything you suspect is anomalously rich.
The sorting premium dwarfs the routing decision
Before optimising which buyer to use, optimise what you send. Gold fingers pay around $90 a pound; mid-grade board pays $3.25. That is a 28-fold spread on material that came off the same machine. Gold-edge memory pays $50 a pound against $18 with the heat spreaders still on.
Ten minutes of sorting beats weeks of negotiating terms.
A note on reporting
Scrap sales generally do not trigger a 1099-B, because that form applies to exchange-deliverable bullion quantities rather than to e-waste. The absence of a form does not make the income untaxed. Most people scrapping at any scale report it as ordinary business income. Cash payments of $10,000 or more in a related transaction trigger a separate reporting requirement on the buyer's side. This is general information, not tax advice — talk to an accountant if the numbers are meaningful.
Questions
Is it better to sell scrap boards to a refiner or a grade buyer?
For lots under about 10,000 lb, a flat-rate grade buyer usually pays more once refining fees and freight are counted. Assay-based settlement wins on large lots, or when silver, palladium and copper make up a real share of the value.
What fees do precious metal refiners charge?
A published US schedule uses a $350 flat lot fee plus a treatment charge of $1.35 per pound under 10,000 lb, falling to $0.60 above 25,000 lb, with payouts of 98% on gold and silver and 97% on platinum and palladium.
How much does it cost to ship scrap to a refiner?
Parcel shipping runs roughly $20–75 for 20–50 lb. Above 150 lb you are into freight at about $0.22–0.42 per pound plus a 20–35% fuel surcharge, so a 5,000 lb lot costs around $1,100 to move.