White Gold vs Silver: What's the Real Difference?

Sterling silver is a silver alloy. White gold is a yellow gold alloy with a white coating on it. That's the difference in one line, and everything else follows from it.

Below we'll go through what each one actually is, the rhodium problem nobody mentions at the counter, what they cost to own rather than to buy, and how to tell them apart when there's no stamp. 

Jump to:

• The Short Answer
• What Sterling Silver Actually Is
• What White Gold Actually Is
• The Rhodium Problem Nobody Mentions
• Side by Side
• Price: Now, and Later
• Tarnish or Re-plating: Two Different Jobs
• Nickel, Skin and Which One Is Safer
• How to Tell Them Apart
• So Which Should You Buy?
• The Third Option Most People Don't Consider
• FAQs

The Short Answer

Sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver, and its color goes all the way through. It tarnishes, and you polish it back.

White gold is gold mixed with pale metals to knock the yellow out of it, then plated in rhodium to make it properly white. The gold underneath is a grayish, faintly yellow color. The rhodium is what you're actually looking at, and it wears off.

One of these needs a cloth. The other needs a jeweler.

What Sterling Silver Actually Is

Pure silver is too soft to make jewelry from, so it gets alloyed. Sterling silver is the standard: 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper. That's where the 925 stamp comes from, and it's the same standard worldwide.

The color is the metal. There's no coating, no plating and no finish to wear through. A sterling piece that's fifty years old is still sterling all the way down, which is why old silver can be polished back to looking new and old plated jewelry can't.

It tarnishes, and that's not a fault. Silver reacts with sulfur compounds in the air, forming a thin dark layer on the surface. It's a chemical reaction with the environment rather than damage, it happens to every genuine silver piece eventually, and it comes off with a polishing cloth in a couple of minutes. Our guide to cleaning silver chains covers the method, and keeping sterling looking new covers the storage side.

If you want the full picture on what the 925 mark guarantees, what sterling silver actually is goes into it.

What White Gold Actually Is

White gold starts as yellow gold. It's alloyed with pale metals, usually palladium, nickel, silver or zinc, to reduce the yellow.

But alloying doesn't make it white. It makes it less yellow. What you get is an off-white with a gray or faintly warm cast, closer to old pewter than to anything bright. Perfectly attractive, and not what people picture when they hear white gold.

So nearly every white gold piece sold at retail is plated in rhodium, a hard, brilliant, blue-white metal from the platinum family. That's the crisp cold white you see in the case.

The gold content is the same as any other gold of the same karat. An 18K white gold ring holds exactly as much gold as an 18K yellow gold ring. We've gone into the alloys, the karats and the stamps properly in what is white gold.

The Rhodium Problem Nobody Mentions

Here's the thing that decides this whole comparison, and it rarely comes up at the counter.

When you look at a white gold ring, you're mostly looking at rhodium. The gold underneath is doing the structural and financial work, but the color that sold you the piece is a coating a fraction of a micron thick.

And coatings wear. Not dramatically, and not all at once. The piece doesn't break or discolor in any obvious way. It just slowly stops looking quite as bright, takes on a faint warm cast, and does it unevenly, at the back of a band or on the high points first, which is exactly where you're least likely to notice it happening.

Most people don't realize what they're seeing. They assume the piece is dirty, or that the gold is somehow going off. It isn't. The coating has gone and they're looking at the alloy that was always underneath.

Sterling silver has no equivalent to this, because sterling has no coating. What you see on day one is the same metal you'll see in twenty years, just with tarnish on it that comes off.

Side by Side

Price: Now, and Later

Up front, white gold costs considerably more. Gold is worth far more per gram than silver, and the price reflects that. A white gold piece also carries the cost of the palladium in the alloy and the rhodium plating step, so it can sit slightly above yellow gold of the same karat.

Later is where they separate. Sterling silver's ongoing cost is a polishing cloth you'll buy once. White gold's ongoing cost is re-plating at a jeweler, periodically, for as long as you own it.

That's not a hidden charge and it isn't anyone behaving badly. It's just a cost that exists and doesn't get mentioned, and the reason it matters is that white gold is the one that looks lower-maintenance in the case. The bright finish reads as permanent. It isn't.

If the piece is significant, a wedding band or something you'll own for decades, the material value may well justify it. If you're buying a chain to wear every day, it's worth doing that arithmetic before rather than after.

Tarnish or Re-plating: Two Different Jobs

Both metals need something. The two somethings are not comparable.

Tarnish is a surface reaction on sterling. It affects the whole piece evenly, it's reversible every time, and it takes a couple of minutes with a cloth you keep in a drawer. There's no limit to how often you can do it, because you're removing a layer that formed on top rather than removing any silver.

Rhodium wear is the loss of a coating. It happens unevenly, it isn't reversible at home, and putting it right means handing the piece to a jeweler and paying for the work. Then it happens again.

So the maintenance question isn't really "which needs more looking after". It's whether you want a job you can do yourself in two minutes or an appointment you make every few years.

Nickel, Skin and Which One Is Safer

This one is more nuanced than either metal's marketing admits.

Sterling silver is usually fine. The 7.5% alloy is normally copper, which very few people react to, and silver itself is not a common allergen.

White gold depends entirely on what's in it, and two kinds are sold without being clearly labeled. Nickel white gold uses nickel as the whitening alloy: cheaper, and nickel is the most common contact allergy there is. Palladium white gold uses palladium instead: more expensive, and much better tolerated.

While the rhodium plating is intact, neither causes a problem, because rhodium is inert and nothing underneath is touching skin. The trouble starts when the plating wears through on a nickel piece, and that's exactly the point at which most people stop suspecting the jewelry, because they've worn it happily for two years.

And in the United States, nothing is checking this for you. The EU and UK cap how much nickel an item in prolonged skin contact is allowed to release. There is no federal equivalent here; American manufacturers work to a voluntary standard instead, ASTM F2999 for adult jewelry, which is a specification rather than a law.

So if you know you react to nickel, ask which white gold you're being sold before you commit, and treat "white gold" on its own as an incomplete answer.

How to Tell Them Apart

Start with the stamp, usually on a clasp, the inside of a band, or a small tag. 925 is sterling silver. 18K or 750 is 18 karat gold, 14K or 585 is 14 karat, 10K or 417 is 10 karat. Any of those on a silver-colored piece means white gold.

Worth knowing what that stamp is and isn't in America. There are no assay offices here and no compulsory independent testing, so the mark is applied by the maker or importer rather than by a third party. What the law does require is accountability: under the National Stamping Act, anyone applying a quality mark must also apply their registered trademark or their name to the same piece. So the name next to the number is the part that makes the number mean something, and a quality mark sitting on its own is a fair question to raise. The symbols stamped on jewelry covers the full set.

If there's no stamp at all, three things help.

• Color, once you know what to look for. Sterling is very slightly warmer and grayer. Rhodium-plated white gold is brighter and colder. Side by side it's visible; alone it usually isn't.
• Weight. Gold is substantially denser. A white gold piece feels noticeably heavier than a sterling piece of the same size.
• Age and wear pattern. This is the most reliable of the three. A silver-colored piece that's gone patchily warm at the high points is white gold with worn plating. A piece that's gone evenly dark and dull is silver tarnishing.

So Which Should You Buy?

Buy white gold if you want the material value, you're buying something significant like a wedding band, and you're comfortable with a jeweler's bill every so often to keep it looking right. Ask whether it's nickel or palladium white before you commit.

Buy sterling silver if you want a real precious metal you can wear constantly without a maintenance schedule, you'd rather spend the difference on more pieces, and you're happy with a polishing cloth in a drawer.

And be honest about which one you're actually solving for. If you want the look, meaning a bright, cool, silver-toned finish that stays that way, then paying gold prices for a rhodium coating is an expensive route to it, because the coating is doing the visual work and the coating is the part that doesn't last.

If the comparison you're really making is gold against silver as a whole rather than these two specifically, silver or gold takes that on, and the different types of gold covers how white gold fits alongside the rest.

The Third Option Most People Don't Consider

We don't make white gold, so take this as context rather than a pitch. Our silver-toned pieces come two ways, and neither carries a re-plating bill.

Genuine 925 sterling silver, for anyone who wants a real precious metal. It behaves exactly as described above: it will tarnish eventually, and it polishes straight back, because the silver goes all the way through. The sterling silver collection is where those sit.

Solid 316L stainless steel, finished in rhodium, for anyone who wants the look with almost no upkeep at all. Steel doesn't tarnish, corrode or fade, and here's the difference that matters: that finish sits on a metal which is already silver-colored and already inert. There's nothing yellow waiting underneath and nothing to re-plate, which is exactly what separates it from white gold.

That's why most of our silver-tone range is built on it, and the silver chains are the easiest place to start.

FAQs

Is white gold the same as silver?

No. They're different metals that look similar. Sterling silver is 92.5% silver and its color runs all the way through. White gold is gold alloyed with pale metals and then plated in rhodium, so the white you see is a coating rather than the metal.

What's the difference between white gold and silver?

Where the color comes from, and what happens as it ages. Silver's color is the metal, and it tarnishes, which polishes off. White gold's color is a rhodium coating, and it wears, which needs re-plating. One needs a cloth, the other needs a jeweler.

Does white gold tarnish?

Not in the way silver does. Gold doesn't tarnish at all. What happens to white gold is that the rhodium plating wears through and the faintly warm alloy underneath starts to show, usually unevenly and usually at the high points first.

Why has my white gold turned yellow?

It hasn't turned. The rhodium has worn off and you're seeing the white gold alloy underneath, which was always slightly warm. Nothing is damaged and nothing is fake. A jeweler can re-plate it.

How often does white gold need re-plating?

It depends entirely on where it's worn. A ring worn every day can need it within a year or two, because hands take far more abrasion than necks do. A pendant or chain can go many years. There's no fixed schedule, only wear.

Which is more expensive, white gold or silver?

White gold, considerably, both to buy and to keep. The gold content puts a much higher floor under the price, and the re-plating is a recurring cost that sterling silver simply doesn't have.

Is white gold or silver better for sensitive skin?

Sterling silver is the safer default, because its alloy is usually copper and very few people react to that. White gold depends on what's in it: palladium white gold is well tolerated, nickel white gold is not, and the label almost never says which you're buying.

Is white gold stronger than silver?

Yes. Gold alloys are harder than sterling, which is a relatively soft metal that scratches and bends more readily. That's one genuine advantage white gold has, and it's why it's the more common choice for a ring worn daily.

What stamp does white gold have?

The ordinary gold fineness marks, because a stamp records gold content rather than color. 18K or 750, 14K or 585, 10K or 417. Sterling silver is stamped 925. So a silver-colored piece marked 750 is white gold, not silver.

Can you wear white gold and sterling silver together?

Yes. They're close enough in tone that most people won't spot the difference, and mixing metals deliberately is a normal way to wear jewelry. Just keep them from rubbing hard against each other in storage, since silver is the softer of the two.

Where to Go From Here

White gold and sterling silver look the same and age completely differently. Silver's color is the metal and it tarnishes. White gold's color is a coating and it wears. Neither is better.

But the one that looks lower-maintenance in the store is the one with the recurring bill, and knowing that before you buy is the difference between a piece you're happy with in five years and one that quietly disappoints you.

Have a look through the sterling silver collection if you've made your mind up, or what gold plated means if you want the other way gold ends up on a piece.