The short version: use the built-in catalog whenever it has the product you're trying to record. Reach for a custom product only when the catalog genuinely doesn't represent what you bought.
Custom products work identically to catalog products once they exist — same fields, same melt math, same place in your Holdings — but the catalog has the advantage of being maintained centrally, so any future updates to a product entry flow through to every account automatically.
This article is the decision rule for picking between the two, plus the small handful of practical consequences either way.
The default: try the catalog first
The catalog covers the products most stackers buy, and it's the path of least resistance. Before you create a custom product, check whether what you're holding is already there. A few tips:
Search by mint, not just by name. Typing "perth" or "royal mint" will surface every coin from that mint at every size, which often turns up the entry you missed.
Try the short name. "kruger" and "libertad" both return more than the full name, since search matches partial strings.
Check the size separately. The 1/20 oz Mexican Libertad is in the catalog; the 1/25 oz Austrian Philharmonic is too. Quirky fractional sizes do exist in the lineup — they just take a moment to find.
Don't worry about year. Catalog entries aren't year-specific — a 2019 American Gold Eagle and a 2025 American Gold Eagle both use the same American Gold Eagle 1 oz entry. Mint year is something you can record as a per-item date annotation. See Adding a date annotation (e.g. mint year).
See The built-in catalog: what's included for the full tour of what's currently seeded.
If, after a careful look, the catalog doesn't have it, then custom is the right call.
Reasons to reach for a custom product
A few patterns where a custom product is the right answer:
Regional or national coins outside the major sovereigns: The catalog focuses on the world's flagship bullion coins (Eagles, Maples, Krugerrands, Philharmonics, and so on). Coins like the Chinese Silver Panda, the Russian St. George, the Niue Lunar series, or the various smaller-mint commemoratives aren't in the lineup. A custom product captures them cleanly.
Boutique or smaller-refiner bars: The catalog's bar coverage is anchored to the refiners with the strongest secondary market (PAMP Suisse, Valcambi, APMEX, Sunshine, Argor-Heraeus). If you bought a bar from a smaller US private mint, a hand-poured artisan refiner, or a local-market refiner that isn't represented yet, a custom product is the path forward.
Generic or "design-of-the-year" rounds: Generic silver rounds — Buffalo rounds, Walking Liberty rounds, design-of-the-year commemoratives — don't usually warrant individual catalog entries because there are too many one-off designs. A single custom product like "1 oz Generic Silver Round (.999)" lets you track them all together without losing the silver content math.
Non-US junk silver: Canadian pre-1967 silver, British pre-1947 silver, Australian pre-decimal silver, and so on aren't in the standard catalog.
Novel product formats: Cast bars, "ChunkyMonkey"-style poured bars, art bars, monetary medallions, silver bullets, anything genuinely unusual — if it has a known metal content and you want to track it, a custom product works.
An unusual size of an otherwise-standard product: If you bought a 65 g cast bar from a refiner whose 50 g and 100 g entries are in the catalog, you'll need a custom entry for the 65 g. The shared refiner name doesn't help if the specific size isn't seeded.
When the catalog is still the right answer
A few situations where it's tempting to make a custom product but the catalog version is the better move:
The catalog entry exists at your size: If the catalog has American Gold Eagle 1/10 oz and that's what you bought, use it — even if you'd prefer to call it something else. Catalog entries are maintained centrally, which means any future correction or refinement flows through to your records automatically. A custom duplicate doesn't get those updates.
You want to track a specific year or mint mark: Catalog entries are intentionally year-agnostic. If you want to record that your 1986-W Gold Eagle is from the inaugural year, the right place for that is the date annotation field on the inventory item, not a custom product. See Adding a date annotation (mint year).
You just want a different name. The catalog name on a row is fixed (you can't edit standard entries), but you can attach a nickname to any individual inventory item — see Adding a nickname to a specific item. That lets you call your 1 oz Maple "Bob's birthday coin" without having to create a duplicate product.
You're correcting a typo on a buy you've already recorded. Edit the transaction instead — see Editing a transaction after the fact.
What changes once a custom product is in play
A custom product behaves exactly like a catalog product everywhere it matters. Your Holdings page treats it the same way, the Dashboard rolls its value into your totals, Analytics charts it alongside everything else, and your Annual Report (Premium) includes any sales of it without you needing to do anything special. The only differences are a few small ones:
Visibility: Custom products are private to your account. They don't appear in anyone else's catalog, and they live on the My Custom Items tab on the Catalog page, separate from the Standard Catalog tab.
You can edit or delete them: Standard catalog entries are read-only; your custom products you can rename, adjust, or remove.
They use your own naming: No central naming convention to follow. Pick whatever name you'll recognize three years from now.
Bulk import uses your custom slug: If you use the CSV bulk import, you reference your custom products by the slug you set when creating them — see Preparing your CSV.
Once a custom product exists, picking it during a transaction is identical to picking a catalog product — same dropdown, same fields, same melt math. The line between "catalog" and "custom" essentially disappears the moment the transaction is recorded.
Where to go next
Creating a custom product: The step-by-step for setting one up.
Setting purity, weight, and calculation method: The fields that make the melt math work.
Custom junk-silver-style products: The specific setup for non-US fractional silver.
Editing or deactivating a custom product: How to change a custom product after the fact.
Custom product limits and visibility: What's private, what counts toward what.
The built-in catalog: what's included: The catalog tour, in case you want to look again.