The pressure-actuated metal seal with soft metal coating has been widely used in complex working conditions such as high temperature, low temperature and high pressure. The investigation of the characteristics and binding strength of the transition layer between the soft metal coating and the superalloy substrate is important to improve the sealing performance and to model and simplify the working through-process of metal sealing. The distribution characteristics of elements at soft metal-substrate interface and the binding strength between coating and substrate under different thicknesses and material combinations of coating layer were studied by experimental methods. The results indicate that the thickness of soft metal coating has little influence on the interface morphology of GH4169-Cu, GH4169-Ag and Cu-Ag, but has an influence on the thickness of transition layer between different metals, while this influence is weakened with increasing the coating thickness, and the thickness of transition layer is about 2 μm when the coating thickness is more than 30 μm. The cross-cut test shows that the Cu, Ag and Cu-Ag coatings are all well combined with nickel-based superalloy GH4169 substrate. The materials of soft metal, i.e. the coating materials, have significant influence on the characteristic of transition layer and the surface characteristics of coating after cross-cut test.