Your custodian's fees are quietly eating your retirement. Here's exactly how much.

How a gold IRA actually works

A gold IRA is a self-directed retirement account that holds physical precious metals instead of stocks and bonds. The mechanics are simple. The costs — and the rules — are where people get hurt. Here is the honest version, in four steps.

Two rules with no exceptions. "Home storage" of IRA metals is not permitted — promoters selling home-storage schemes have drawn IRS and court scrutiny. And required minimum distributions apply to traditional gold IRAs just like any traditional IRA; holding physical metal does not exempt you.

The fee-drag calculator: what 10 years really costs

Custodians quote fees in flat dollars that sound small. $300 a year sounds small. Over ten years, it is $3,000 — before storage, before fee hikes, before the spread. Move the sliders and watch what a decade really costs, then hold that number up against any custodian's sales pitch.

Illustrative math for comparison only — not a quote, not advice, not a prediction of any custodian's actual fees. Fee schedules change; always get the current written schedule from the custodian before deciding.

How we evaluate custodians: the 5-checkpoint protocol

Anyone can publish a "top 10" list. Ours is a protocol: the same five checkpoints, the same primary sources, every company, every time. A custodian passes only if it clears all five — and until it does, we publish nothing.

The 10-minute custodian audit

You don't need us to vet a custodian — you need the checklist we use. Run any company through these seven checks before a sales call. If any box can't be checked, the audit doesn't clear, and neither should your money.

• 1 · The full fee schedule is published in writingSetup, annual maintenance, storage, and transaction minimums — before you fund, not after. "Call us for pricing" is an automatic hold.
• 2 · The depository is named, with a real addressSegregated or allocated storage options, insurance documented. Your metals must sit at an IRS-approved depository — never at the dealer's office, never at home.
• 3 · Buyback and resale terms are publishedWhat happens when you want out — in writing, before you buy in. A custodian that won't explain selling gets flagged.
• 4 · The complaint record is checked, not the star countBBB, state regulators, enforcement actions — look for patterns over time, adjusted for company size. Five stars mean nothing next to a complaint cluster.
• 5 · No pressure machinery in the sales materialsNo countdown timers, no "only 3 left at this price," no fear-driven urgency. Education-first onboarding passes; hard closes don't.
• 6 · Minimums and metals stated upfront in plain dollarsThe account minimum, the qualifying metals, and which metals don't qualify — all before the first call. Vagueness is a pricing strategy.
• 7 · You have the current schedule in your own handsFee schedules change. Get the current one in writing from the company itself — a review page, including this one, is never the final word.

0 of 7 checked — any unchecked box is a reason to pause, not a reason to fund.

This is the same paper trail our five-checkpoint protocol follows. The two custodians that cleared it are documented with receipts in the evidence ledger below.

Two custodians cleared the protocol. Here is the proof.

Two custodians have cleared the full five-checkpoint protocol so far. We read their published fee schedules, their public complaint records, and their named depositories — never their press releases. Every figure below carries a receipt in the evidence ledger.

Every figure above is traced to a published source in the evidence ledger. Sources re-checked every audit cycle. Fee schedules change — confirm the current written schedule directly with the company before funding.

The receipts

Every claim below carries a receipt — the published source it came from, linked so you can open it yourself. Sources are re-checked every audit cycle. Where sources disagree, we show the range we found. Where a claim can't be confirmed, we mark it unsourced — we never round it up, smooth it out, or invent it.

Sources: BBB official profiles, Trustpilot/Google aggregates as reported by named review sources, Money, USA Today, Bankrate, Nasdaq, Comparisun, Star Tribune / FinancialContent, company-published material. Nothing above comes from the companies' own marketing claims except where labeled.