Gold IRA Digest is an independent publisher, described in full on the about page. Every gold IRA dealer and custodian here is assessed the same way, against 6 fixed headings, so two companies can be read side by side without holding a translation in your head. This page sets out that process, what each confidence label means, and the places where our coverage is thinner than we would like it to be.
What we assess
A dealer page works through the same six things in the same fixed order, and the order is deliberate rather than arbitrary, because cost is the question this category answers worst and it belongs ahead of anything softer.
| What | What we look at |
|---|---|
| Cost to open and hold | Setup fee, annual custodian administration, depository storage fee, and whether the schedule is published or given only on request. |
| Account minimum | The smallest rollover the company will open an account for, and where that figure is stated. |
| Fee schedule | Whether a full schedule exists in public, and what it omits when it does. |
| Regulator and court record | Actions by the CFTC, the SEC, and state securities and attorney-general offices. |
| Complaint history | Complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau and the pattern they describe. |
| Who it suits | The transfer size and situation the company is a reasonable fit for, and where it is not. |
How we collect it
Fee figures come from published schedules wherever a company publishes one, and every figure in our database stores the URL it came from alongside the date we read it. Regulator actions come from the agency's own docket rather than from a summary written by somebody else, because the summaries in this category are usually written by a competitor.
No company pays for placement, and no company sees a page about it before it goes live. A commercial relationship changes which links carry a commission and nothing else on the page. That is set out in full on the disclosure page.
Confidence labels
Not every number is known to the same standard, and flattening the difference would make the data look more solid than it is, so each figure carries one of three labels describing how we came by it.
- Verified. Taken from a schedule the company publishes, with the source URL and the date we read it stored against the figure.
- Estimated. Derived from a range the company states, or from the custodian it uses, where the company itself publishes no figure.
- Unknown. The company publishes nothing and we have no defensible number, so the field stays empty rather than being filled with a plausible one.
What this does not cover
The fee database currently holds 24 schedules, 12 custodians and 12 dealers, collected in April 2026. That is a starting point rather than full coverage of the category, and figures collected in April may have moved since.
We do not run a scored ranking. A single number summarising a company across cost, conduct and suitability hides more than it shows, and in this category it is usually a sales device rather than an analytical one. Pages compare companies on the specific thing you are deciding about.
There are no customer ratings here and there will not be any, because we have no customers. Everything published is editorial assessment rather than consumer testimony, which is a distinction the Federal Trade Commission draws sharply in 16 CFR 465.
Corrections
If a figure here is wrong, tell us through the contact page and we will check it against the source and update the page. Corrections are logged against the page rather than made silently, because a reader who acted on the old number needs to be able to see that it moved and when.