How to read the custodian comparison
The table prices the 12 custodians in our database against the balance you entered and sorts by annual total. Three things in it decide more than the headline ranking does.
- The cheapest annual total The number to compare against
- Flat charges mean the ranking changes with the balance, so the cheapest custodian at $30,000 is often not the cheapest at $250,000. Enter the balance you actually expect to hold rather than the one you are opening with.
- The spread between cheapest and dearest What the comparison is worth
- The gap runs every year for as long as the account is open, so it compounds into a figure far larger than any single line item on a fee schedule. That spread is the reason this comparison exists at all.
- Cells that say not published A finding rather than a gap
- A blank means no source we checked gives the figure, neither the custodian's own site nor the third-party reporting we read. A charge that is quoted only on a call is a charge you cannot compare before you commit, and knowing which ones do that is part of the answer.
What does a gold IRA custodian do?
The custodian holds the account. It files the IRS reporting, including the Form 5498 that states the fair market value of your metal at 31 December each year, it executes your buy and sell instructions with the dealer, and it arranges storage at an approved depository. It does not sell you metal, recommend products or give advice, and a company doing those things is acting as a dealer whatever it calls itself.
That separation is why a gold IRA costs what it costs. The custodian bills setup, annual administration and the depository's storage charge. The dealer bills a markup over the spot price on the metal. You pay both, from two companies, on one account, and a quote from either one covers only its own half.
Across the twelve custodians in our database the annual charges cluster more tightly than the setup fees do. Administration runs $125 to $495 with a median of $257, commingled storage runs $90 to $125, and setup runs anywhere from nothing to $595. Because administration repeats every year and setup does not, sorting a comparison table by setup fee is the single most misleading thing you can do with it.
What a gold IRA custodian actually does
Section 408(m) requires IRA bullion to be in the physical possession of a bank or an approved non-bank trustee, which is why a gold IRA involves a custodian at all. The custodian holds the account, files the reporting the IRS requires, processes the transfer in, settles the purchase with whichever dealer you choose, and arranges storage at a depository. It does not advise you, and the ones that stay clearly on the right side of that line are the ones worth dealing with.
Those services are why the charges are flat rather than a percentage. Administering a $30,000 account costs a custodian roughly what administering a $300,000 one costs, so the same $125 to $495 annual administration fee lands very differently depending on the balance, and the ranking of the cheapest custodian changes as the balance changes. That is the single most useful thing this comparison shows.
The custodian and the dealer are separate businesses and separate decisions, which is worth keeping straight because the dealer markup is charged once on the whole purchase, and on a $100,000 transfer each percentage point of it is $1,000. A custodian that accepts metal from any dealer leaves that decision with you, and our fee calculator prices the two sides together so the comparison reflects what the account actually costs.
How to compare gold IRA custodians
Sort by the charge that will dominate your account, then check what each figure is actually worth.
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Sort by the charge that will dominate your account
On a balance under $50,000 that is annual administration, because the median flat fee of $257 a year is a 0.5% drag on $50,000 every year, and more on anything smaller. Above $200,000 it is whichever custodian scales its fee by account size.
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Check what each figure is worth
Every custodian carries its source and the date it was checked, and the ones whose figures come from third-party reporting or our own estimate are marked Estimated in the table. Where no source gives a figure the cell is blank, which makes the gaps visible instead of filling them with a guess.
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Set your balance to see the annual total
The table recalculates the yearly cost at the balance you enter, which is the only way to compare a flat schedule against a scaled one. The order changes as you move it.
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Read the position track underneath
It puts each custodian's annual cost on one line so the field is visible at a glance. Most of them cluster, and the outliers at either end are the ones worth a second look for opposite reasons.
What each input means
The balance is doing most of the work here, because a flat schedule and a tiered one swap places at a crossover that depends on it.
- Account balance
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What the account will hold. It matters because several custodians scale administration by account size, and a flat fee and a scaled one swap places at a crossover point that depends entirely on this number.
Where to find it The amount you plan to transfer, less the dealer markup, since the metal that lands is smaller than the cash that arrived by the amount of the markup. On a $100,000 transfer, each percentage point of markup is $1,000.
- Storage type
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Segregated returns your specific coins and commingled returns equivalent ones. Across the twelve custodians the difference is $25 to $165 a year, and the table prices whichever you pick.
Where to find it Both are usually listed as two lines on the same fee schedule. Where only one figure appears it is almost always commingled.
- Sort column
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Which charge to order the table by. Sorting by setup makes a cheap-to-open, expensive-to-hold custodian look good, which is exactly why the annual total column exists next to it.
Where to find it Sort by annual total first, then by the individual charges to see where a total comes from.
How the annual cost is calculated
Figures come from each custodian's published schedule where there is one and from named third-party reporting where there is not, storage uses the depository's quoted rate where a custodian sets none of its own, and a blank cell means no source we checked gives the figure.
Where a custodian publishes its fee schedule, each figure is read from that page and recorded with the URL and the date it was read. Where it does not, or where the page could not be read, the figure comes from named third-party reporting, and for one custodian the setup and wire figures are our own estimate. Those custodians are marked Estimated in the table above and in the fee database, which records the source for every custodian. Storage is billed by the depository and passed through, so where a custodian sets no storage price of its own the depository's quoted rate is applied. Where no source gives a figure the cell is left blank rather than filled. The annual total at your balance is the administration fee for the matching tier plus the storage charge for the type you selected, and the setup fee is shown separately because it is paid once.
annual cost = administration (at your tier) + storage (segregated or commingled)
- administration
- Yearly custodian charge, tiered by balance where the schedule tiers it
- storage
- Yearly depository charge passed through by the custodian
- setup
- One-off, shown separately because it does not repeat
What this comparison leaves out
- The dealer markup over spot, which is quoted per order and which our fee calculator prices separately. On a $100,000 transfer, each percentage point of it is $1,000.
- Anything no source we checked gives. A company disclosing less will look cheaper here than it is.
- Termination and in-kind distribution charges, which several custodians bill on the way out and only two publish.
- Any assessment of service quality, responsiveness or how long a transfer takes. This is a price comparison.
- Whether a given dealer will work with a given custodian, which occasionally constrains the choice.
Three balances, three different winners
A small account, a large one, and what the blank cells in the table are telling you.
Comparing at $40,000
A small account where the flat charges dominate everything else.
- Balance
- $40,000
- Storage
- Commingled
Annual costs run from $225 to $595.
The spread is roughly 1% of the account a year between the cheapest and the dearest, which compounds to a meaningful gap over a fifteen-year hold. At this size the setup fee is worth almost nothing next to it.
Comparing at $250,000
A large account where percentage-scaled schedules start to bite.
- Balance
- $250,000
- Storage
- Segregated
The order changes, and the scaled-fee custodians move down the table.
A flat $495 a year is 0.2% at this balance and 1.2% at $40,000, so the custodian that looked expensive on a small account can be the cheapest on a large one. Comparing schedules without a balance in mind tells you nothing.
Reading the blanks
Several custodians publish some charges and not others.
- Column
- Segregated storage
- Filter
- Published schedules only
Every blank cell is a figure no source we checked gives.
A custodian with three blanks will appear cheaper in any total than one that publishes everything, which is the single biggest distortion in every fee comparison in this category. The blanks are the finding rather than a gap in our research.
What custodians charge across the field
The four charges, as they run across the twelve custodians we priced in April 2026.
- $0 to $595 Setup, 12 custodians
Median $50. One of the twelve charges nothing to open an account and one charges $595, so the range is wider than the middle of the field suggests.
- $125 to $495 Annual administration
Median $257. This is the charge that compounds, and it is the one worth optimising for on any account you intend to hold more than a few years.
- $90 to $125 Commingled storage
Narrow, because the depositories behind these custodians are a small set and they price similarly. Segregated runs wider at $115 to $290.
- $0 to $35 Outgoing wire fee
Charged per transfer. Small enough to be the last thing to compare on, and worth checking if you expect to take distributions frequently.
What people get wrong about custodian fees
The second of these is the reason most comparison tables in this category are sorted the wrong way.
Are the custodian and the dealer the same company?
No, and the separation is the point. The custodian holds the account and reports to the IRS, while the dealer sells the metal, so the two roles sit at two different companies. Some dealers have a preferred custodian and will present the pairing as one product, though you can generally use any custodian that accepts the dealer's metal.
Does the lowest setup fee mean the cheapest custodian?
No, and it is usually the opposite. Setup is paid once and administration is paid every year. On a ten-year hold, a $0 setup with a $495 annual charge costs $4,950 while a $250 setup with a $195 annual charge costs $2,200, and the second one looked worse on the column most comparison tables sort by.
Is a custodian that publishes no fees hiding something?
Sometimes, and sometimes it is a company that quotes by account size and genuinely cannot publish one number. What is fair to say is that you cannot compare what is not published, and a company that will not send a written schedule before you open an account is telling you how the relationship will run.
Can I switch custodians later if I pick the wrong one?
Yes, though it is not free. A trustee-to-trustee transfer of metal means a termination charge at the old custodian, which several bill and only two publish, plus a wire fee and the depository's handling. Choosing well at the start is cheaper than correcting it.
Gold IRA custodian questions
What does a gold IRA custodian actually do?
It holds the account, files the IRS reporting including the Form 5498 fair market value each year, executes your buy and sell instructions with the dealer, and arranges storage at an approved depository, though it does none of the selling. It does not sell you metal, recommend products or give advice, and a company doing those things is acting as a dealer whatever it calls itself.
Can I choose my own custodian?
Yes, you can usually choose. A dealer will have a preferred custodian and will often present the pairing as a single product, and you can generally ask to use a different one that accepts their metal. It is worth asking early, because the answer tells you whether the dealer's margin depends on the pairing.
Which gold IRA custodian is cheapest?
It depends on the balance, which is why the table recalculates rather than ranking. Under about $60,000 the custodians with the lowest flat administration fee win. Above roughly $200,000 the scaled schedules start to lose to the flat ones, and the crossover moves with the storage type you pick.
Why do some cells have no figure in them?
Because no source we checked gives that charge, neither the custodian's own page nor the third-party reporting we read. We record what we find with the date it was checked and leave the rest blank, which means a company that discloses less appears cheaper in any total. The blanks are a finding about the category rather than a gap in the research.
Do custodians charge a percentage of assets?
No, most of the twelve here charge flat fees, and several tier the administration charge by account size, which behaves like a percentage in steps. A genuinely percentage-based schedule is the minority in this category, and it is the one that matters most on a large balance because it never stops scaling.
How do I move to a different custodian?
A trustee-to-trustee transfer, requested by the receiving custodian, with the metal moving between depositories or the depository simply re-registering it. It is not a taxable event and it is not free, since the old custodian will usually bill a termination charge and a wire fee, and only two of the twelve publish what that termination charge is.