We are an independent research team that helps retirement savers compare gold IRA companies on the things that actually matter: real fees, the dealer markup over spot, storage, custody, and how a company treats you after you fund the account. We do not sell metals. We score them.
The gold IRA market is loud, and most of the noise is sales copy. Investors hear about "free silver," urgency, and limited-mintage coins long before anyone explains the one number that decides whether a gold IRA is a fair deal: the premium a dealer charges over the live spot price. Gold IRA Consulting was built to close that gap. We read the fine print, request the kits, sit through the calls, and translate what we find into plain rankings and guides that a person planning their retirement can actually use.
We are reader-first by design. Every page is meant to help you make a calmer, better-informed decision, including the decision to not open a gold IRA when it is the wrong fit. If a small balance, a short time horizon, or a high-premium coin pitch makes the math work against you, we say so. You can start with our scored best gold IRA companies rankings, but the goal of this page is simpler: to show you who is behind that research and the standards we hold it to.
Three commitments shape everything we publish. They are the reason you can trust a ranking on this site over a paid placement somewhere else.
A small research team. We do the digging, request the kits, log the sales calls, and verify every fee in writing. Nothing publishes until the claims are checked against primary sources.
Marcus has spent close to a decade studying self-directed retirement accounts and the precious-metals dealers that serve them. He built Gold IRA Consulting's fee-verification process, requesting investor kits, taking the sales calls, and logging the quoted spreads over spot that most published rankings never capture. His focus is the gap between a company's headline pricing and what an investor actually pays at the counter. Marcus writes the rankings, reviews, and guides on this site.
Every money page is checked against primary sources before it publishes. That means challenging anything that reads like a sales pitch, confirming the tax treatment and rollover mechanics against current IRS guidance, and making sure each page is honest about who a gold IRA is wrong for. Nothing publishes on Gold IRA Consulting unless the math and the rules check out.
Gold IRA Consulting is reader-supported. The research is free to you because some of the companies we cover run affiliate programs, and when you open an account through one of our links (marked rel="sponsored") the provider may pay us a commission at no extra cost to you. That is the entire business model, and we would rather state it plainly than bury it.
Here is the firewall: commissions never influence the rankings. Scores come from the same weighted rubric (fees and pricing transparency 30%, custody and storage 25%, service and buyback 25%, reputation 20%) applied to every provider, whether or not they have an affiliate relationship with us. A company with no program can outrank one that pays, and a paying company can sit near the bottom if the numbers say so. We explain exactly how the money side stays separate from the editorial side in our editorial policy.
We are a research and comparison site, not a dealer, custodian, or registered investment adviser. We do not sell metals, hold your account, or know your personal situation, so nothing here is individualized financial, tax, or legal advice. Treat Gold IRA Consulting as a well-sourced starting point, then confirm any decision with a licensed professional. For the underlying rules, we always point you back to the primary sources rather than ask you to trust a summary.
Found an error, a stale fee, or a company that changed its terms? Tell us. Accuracy on a retirement topic depends on readers flagging what we miss, and we update pages when the facts move. Reach the editorial team at hello@goldiraconsulting.com.
We get paid by affiliate links, never by rankings. The score a company earns is the score it gets, whether it pays us or not.
We keep the working detail on two pages so there is one source of truth for each answer. Our gold IRA ranking methodology sets out the weighted rubric, how we verify gold IRA fees, and who researches and reviews every ranking. Our editorial policy covers how Gold IRA Consulting makes money, whether affiliate compensation influences rankings, and why we neither sell gold nor give financial advice. If you would rather skip the background and use the research itself, the platform page lists every tool on the site and what each one is good for.
Tax treatment, contribution and distribution rules we rely on: IRS Publication 590-A (contributions to IRAs) and IRS Publication 590-B (distributions from IRAs).
Permitted metals and the collectibles standard for IRAs: Internal Revenue Code section 408(m)(3), which sets the bullion and coin requirements an IRA may hold.
Investor-protection and fraud guidance we reference: the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) consumer guidance on investing in bullion and coins, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) customer advisories on precious-metals schemes.
Provider fees and minimums reflect our independent dataset, fees verified Jun 2026. Pricing and promotions change; confirm current terms directly with each company.
Our standards only matter if the rankings reflect them. Explore the 2026 list, scored on verified fees, custody, service, and reputation, or request a free investor kit to see one provider's exact pricing for yourself.