Advertiser Disclosure: Who Pays SafeOunce, How and What Money Cannot Buy (2026)

No company SafeOunce covers pays SafeOunce: as of September 29, 2026, we have no affiliate links, sell no leads and sell no paid placements. An affiliate link pays a website when you contact or buy from a company, and a lead is your name and phone number, handed to a salesperson. Gold IRA "best" pages elsewhere print lines such as "we may earn a commission," so what exactly does SafeOunce refuse, and how would you know if that changed?

This advertiser disclosure, a dated statement of who pays a website and how, answers both. Ratings come only from our published 7-criterion method, and no company can buy a score, a list place or the removal of a complaint. If we ever accept a paid relationship, it is listed on this page first, and it could never change a score.

Below are who pays SafeOunce, the 6 ways review sites get paid and what one reader is worth to them. Then come the 7 things money cannot buy here, the 5 conditions and labels any future deal would face, and a 60-second test for other sites.

The table sums up SafeOunce and money as of September 29, 2026.

Who Pays SafeOunce?#

No gold IRA company, bullion dealer, custodian, depository or fund company pays SafeOunce, as of September 29, 2026, and none can pay for anything we publish.

"Covers" means every business named on SafeOunce. That includes the gold IRA companies we rate, the custodians and depositories we compare, the coin sellers and mints whose products we list, and the fund companies on comparison pages. A custodian is the trust company that legally holds an IRA. A depository is the vault that stores IRA metal.

Our standard letter to rated companies asks for their contract and a written price quote. The same letter says: "We do not have an affiliate or advertising relationship with [the company] or any other company we review, and ratings are never for sale."

What stops a score from being bought later? How SafeOunce rates gold IRA companies is a public formula worth 100 points. Every score comes from the 7 criteria in how SafeOunce rates gold IRA companies, and payment is not one of them.

Does SafeOunce get paid by gold IRA companies?#

No: SafeOunce takes no payment from any gold IRA company, whether per click, per phone call, per lead or per sale, as of September 29, 2026. Pay per lead means a site is paid when you fill in a form or take a sales call.

The 4 things SafeOunce does not do are listed below.

• Affiliate links: none.
• Pay per lead or per phone call: none.
• Sold placements, sponsored articles or "featured partner" boxes: none.
• Your contact details passed to a company: never.

That applies to every one of the gold IRA companies SafeOunce reviews, including those with the best scores.

Are the "official website" links on SafeOunce company reviews paid?#

No: the link to a company's own website on each SafeOunce review pays us nothing, whether you click it, call or buy. Each company review carries at most 1 such link.

It lets you read the company's own contract and fee pages before you call. It carries a nofollow tag, a hidden label that tells search engines we are not vouching for the site.

Who pays for SafeOunce's research?#

SafeOunce's research is paid for by the people who run it, not by any company it covers. The facts about SafeOunce, including who runs it, are on about SafeOunce.

Our facts come from sources you can check: FTC rules in the eCFR, company contracts and affiliate agreements, regulator records, court records and BBB files. Each fact names its source and date.

How Do Gold IRA Review Sites Get Paid? 6 Pay Models, and Which SafeOunce Uses#

Gold IRA review sites get paid in 6 main ways, from a fee per form to a share of what you spend, and SafeOunce uses none of them.

Four terms help here. Revenue share means the site gets a slice of what you spend. A qualified lead is a lead the company's sales team accepts. Paid placement is a spot on the page the company bought, and sponsored means paid for by the company.

The table lists each model and whether SafeOunce uses it today.

How common is this pay in search results? Across 90 gold IRA searches on Google US on September 29, 2026, the top 10 organic (unpaid) results filled 752 slots. Publishers whose gold IRA pages carry partner offers, sponsored content or paid press releases held 175 of them, or 23.3%.

In plain English: about 1 in 4 unpaid results you see for gold IRA questions comes from a publisher with a paid relationship. How gold IRA review sites are paid, site by site, is explained in our reviews guide. So when a page says "we may earn a commission," which of these 6 does it mean?

What does "we may earn a commission" mean on a gold IRA site?#

"We may earn a commission" means companies on the list may pay the site when you click, fill in a form, call or buy. It does not say which companies, how much or for what. A commission here is a payment to the website from the company.

The 6 disclosures below are quoted word for word from gold IRA "best of" lists.

What do these lists leave out? Of 8 disclosures we read (the 6 above plus LendEDU's and Investopedia's), none gives an amount or says whether pay depends on the coins you buy. Only RetirementLiving's says a form or a phone call can be the paid event, and that line sits in a box you must click to open.

Four disclosures (Forbes Advisor, Money, CNBC Select and RetirementLiving) say payment may influence where or how companies are shown. RetirementLiving says outright that pay can change the order. Which companies each list ranks, side by side, is in gold IRA 'best of' lists compared.

When does the site get paid? Augusta Precious Metals pays its affiliates (sites it pays for sending customers) $200 per "qualified lead," per its agreement retrieved September 29, 2026. That lead needs "an eligible IRA or 401k account with at least $50,000," as judged by Augusta's sales team.

Lear Capital's terms (updated August 1, 2025) set two tests for a lead. The person must want to buy more than $10,000 of metal, and must have "spoken to a Lear Capital sales representative." New York residents are excluded. A sales representative is the salesperson who calls you.

Augusta's program page also offers "Lifetime lead referral commissions (e.g., husband to wife)." In plain English: the site earns when you take the sales call, and it can keep earning when your spouse buys.

How much is one reader worth to a gold IRA review site?#

A new gold IRA customer can be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars to a review site, and an online coin buyer $4 to $35, based on published pay. The amount depends on who you buy from and what you buy.

The table shows what 5 sellers publish about their pay, and what each would pay on the same $100,000 order.

Every amount is a dated snapshot. Augusta's agreement says it "reserves the right to modify commission and payout amounts at any time at its sole discretion."

Three terms explain the Augusta row. Premium coins are coins sold well above their metal value, such as proof or "exclusive" coins. Bullion means plain coins and bars priced close to the metal value, and markup is what you pay above the metal's market price.

Augusta alone decides what "Premium Trade Value" is, so the true figure can be lower. Its VIP plan pays 10% on premium coins and 1% on bullion: up to $10,200 versus $1,200 on the same order, or 8.5 times. On that same assumption, the gap from APMEX's lowest $4 to Augusta's possible $10,200 is about 2,550 to 1.

In plain English: a flat-pay dealer earns a site the same $35 whether you spend $1,000 or $100,000. The gold IRA revenue-share plans pay more the more you spend, and more again when you buy premium coins.

Most gold IRA sellers do not publish what they pay review sites at all. Of 12 gold IRA sellers we checked on September 29, 2026, only 2 (Augusta and Lear) publish full terms with amounts.

Does using a review site's link make your gold IRA cost more?#

Not directly: the affiliate contracts we read set the website's pay, not your price, but that pay comes out of the company's profit on your order.

Lear Capital's affiliate terms (SafeOunce earns nothing from this link.) (last updated August 1, 2025) pay a share of gross profit. They define it as "retail price paid ... less cost of goods sold and the cost of any giveaways provided to induce the sale." The named giveaways are "reimbursed IRA custodial fees, bonus precious metals."

Metal plus bonus cost Lear $83,000, so at dealer cost your holdings are worth 17% less than you paid on day one. That is before any buyback spread, the gap between what you pay and what the dealer pays you back.

The affiliate's $1,190 is 1.19% of your $100,000. Lear's $17,000 gross profit is about 14 times that cut, and Lear keeps $15,810 after paying it. The contract prints its rates as words (five, six, seven percent) and as figures (8%, 9%, 10%), so SafeOunce states no single Lear rate.

In plain English: the link costs you little; the markup on your written quote decides your cost. How to read that markup is in gold IRA markups and spreads.

What Money Cannot Buy at SafeOunce: 7 Things No Gold IRA Company Can Pay For#

No company can pay SafeOunce for a better score, a higher place on a list, a softer review or the removal of a complaint or court case. These limits hold for every company.

The 7 things below are never for sale at SafeOunce.

1. A SafeOunce Score: scores come only from the published method, and payment is not a criterion.
2. A place on a best-of list or comparison: a best-of list is a page that ranks companies as "best." The order on best gold IRA companies follows scores and your situation, never payments.
3. Removal or softening of negatives: complaints, lawsuits, regulator actions and bankruptcies stay on the page with their dates and case numbers.
4. A say before publication: no company reviews, approves or edits a page before it goes live.
5. Badges, seals and awards: a badge or seal is a logo a company can show to say a site approved it, and SafeOunce sells none and licenses none.
6. Sponsored articles or press releases dressed as reviews: SafeOunce publishes none.
7. Your contact details: SafeOunce collects no phone numbers for any company and sells no leads.

What can a company do instead? Everything it can do here is free and in the open.

Why can't a disclosure fix a paid ranking?#

A disclosure cannot fix a paid ranking because the FTC treats any ranking that money decides as deceptive, even when the site says it is paid. The FTC is the Federal Trade Commission, the US agency that polices misleading advertising.

The FTC's Endorsement Guides are its official guidance on reviews and paid recommendations. They sit in 16 CFR Part 255, revised July 26, 2023.

The same example adds 2 points. A method that ranks sellers higher "because of those relationships ... is also misleading." A site that does not sell rankings but "receives payments ... such as for affiliate link referrals ... should clearly and conspicuously disclose" them.

Our test is simple: remove every payment from our data and no score changes. Today there are none to remove, and every weight is published in the SafeOunce methodology.

What can a company do without paying SafeOunce?#

A company can do 3 things for free: send its contract and price quote, report an error, or send a response. Each is judged on the documents, not on the relationship.

The 3 free actions are listed below.

• Send documents: a customer agreement, a written quote and a fee schedule count toward its score once we can verify them. A customer agreement is the contract you sign with the gold company.
• Report an error: verified corrections are fixed and dated.
• Send a response: we check it against the documents.

A company gets 10 business days to answer our document request. After that, its page says "requested, no reply," and the company is shown as "Not rated: would not disclose."

Companies and readers both use the form on contact SafeOunce.

What Happens If SafeOunce Ever Accepts Money? 5 Conditions First#

If SafeOunce ever accepts money from a company it covers, the deal would be listed on this page first, and it could never change a score. Nothing below describes a deal that exists today.

The 5 conditions below come from rules SafeOunce already follows and from FTC guidance.

1. Listed here first: the company, its pay model and its start date go into the partner table on this page.
2. No effect on scores or order: scores still come only from the published method, and every list still follows the scores.
3. A label beside the link: FTC guidance says a site paid "for affiliate link referrals" should disclose it clearly, so the label sits next to the link.
4. A sponsored tag for search engines: every paid link would carry a hidden "sponsored nofollow" label that tells Google the link is paid.
5. Never on rule or tax pages: pages about IRS rules and taxes would carry no paid links.

The next 2 sections show why these conditions matter: some affiliate contracts ask for the opposite.

Which affiliate contract clauses can an independent site not sign?#

An independent review site cannot sign the 2 gold IRA affiliate contracts quoted below as written, because they limit what the site may say about itself or the company. An affiliate contract is the agreement a company signs with the sites it pays.

Lear Capital's affiliate terms (SafeOunce earns nothing from this link.) (last updated August 1, 2025) limit what an affiliate may say about itself. It may not "Claim or imply that You, Your site, or any content (including reviews and recommendations) are neutral or independent." A sample disclosure in the terms says the site's reviews "are not neutral or independent."

Augusta Precious Metals' standard affiliate agreement (retrieved September 29, 2026) limits claims in Appendix A, section 4. It bans claims about "features, attributes, characteristics, efficacy, actual or anticipated results, or other qualities" unless Augusta supplied them. Appendix A, sections 8(b) and 8(c) ban "any technique that generates organic or paid search results" based on Augusta's brand name or that of "any competitor."

Two more clauses push a paid site to keep sending callers. Under Lear's terms, an affiliate goes inactive after 90 days without a new qualified lead. Then "no Rev Share shall be paid ... even if the sale is otherwise within the year." Augusta's Appendix A, section 12 lists "EPC values significantly higher than Company's average" as a sign of fraud. EPC means earnings per click.

In plain English: a paid site's income can stop if it pauses, and readers who buy unusually often can raise a fraud flag. All of these are lawful contract terms, and none shows wrongdoing. The limits on what a site may say clash with how SafeOunce works: we publish our own contract findings, and no company approves a page first.

How would a paid link be labeled?#

A paid link on SafeOunce would carry a label right beside it, visible without clicking or hovering, plus a sponsored tag for search engines. The FTC calls a proper label "clear and conspicuous": easy to see and easy to understand.

The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule (16 CFR 465.1(c)(4), effective October 21, 2024) adds one test. A disclosure fails "if a consumer must take any action, such as clicking on a hyperlink or hovering over an icon, to see it." Section 465.1(c)(8) names "the elderly" as a group whose view counts. Augusta's affiliate program page (retrieved September 29, 2026) says: "Our ideal customer is between the ages of 55 and 75."

The Endorsement Guides say the same in 16 CFR 255.5, Example 9: a disclosure placed only on a profile page, or behind a "more" link, is not clear and conspicuous. On one gold IRA "best" page we read, the sentence saying pay can change the order appears only after you click "Learn More." A SafeOunce label would sit beside the link, so you never have to click.

The 5 rules any SafeOunce label would have to meet are listed below.

1. Beside the link: the FTC's Q&A, "Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking", puts disclosures close to the recommendation.
2. Visible without clicking or hovering, as 16 CFR 465.1(c)(4) requires.
3. In plain words: the same Q&A says "affiliate link" alone may be unclear to readers, and it accepts "Paid link" next to the link.
4. Clear to older readers, the audience the rules above name.
5. Marked for search engines: Google Search Central (updated December 10, 2025) asks for a sponsored tag on paid links.

Where would every paying company be listed?#

Every company that ever pays SafeOunce would be listed in the table below with its pay model and start date, and today the table is empty. Any other page can point to its exact row.

An empty table is the point: you can check it any time before you trust a SafeOunce page.

How will you know when this disclosure changes?#

Every change to this disclosure gets a new version number and a dated line in the history below, and the page shows the date it was last reviewed. We review it at least every quarter, with the rest of the site.

This history covers money only. Score changes, with their reasons, are listed in the SafeOunce ratings changelog.

How Can You Check a Gold IRA Site's Disclosure in 60 Seconds? 6 Questions#

Six questions check a gold IRA site's disclosure in 60 seconds, and 2 or more "no" answers on questions 3 to 6 mean you should treat it as advertising. Questions 1 and 2 show whether money is present; questions 3 to 6 show whether the page is open about it.

A redirect link is a link that passes through the site's own tracking address before it reaches the company. The 6 questions to ask are listed below.

1. Is there an "Ad" or "Partner" block above the list?
2. Do the "Visit" buttons go through redirect links, such as addresses with /go/ or /pr/?
3. Does the page say which companies pay?
4. Does it publish its scoring weights and dates?
5. Does it show the companies it rejected and why?
6. Does it give markups in percent and the contract terms?

The questions check the site, not the company. Knowing how to check a gold IRA company is a separate step: how to check a gold IRA company.

Are gold IRA reviews paid?#

Often, yes: all 6 gold IRA "best" pages quoted above say they are or may be paid by companies they list, and none says how much. As the pay-models section shows, about 1 in 4 top organic results for gold IRA searches comes from a publisher with a paid relationship. The full answer, with the contracts, is in are gold IRA reviews paid.

Advertiser disclosure frequently asked questions#

Does SafeOunce sell your phone number to gold IRA companies?#

No: SafeOunce has no lead forms, collects no phone numbers for any company and sells no contact details, as of September 29, 2026. Under the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B)(1), a telemarketer may call a number on the Do Not Call Registry only with your signed, written agreement. That agreement covers calls "by or on behalf of a specific party." The FTC also says a lead generator cannot collect robocall consent and pass it on to other callers (FTC Do Not Call report, December 2025). A form that promises calls from several companies is a warning sign. To stop calls, see gold IRA cold calls and robocalls.

Why do "free gold IRA kit" pages lead to sales calls?#

Kit pages lead to sales calls because the form is often the product: the site is paid for your phone number, and the kit opens a sales process. Augusta's and Lear's affiliate terms both require a valid US phone number before a lead counts. Lear also requires a talk with a sales representative. What is inside a free gold IRA kit, and who calls next, is on free gold IRA kits.

Does "independent" on a gold IRA site mean unpaid?#

No: in gold IRA marketing, "independent" can mean "not an employee." Priority Gold's affiliate terms (dated May 1, 2026) make paid emails say they come from "an independent marketing partner promoting a Priority Gold offer." Clute Journals' line pairs "independently evaluates" with "We may earn a commission" in the same breath. Check who pays, not the word.

Are celebrity gold IRA endorsements paid?#

Yes, a celebrity spokesperson is normally paid, and the FTC requires the endorsement to reflect the endorser's honest views; that says nothing about whether the product suits you. The rules sit in 16 CFR 255.1 and, for fake celebrity testimonials, 16 CFR 465.2. Who is paid by whom is covered in celebrity gold IRA endorsements.

Is SafeOunce independent of the gold industry?#

Yes: no company SafeOunce covers pays SafeOunce or has any say over what it publishes. No company reviews a page before it goes live, and no company can buy a score. The full editorial policy on independence explains how we source and correct facts.

How do you report a hidden payment or ask for a correction?#

Use the contact form to report a paid link, a sponsored claim or a mistake on SafeOunce; we check it, fix it and date the fix. Every fix is listed in the public corrections log.