How SafeOunce Rates Gold IRA Companies: Criteria, Weights, Evidence and Update Schedule (7 Criteria, 100 Points)

SafeOunce rates gold IRA companies on 7 criteria worth 100 points, using only documents you can check: contracts, fee schedules, written price quotes, and court and regulator records. What you pay counts most, 30 of the 100 points, and anything a company will not show us scores zero. So what exactly is measured, and who can change a score?

A gold IRA company is the dealer that sells you the metal and helps you open the account, but it does not hold your account. Its score is one number from 0 to 100, the sum of the points it earns on the 7 criteria. Before any scoring, 6 gates screen out companies that closed, were sanctioned or keep their documents secret.

A 5-level evidence ladder decides which documents count, and every rating is rechecked at least every quarter. This page gives the point rules, the weights, a worked score, the gates, the document rule, the update schedule and the fact-checking standard. No company can pay to change a score.

The table below sums up the whole rating method on one screen.

How Does SafeOunce Rate Gold IRA Companies?#

SafeOunce rates a gold IRA company in 2 steps: it first checks 6 pass-or-fail gates, then scores the company out of 100 points on 7 criteria from documents. A gate is a pass-or-fail check applied before any points are counted. A criterion is one thing being scored, such as contract fairness.

The same 2 steps apply to every one of the gold IRA companies SafeOunce covers, including those that failed. A company that passes all 6 gates gets a score. Most gates replace the score with a status label, such as "Not rated: closed".

What does SafeOunce see that a friendly phone call does not show? The contract you would sign, the written price you would pay and the company's court record.

Six principles shape every SafeOunce rating, in this order.

1. What costs you money counts most: the price you pay, the price you get back and the contract carry 45 of the 100 points (criteria A and C).
2. Documents over claims: a point needs a contract, a fee schedule, a court or regulator record, a written quote or a dated website snapshot.
3. Unknown scores zero: a price, fee or term a company will not show earns 0 points and is labeled "not disclosed".
4. Money cannot touch a score: the formula is published on this page, and no payment can change it.
5. Status before score: closed, bankrupt, sanctioned and "watch" companies are not ranked, whatever they scored before.
6. Your situation beats one winner: best-of pages filter by account size and goal, and say when a gold IRA costs too much.

What does a SafeOunce Score of 0 to 100 mean?#

A SafeOunce Score is a number from 0 to 100, where 85 or more is Excellent, 70 to 84 Good, 55 to 69 Fair and under 55 Poor. Each word label is a band, meaning the name for a range of scores. The table shows what each band usually means for you.

Why 100 points and not stars? Trustpilot stars for large gold IRA sellers sit so close together (see the star section below) that they cannot separate companies. A 100-point scale shows the gaps.

A company without a score shows a label instead. The labels are "Rating pending" (documents requested, clock running), "Not rated: would not disclose", "Not rated: closed", "Not rated: in receivership", "Not rated: sanctioned" and "Watch". Companies outside the score's scope are simply "Not rated". Every rated page shows the score, the method version and a "data as of" date for each criterion.

Can a company pay for a better SafeOunce rating?#

No: no company can pay SafeOunce for a score, a badge, a seal or a better place on a list. An affiliate link is a link that pays a website when you contact or buy from a company. No such link can change a SafeOunce score either.

Federal law draws the same line. The FTC's Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR 255.4(b), Example 3 (eCFR version of September 1, 2026), say paid-for rankings "are deceptive." They add: "A disclosure that the website operator receives payments ... would be inadequate because the payments actually determine the ... relative rankings."

Example 3(ii) goes one step further. A method that ranks sellers higher "because of those relationships ... is also misleading." SafeOunce applies its own test: remove every payment from our data and no score changes.

How SafeOunce is paid is explained on who pays SafeOunce. Scores come only from this formula.

What Are SafeOunce's 7 Rating Criteria?#

The 7 SafeOunce criteria are price (30 points), account fees (10), contract (15), legal record (20), complaints (10), product mix and sales pressure (10), and custody (5). The letters A to G stay fixed, so review pages can point to one item, such as A1 or C2. The table lists each criterion with what it measures and its main evidence.

A. What You Pay: Markup, Price Disclosure and Buyback (30 Points)#

What you pay is worth 30 of the 100 points: 15 for the measured markup on plain gold coins, 10 for open prices and 5 for written buyback terms. The spot price is today's market price for one ounce of pure metal. The premium, or markup, is what you pay above spot.

A spread cap is the highest markup a contract allows. A buyback is the dealer buying the metal back from your IRA, and the bid is the price it pays you. The table shows every rule behind the 30 points.

Why a written quote instead of the website? Most sellers publish no prices, so markups only show up on paper. The CFTC advisory "10 Things to Ask" (March 2024) says to get "all fees, costs, commissions, and agreed retail price in writing BEFORE signing." It also says to ask "how much you would receive if you had to sell back the metal tomorrow." Why the markup is the largest cost is explained in gold IRA markups and spreads.

A1 uses the same quote for every company: $50,000 of 1 oz gold bullion coins for an IRA, with the spot price used and a same-day buyback price. For scale, a 1 oz Gold Eagle bought and sold back the same day cost 5.39% at one large online dealer on September 29, 2026. That is one dealer's snapshot, not a typical industry cost.

The zero rule for hidden prices has a reason. Of 15 operating sellers SafeOunce checked on September 29, 2026, 4 publish a spread range and 1 publishes live prices. Only 1 publishes both its account fees and a spread range. A silent company earns 0 disclosure points, never an average.

Other sites' labels show why A2 is measured, not assumed. "Transparency" labels went to Birch Gold (Forbes Advisor, CNBC Select) and Augusta (Investopedia, Yahoo Finance, CBS News), as read in 2025 and 2026. Neither publishes a spread range (as of September 29, 2026). Sellers whose contracts print a spread cap, such as American Hartford Gold and Lear Capital, got no such label.

A3 scores a written bid method, not a "buyback guarantee". The agreements of American Hartford Gold, Lear Capital, Preserve Gold, Oxford Gold Group and American Bullion say the law prohibits guaranteeing a repurchase. Yet Forbes Advisor and CNBC Select label Goldco "Best for Buyback Guarantee(s)" (read August and September 2026).

B. Account Fees and Fee Transparency (10 Points)#

Account fees are worth 10 points: 4 for publishing them with a date, 4 for a low 10-year cost on $100,000, and 2 for promotions open to bullion. A custodian is the trust company that legally holds your IRA, and its fee schedule sets most account fees.

Why only 10 points? On $100,000, custodian and vault fees come to about $2,410 to $3,650 over 10 years at published 2026 metals schedules (GoldStar commingled to STRATA segregated). One point of markup costs $1,000 on day one. The 3 fee items are scored as follows.

• B1 published fees (4 points): 4 with a date or revision code (the version label on a fee schedule), 2 without a date, 0 for "call us".
• B2 10-year cost at $100,000 (4 points): setup, 10 years and exit on the default custodian schedule. $2,500 or less earns 4, up to $3,500 earns 3, up to $5,000 earns 2, over $5,000 earns 1, unknown earns 0.
• B3 promotions (2 points): 2 when a bonus is open to bullion orders; 0 when it is tied to "premium", proof or "exclusive" coins.

On B2, GoldStar Trust's commingled storage (Rev. 01/2026) totals $2,410 and Equity Trust's metals-only segregated storage (FS-0004-05 Rev. 081726) $3,180. Commingled metal is stored with other customers' identical metal; segregated metal is kept apart. For your own total, use the gold IRA fee calculator.

B3 exists for offers like U.S. Money Reserve's "fees for life" (effective April 1, 2026), which requires at least 60% proof coins and a $200,000 rollover. Goldco's free silver applies only to "Goldco premium coins" (homepage footnote, September 29, 2026).

C. Contract Fairness: Cancellation, Arbitration and Claim Deadlines (15 Points)#

Contract fairness is worth 15 points, because the customer agreement decides whether you can cancel, where you can complain and how long you have to bring a claim. Arbitration is a private hearing instead of a court case, and an opt-out is a right to refuse it within a set time. A claim deadline is how long you have to bring a claim. A liability cap is the most a company agrees to pay if it is at fault.

The table shows how the 4 contract items earn their 15 points.

Every new IRA also comes with a right to cancel that sits outside the dealer's contract. Treasury Regulation 1.408-6 gives you at least 7 days to revoke the IRA itself, with a full refund. You use this right to cancel a gold IRA against the custodian, not the dealer, and it is separate from the dealer's cancellation terms.

What if the contract is not public? C4 then scores 0 or 1, and the other 3 contract items stay pending until the agreement arrives.

Real contracts show why this matters. Lear Capital's terms (December 2025) allow 24 hours to cancel after the invoice (longer in some states). American Hartford Gold's agreement (September 2026) gives 7 days, for non-bullion products only. One-year claim deadlines appear in the agreements of American Hartford Gold, Preserve Gold, Lear Capital and Monex.

Clause-by-clause tables for each seller are in gold IRA company contracts compared.

D. Enforcement Actions and Legal Record (20 Points)#

The legal record is worth 20 points: each company starts at 20 and loses points for settlements, bankruptcies, owners in other metals cases, class actions and pending fraud suits. A settlement ends a case, often with a payment and no admission of wrongdoing. A consent order is a court or regulator order both sides agree to.

The 6 deductions are listed below from largest to smallest, and the score never drops below 0.

1. Regulator settlement over pricing, disclosures or sales practices in the last 10 years: minus 12 (older: minus 6).
2. Bankruptcy of the company, or of a predecessor with the same owners, within 10 years: minus 10.
3. Owner or manager named in a metals enforcement action elsewhere: minus 8.
4. Unregistered advice to sell securities, with evidence: minus 4.
5. Class action or robocall settlement within 5 years: minus 3 each, up to minus 6. The robocall law is the TCPA, the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
6. Pending customer fraud suit: minus 2 each, up to minus 4.

Why score lawsuits that are only pending? The deduction is small, labeled "pending" and removed if the case is dismissed. SafeOunce never describes an allegation as proven.

Enforcement actions are searched in CFTC and SEC releases, NFA BASIC, state regulators and court dockets on PACER and CourtListener. Every case since 2008 is listed in gold IRA enforcement actions. The most serious records trigger a gate instead.

E. Complaint Record (10 Points)#

Complaints are worth 10 points, scored from what customers actually wrote: how often serious problems appear, how many complaints the company answered, and whether problems are rising. Star averages barely differ between companies, while the words show the type of problem. The 3 complaint items are scored as follows.

• E1 complaint rate (5 points): serious complaints per 100 reviews across BBB and Trustpilot, so large and small companies compare fairly. 0 earns 5, under 0.5 earns 4, 0.5 to 1 earns 3, 1 to 2 earns 2, 2 to 4 earns 1, over 4 earns 0.
• E2 answered and resolved (3 points): share of BBB complaints answered and resolved. 95% or more earns 3, 80% to 95% earns 2, under 80% earns 0.
• E3 trend (2 points): serious complaints up no more than 50% year over year.

A serious complaint is one of 4 types: markup misrepresentation, steering to premium coins, non-delivery, or a refused or unpaid buyback. SafeOunce reads BBB complaint texts from the last 3 years, Trustpilot one-star texts from the last 24 months, and state attorney general data where published.

F. Product Mix, Coin Upsells and Sales Pressure (10 Points)#

Product mix and sales pressure are worth 10 points, earned by defaulting to plain bullion and keeping the website free of IRA rule errors and fear claims. A bigger coin catalog does not score higher, because the cheapest IRA-eligible bullion under 26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3) is what an IRA needs.

A numismatic, or collector, coin is priced above its metal value for rarity or finish; proof is a collector finish. A fractional coin (1/10, 1/4 or 1/2 ounce) carries a higher markup. The 3 product items are scored as follows.

• F1 default recommendation (5 points): for a $50,000 IRA, 1 oz bullion coins or bars earn 5, a mix earns 2, pushed proof, "exclusive" or "semi-numismatic" coins earn 0. Evidence: the company's written reply, IRA product pages and promotions.
• F2 IRA catalog (0 to 3 points): points fall as the share of premium, proof and fractional products marketed for IRAs rises.
• F3 marketing accuracy (2 points): minus 1 per rule error on the site. Errors include home storage for IRA metal, a wrong RMD (required minimum distribution) age, "IRS-approved" coins and "frozen account" fear claims.

The CFTC advisory "10 Things to Ask" (March 2024) explains F1: "'Semi-numismatic' is a made-up industry term that really has no special meaning." In plain English: it is a collector coin with a bigger markup. How these sales work is shown in numismatic coin upsells.

G. Custodian, Depository and Delivery Terms (5 Points)#

Custody and delivery are worth 5 points: 2 for naming the custodian and vault and letting you choose, 2 for a written 28-day delivery promise, 1 for an IRA-titled account. A depository is the vault that stores IRA metal. The 3 custody items are scored as follows.

• Named custodians and depositories (2 points): the company names them and lets you choose.
• Delivery commitment (2 points): a written delivery or settlement promise of 28 days or less.
• IRA-titled account (1 point): the metal sits in an account titled to your IRA, with a segregated option. A dealer master account, an account in the dealer's name that mixes customers' holdings, earns 0.

The 28-day benchmark is the delivery window in CFTC actual-delivery cases, the Washington DFI order against Rosland Capital, and the U.S. Money Reserve and American Bullion agreements. You can compare gold IRA custodians on fees and records.

How Much Does Each Criterion Weigh, and Why Does Total Cost Count Most?#

Price carries 30 of the 100 points because each extra point of markup on $100,000 costs $1,000 on day one, as much as 3.5 years of a $285 yearly fee. The $285 is Equity Trust's metals-only schedule with segregated storage: $125 a year plus $160 for storage (FS-0004-05 Rev. 081726). The table shows the same comparison at 4 account sizes.

The 7 weights, from largest to smallest, are price 30, legal record 20 and contract 15. Account fees, complaints and product mix follow at 10 each, and custody at 5.

So can a company with low account fees still cost you more? Yes. Take $100,000 held for 10 years. On a low-cost bullion route, the total is about $8,580: a 5.4% round trip plus $3,180 of account fees, exit included. A round trip is the cost of buying metal and selling it back the same day.

American Hartford Gold's agreement (September 2026) allows bullion spreads of up to 19.99%. At that cap, the day-one loss, including the gap to the dealer's bid, is 23.7%. With $1,800 of account fees, the 10-year total reaches about $25,500. The cap is a maximum, not the price charged, so the real cost can be lower.

The same seller is labeled best for low fees on Money, CNBC Select and Clute Journals (as of September 2026). Those labels judge account fees only, never markups. That is why SafeOunce's fee ranking lists companies by lowest total cost, markups included.

How do other sites rate gold IRA companies?#

SafeOunce gives the measured price 30% of the score, where Forbes Advisor gives spreads 10% and Investopedia gives them no separate weight. Only these 2 widely read methods publish their weights. Forbes Advisor's method was audited June 26, 2026, and Investopedia collected its data October 8 to 29, 2024. The table compares both with SafeOunce's weights.

Forbes Advisor also uses 2 gates: a BBB grade of A or better, and an initial purchase of $20,000 or less. Four other widely read methods publish no weights at all, as the next table shows.

None of these 6 methods scores contract terms or regulator and court records. The result is wide disagreement. Nine widely read "best" lists name 20 different companies and 5 different number-one picks (as of September 29, 2026). Every list's picks, side by side, are in gold IRA 'best of' lists compared.

Why do BBB grades and Trustpilot stars score zero?#

BBB grades and Trustpilot stars score zero because they mostly measure complaint handling and review counts, not what you pay or what the contract says. Seven signals appear on SafeOunce review pages but earn no points, as listed below.

• BBB letter grade, the Better Business Bureau's A+ to F rating.
• BBB accreditation, a paid membership: "BBB charges a fee for BBB Accreditation."
• Trustpilot TrustScore, the star number on Trustpilot.
• Business Consumer Alliance (BCA) rating.
• Years in business.
• Paid spokespeople, shown as "paid spokesperson" where documented.
• Minimum investment, used only to filter best-of pages by account size.

The BBB calls its grade "BBB's opinion." An A+ needs 97 to 100 points, and 75 of the 100 reward answering and resolving complaints. Volume adds 15 and time in business 10; "Customer reviews are not used in the letter-grade calculation." Perfect complaint handling with 0 volume points still scores 85, a B.

Real cases show the gap between grade and outcome (BBB status as of September 2026). Oxford Gold Group was BBB-accredited until the BBB revoked it in 2024, the year customers filed an involuntary Chapter 7; it is now rated F. Rosland Capital was shown as "A+" on affiliate pages in 2025 and 2026 and is now NR, with 158 complaints. Lear Capital is A+ and accredited since 1997, after $14.25 million in settlements.

The BCA says it is "supported primarily by dues paid by Business Consumer Alliance member businesses." It refuses complaints over a year old or pending in court (checkbca.org, read September 29, 2026).

Trustpilot builds "seven reviews at 3.5 stars" into every TrustScore, so 20 five-star reviews show 4.61. Across 10 large gold IRA sellers, TrustScores ranged from 4.4 to 5.0 (standard deviation 0.16) on September 29, 2026, and matched BBB complaint levels only loosely (rank correlation -0.46). Trustpilot removed 7.4% of 2024 review submissions as fake.

BBB complaint texts and Trustpilot one-star texts still count, in criterion E. Each signal is tested in BBB, BCA and Trustpilot ratings.

How Is a Score Calculated? A Worked Example for One Company#

A made-up seller, Company X, scores 67 out of 100, a Fair rating, despite a reasonable quoted price, because its contract and bonus rules cost it 11 points. Company X is an illustration only, not a real company. The table scores it criterion by criterion.

Company X's quote of 7.4% over spot earned 12 of 15 A1 points, a solid result. Its contract lost 9 of 15 points: bullion cannot be cancelled, there is no arbitration opt-out, disputes stay confidential and claims expire after 1 year. Its bonus, tied to premium coins, lost the 2 B3 points. No live prices online cost it another 4 points on A2.

Small changes move the score. With a 7-day cancellation right that covers bullion (4 points) and live prices online (4 points), the same company would score 75, a Good rating.

Which Gold IRA Companies Are Not Rated? The 6 Gates#

Six gates keep a gold IRA company off SafeOunce's best-of lists: closure or bankruptcy, a fraud sanction, a settled pricing case, a watch flag, hidden documents or no IRA sales. Gates 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 also replace the score with a status label. Gate 3 keeps a company off best-of lists and shows its full record on its review page.

Receivership means a court appoints a receiver to take control of a company's assets. A liquidating Chapter 11 is a bankruptcy in which the company sells what it has and closes. Restitution is money ordered back to customers.

Gate 1 comes first because a failure costs customers directly. In Rosland's liquidating Chapter 11, about $60.8 million is owed to about 617 customers: about $49 million in undelivered orders and $11.8 million in unpaid buybacks. Rosland held $212,661.60 in cash on August 6, 2026, or 0.35% of what it owed.

Customer money in the Rosland, Red Rock and Regal Assets failures totals more than $131 million. Status labels follow the court and regulator record, using the words failed, closed, renamed or sanctioned. The label changes first, and the page text follows.

Customers of failed gold IRA companies face claims and sometimes missing metal. What happened at each one is on failed gold IRA companies.

What Evidence Counts? The 5-Level Evidence Ladder#

SafeOunce sorts evidence into 5 levels, and only the top 3 move a score: court and regulator records, contracts and fee schedules, then written quotes, then dated web pages. A primary source is the original document, such as the court order itself, not an article about it. The table shows each level and whether it can score.

What about what a salesperson tells you on the phone? That is level 4 evidence. It appears with the company's name and the date, but it never moves a score on its own.

Every rated page shows the evidence level and the date next to each fact, so you can see whether a point rests on a court order or a web page.

Which sources does SafeOunce use for each criterion?#

Each criterion has named sources, and none of them is another ranking site. The table lists them; how often each is rechecked is in the update schedule below.

For A1, the spot price is the one printed on the company's own quote. A company's legal name matters because a brand name can differ from the company that signs your contract.

What Happens When a Company Will Not Share Its Documents? The 10-Business-Day Rule#

When a company does not send its customer agreement and a written quote within 10 business days of our written request, its review page says "requested, no reply." The company is then listed as "Not rated: would not disclose." A customer agreement, also called a transaction agreement, is the contract you sign with the dealer.

While the request is open, the criteria that need those documents show "pending", and no total score is published. Those criteria are A1, the same-day bid in A3, all 4 contract items in C, and parts of F and G.

Why not just score the company on what is public? That would reward hiding prices (see criterion A). The zero rule makes openness pay.

A company can also reply but hold back one item. That item scores 0 points and carries the label "not disclosed", and the rest is scored normally. The table shows each step and what the review page says.

What does SafeOunce ask every rated company for?#

SafeOunce asks each rated company for 3 written items: its customer agreement, a $50,000 quote for 1 oz gold coins with a same-day buyback price, and its fees. The 3 items are listed below.

1. Customer agreement: the contract a new customer signs for an IRA purchase, in its current version with its date.
2. Written quote: a line-by-line quote for a $50,000 IRA purchase of 1 oz gold bullion coins, such as American Gold Eagles or Gold Maple Leafs. It shows the price per coin, the total, the spot price used and the same-day buyback price.
3. IRA fee information: setup, yearly custodian, storage and other charges, plus the custodians and vaults the company uses.

The request goes out openly by email, signed "SafeOunce Editorial Team". SafeOunce never places real orders to test a company.

What can a company do if it disagrees with its rating?#

A company that disagrees can send the document that proves its point, and SafeOunce scores it if it can be checked. A company has 3 ways to respond, listed below.

• Send a document: a contract, fee schedule, quote or court record counts once SafeOunce can verify it.
• Point out an error: errors go through the corrections process below.
• Send a written response: the company can explain its side of any disputed item.

A document that arrives after the 10 business days is scored at the next update. Nothing else changes a score: not a phone call, not a threat and not an offer of payment.

How Often Are SafeOunce Ratings Updated?#

SafeOunce rechecks prices, fees, contracts and complaints at least every quarter, and changes a company's status once a court or regulator record confirms it failed or was charged. A re-score means recomputing every criterion with the new data. The table shows how often each type of data is updated.

The status rule exists to prevent a real failure. CBS News recommended Rosland Capital on August 7, 2026, 36 days after Rosland filed for bankruptcy on July 2, 2026. A reader who followed that pick found a company owing about 617 customers about $60.8 million.

Stale dates are the other risk. Investopedia's data window closed in October 2024, and CNBC Select's body dates from November 2023 under a September 2026 title. That is why every SafeOunce criterion carries its own "data as of" date, and every quarterly review is a full re-score, not a spot check.

How are rating and method changes recorded?#

Every score change is logged with its date, the criterion that moved and the reason, and any change to the weights gets a new version number. The 3 recording rules are listed below.

• Score changes: logged with date, criterion and reason, in this format (made-up numbers): "A1 12 to 9: quoted premium rose from 7.1% to 8.6%."
• Method changes: a changed weight or threshold gets a new version number, such as 1.0 to 1.1, and is logged.
• Version on every page: every rated page shows the method version it was scored under.

You can trace any rating back through time, because every change is listed in the public SafeOunce ratings changelog.

How Does SafeOunce Check Facts? Sources, Dates and Corrections#

Every SafeOunce fact comes from the primary source, such as the IRS, a court order or a company's contract, and every changing value carries the date it was checked. Our sources are the IRS, the U.S. Code, the eCFR (the official online Code of Federal Regulations), the U.S. Tax Court and other federal courts. The CFTC, SEC, FTC, state regulators, company contracts and fee schedules, and the BBB complete the list.

Five rules apply to every SafeOunce page, in this order.

1. Use the primary source: the statute, regulation, court order, fee schedule or contract itself.
2. Date every value that changes, such as "as of September 29, 2026", and name the price series for any metal price.
3. Quote legal text briefly, then explain it "In plain English".
4. Label single-source company claims with the company's name and date, and leave out anything we cannot confirm.
5. Show the math: every computed number states its inputs, and any estimate is labeled "SafeOunce estimate" with its basis.

These rules apply to every page, not only to ratings. The full editorial policy on sources and corrections also covers independence.

One phrase shows the rules at work. Sellers often call coins "IRS-approved", but the IRS Retirement Plan Investments FAQs say "there is no list of approved investments for retirement plans."

The IRS's only approval list covers nonbank trustees, companies it allows to hold IRAs although they are not banks. That list had 73 entities as of April 1, 2026. So SafeOunce writes "IRA-eligible under 26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3)", never "IRS-approved gold".

What happens when sources disagree?#

When sources disagree, the newer official document wins, and when a company's own pages contradict each other, SafeOunce prints both values instead of picking one. Sources rank in the order listed below.

1. A newer official source: the IRS, a statute, a court, a regulator or the company's own current document.
2. An older official source.
3. A company's other statements, always attributed to the company.
4. Other websites, never used as fact.

Noble Gold's own pages disagreed on September 29, 2026. Its support FAQ listed $80 setup plus $275 a year, while its gold IRA page listed $50 setup plus $285 a year. SafeOunce prints both and asks the company in writing.

Augusta Precious Metals' $50,000 minimum appears as "according to Augusta's FAQ, last updated September 23, 2026." Only the company states it, so the claim stays attributed.

How does SafeOunce correct mistakes?#

When we get something wrong, we fix it on the page, add a dated note saying what changed, and list the correction in our public corrections log. The 3 correction steps are listed below.

• Fix: a verified error is corrected on the page itself.
• Note: a dated correction note says what changed.
• Log: the change goes into the public corrections log, and any score change also goes into the ratings changelog.

Readers and companies report errors through the contact page, and each verified correction is listed in our public corrections log.

What Are the Limits of This Rating Method?#

No rating can see everything: a quote is one moment, arbitration keeps disputes private, and a company can change its terms the day after we read them. The 6 limits of this rating method are listed below.

• Quote timing: spot prices move, and each company is quoted once a quarter.
• Reviewer quotes: the quote goes to a named reviewer, so it may be better than the one you get. Always ask for your own.
• No mystery shopping: requests are open and named, and SafeOunce places no orders, so F1 cannot hear what a salesperson pushes on the phone. Steering is measured from written replies, product pages, promotions and complaint texts.
• Private disputes: arbitration keeps disputes out of public records, so complaint data undercounts serious problems. That is one reason contracts are scored separately.
• Company size: customer counts are not public, so complaints are counted per 100 reviews, not per customer.
• Changing terms: terms can change any day, so each page shows the version and date read.

That is why every rated page shows its dates, and why your own written quote is the final check.

How Should You Use a Gold IRA Company Rating Before You Choose?#

A rating tells you where to start, not what to sign: shortlist 2 or 3 companies, then get the same 5 numbers in writing from each on the same day. Same-day quotes matter because spot prices move. The 5 numbers you should get in writing before you fund the account are listed below.

1. Price per coin and the percent over spot.
2. Sell-back bid for the same coins that day.
3. Yearly custodian and storage fees, all of them.
4. Exit fees for closing or moving the account.
5. Cancellation window, and what starts its clock.

Knowing how to choose a gold IRA company starts with these numbers. The 12 questions behind them are in how to choose a gold IRA company.

A rating also helps you rule companies out. Leave a company labeled "Not rated" or "Watch" off your shortlist until its status changes.

A score compares sellers, not your options: your balance and goal decide whether a gold IRA fits at all. Companies are sorted by account size and goal on best gold IRA companies.

Are gold IRA reviews paid?#

Often, yes: 4 of the 6 rating methods compared on this page say they can earn money from companies they list (read in 2026). Forbes Advisor says paid placements affect "how and where advertisers' offers appear" but "in no way affects our ratings". CNBC Select says placement "may be influenced by compensation". Money (September 25, 2026) says "Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed," and CBS News says "We may receive commissions." Under 16 CFR 255.4(b), a disclosure does not cure a ranking that payments decide; see are gold IRA reviews paid.

Methodology frequently asked questions#

Seven short answers cover what readers ask most about this rating method.

Who writes SafeOunce ratings?#

The SafeOunce Editorial Team publishes every rating from the formula on this page, and each score shows the documents and dates behind it. No rating rests on one person's opinion, so you can check any score yourself. More on SafeOunce and its independence is on about SafeOunce.

Does SafeOunce rate custodians and depositories with this score?#

No: this 100-point score is for companies that sell metal for IRAs; custodians and depositories are compared on published fees, insurance and records on their own pages. Gate 6 keeps them out of this score.

Why does SafeOunce not use star ratings?#

Ten large gold IRA sellers all showed 4.4 to 5.0 Trustpilot stars on September 29, 2026, too close for a star scale to tell apart. Company X above loses 11 points on its contract and bonus rules, a gap no star average would show.

Are gold IRA companies regulated?#

Partly: no federal agency licenses gold dealers, but the CFTC, SEC, FTC and state regulators can bring cases for fraud and deceptive sales. The SEC steps in when a seller gives securities advice, and the FTC covers telemarketing and deception. The gaps are covered in who regulates gold IRA companies.

How can you check a gold IRA company yourself?#

Search its legal name in CFTC, SEC and state regulator records and in court dockets, then read its BBB complaint texts, not just the grade. Use the legal name, because a brand name can differ from the company that signs your contract. The steps are laid out in how to check a gold IRA company.

Does SafeOunce earn money from gold IRA companies?#

No company can buy a SafeOunce badge, seal, rating or place on a list. SafeOunce takes no money from any company named on this page. The details are in our advertiser disclosure.

How can a company contact SafeOunce about its rating?#

A company can send documents, point out an error or add a response, as described in the disagreement section above. To reach us, use the form on contact SafeOunce.