Editorial standards
Methodology
Research, not advice. Read the full notice
Nothing below has been tailored to your circumstances, and none of it counts as investment guidance, tax counsel, or a retirement plan. Money placed in bullion or in a metals-backed retirement account can be lost: principal carries no protection, positions are often slow to sell, dealers price above spot, vault and insurance bills recur annually, and withdrawing early or the wrong way hands the IRS a penalty. What metals did in any prior stretch says nothing dependable about what comes next. Speak with a fiduciary advisor, and with whoever prepares your taxes, before you open a gold IRA, move a 401(k) balance, or place an order for metal. Whoever writes here researches this industry independently and holds no advisory license: no CFP, no CFA, no broker-dealer registration.
Every substantive page on this site carries a fact docket at the top: the date its claims were last verified and the number of sources checked. This page explains what sits behind that docket.
Source hierarchy
Claims are sourced in this order, and a lower tier never overrides a higher one:
- Primary regulator and statute. IRS publications and the Internal Revenue Code for every tax, rollover, contribution, and eligibility rule. Pub. 590-A, Pub. 590-B, and IRC §408. Court opinions where a rule has been litigated.
- The company's own published materials. Fee schedules and program terms from Augusta's gold IRA page. Where a figure is quoted by phone rather than published, pages say so explicitly.
- Independent complaint and rating bodies. Better Business Bureau, Business Consumer Alliance, Trustpilot, Google Business Profile, and ConsumerAffairs.
- Nothing else. Other review sites are not sources. Most are affiliate properties, and citing them launders marketing into fact.
The fact docket
Ratings, review counts, and complaint tallies move. Rather than publishing an undated number and letting it rot, every page states the date its figures were true and how many sources were checked to establish them. When a figure drifts, the page is corrected and the docket re-dated rather than quietly edited.
If a page's docket date is old enough to make you doubt it, that is the docket working as intended. Check the primary source and tell us what changed.
How the rating is built
This site's rating is not a satisfaction score. Review platforms already measure how pleased customers were; the rating here measures the deal, weighted as follows:
- Conduct record (40%): formal complaints, regulator actions, litigation history.
- Cost transparency (20%): published fees, spread disclosure on request, promotion honesty.
- Structure (30%): custody separation, custodian and depository quality, refusal of non-compliant products.
- Access (10%): minimums, catalog breadth, process friction.
Conduct and structure carry the most weight because they decide whether your metal is safe. The minimum and the phone-quoted spread still count against the deal, at a lower weight.
The scorecard, in full
Each axis is scored from 1 to 10 by a fixed rule. The rating is the weighted mean divided by two, rounded to one decimal. Anyone can reproduce it from the table below. Scores as of October 21, 2026.
| Axis (weight) | Scoring rule | Augusta | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conduct record (40%) | No consumer lawsuit, two or fewer BBB complaints in three years, and no regulator action in the last five years: 10. Three to twenty BBB complaints in three years, or an open consumer lawsuit: 7. A regulator action in the last five years: 4. A regulator fraud finding: 1. | 10 | One BBB complaint in three years, no consumer lawsuit; the only regulator action is a paid 2019 Minnesota registration order, more than five years old |
| Cost transparency (20%) | Every fee and the dealer spread published: 10. A fixed account-fee schedule published by the company or its named custodian, spread quoted by phone before purchase: 9. Fee ranges only, no named custodian schedule: 6. Nothing published: 3. | 9 | Equity Trust, the named custodian, publishes the exact fee schedule; Augusta quotes spreads by phone before purchase |
| Structure (30%) | Independent custodian and depository, and the company refuses non-compliant products such as home-storage IRAs: 10. Independent custody, no stated refusal: 8. Custody held by the dealer or an affiliate: 4. | 10 | Equity Trust custody, Delaware Depository storage, declines home-storage IRAs |
| Access (10%) | Minimum of $10,000 or less: 10. Up to $50,000: 8. Above $50,000: 5. Subtract 1 if the catalog has no platinum or palladium. | 7 | $50,000 minimum (8), gold and silver only (minus 1) |
| Result | Weighted mean out of 10, divided by 2 | 9.5 / 10 = 4.8 / 5 | Every rating on this site reads from this table. |
What this site refuses to do
- Predict metal prices. No forecasts, no "experts agree" framing, no urgency.
- Recommend an allocation. How much of a portfolio belongs in metals depends on a balance sheet this site cannot see. That question belongs to a fee-only advisor.
- Claim credentials it does not hold. The editorial team holds no advisory license, and pages say so.
- Rank ten dealers and link all ten. This file covers one company in depth.
Corrections
Corrections are welcomed and acted on. Send the claim and the source that contradicts it to the file desk. Verified corrections are applied and the page's docket is re-dated in the same pass.
Commercial relationships
This site participates in Augusta Precious Metals' affiliate program, and has since July 2026. If a reader
requests Augusta's information kit through certain links on this site, the site may be paid. Those links are
marked rel="sponsored", and every page carries a disclosure above the fold, as FTC 16 CFR Part 255
requires. Payment does not set the rating, the factual findings, or whether negative evidence is published. The
rating comes from the scorecard above, and the full terms are on the disclosure page.