Gold Alliance's website doesn't list prices. What a Canadian Silver Maple Leaf costs, what a self-directed IRA runs per year: both answers come from a representative on the phone. Comparing one dealer against another takes longer when the numbers arrive that way.
Gold Alliance is a precious metals dealer based in Reno, Nevada, founded in 2002 by Joseph Sherman, Kevin Troy, and Fred Abadi. It sells gold, silver, platinum, and palladium as bullion and coins rather than jewelry, positioned as a hedge against stock market swings.
Customer ratings are 4.96 out of 5 stars with the Better Business Bureau and 3.5 out of 5 on Trustpilot. Inc. Magazine's 2022 Inc. 5000 list named it the highest-ranked gold company and the third fastest-growing company in Nevada.
Buying Direct or Buying Inside a Self-Directed IRA
There are two ways in, and they work differently.
The first is a straight purchase. You buy coins or bars and Gold Alliance ships them to your home or to a third-party depository you name. Buyers who care about collectibility can choose among common bullion, limited mintage, 90% silver, and collectible pieces.
The second is a self-directed IRA, or SDIRA. Most brokers and advisors are licensed to sell stocks, bonds, ETFs, and mutual funds, but not physical metal. An SDIRA is the account type that allows it, and Gold Alliance offers gold and silver inside one.
Worth knowing early: not every coin the company sells is IRA-eligible. Collector appeal and IRS eligibility are separate questions. IRA-eligible options include:
- Gold American Eagle 1/10 oz
- Canadian Platinum Maple Leaf 1 oz
- Canadian Gold Buffalo 1/4 oz
- Silver American Eagle 1 oz
- Canadian Silver Maple Leaf 1 oz
What a Metals IRA Costs Each Year
Fees are the biggest difference between a precious metals IRA and a conventional one, and they depend on which custodian you use. Here's the schedule for EquityTrust, one of the three Gold Alliance works with:
| Fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Account set-up | $50 |
| Storage | $100 to $150 per year |
| Maintenance | $225 to $2,250 per year |
| Liquidation | $10 to $30 |
| Shipping and handling | $50+ |
| Termination | $250 |
The maintenance fee scales with your balance. It starts at $225 for accounts up to $14,999 and climbs to $2,250 for balances above $2 million. Storage is either $100 or $150 a year depending on the storage type you pick. Liquidation is charged per asset when you sell, capped at $30. Shipping is your cost plus $10, with a $50 minimum. Closing the account costs $250.
None of these charges exist in a plain brokerage IRA holding index funds. They come out of your balance every year regardless of what metal prices do, which means the account has to gain ground just to stay even.
Preferred Trust, Equity Trust, and Goldstar Trust Hold the Account
An SDIRA needs a custodian, a licensed person or firm that holds and administers the assets. Gold Alliance doesn't fill that role. It partners with three companies that do:
- Preferred Trust
- Equity Trust
- Goldstar Trust
You choose which one. That's more flexibility than a single-partner arrangement, but it's also a narrow list. If you already work with a custodian outside those three, or want one you've researched independently, this isn't the company for that.
One limit to keep in mind: once your account is funded, the custodian's job is holding and administering assets. Custodians can't give financial advice. Nobody in the chain is acting as your advisor.
Storage Requirements for IRA and Non-IRA Metal
The IRS requires physical metal in a gold or silver IRA to be held by a bank or an IRS-approved depository. Home storage isn't an option for IRA holdings. Any approved depository can do the job, and the one Gold Alliance recommends is the Delaware Depository, which the company describes as IRS-approved with insurance underwritten by Lloyds of London.
Metal bought outside an IRA can come to your house. The trade-off is that coins in a home are exposed to theft, damage, and fraud in a way that depository-held metal isn't.
Two Ways to Move Money In, Plus the 2024 Contribution Limits
Funding usually means moving money from an existing retirement account, whether a 401(k), a 403(b), or a Simple IRA. Two methods can avoid taxes and penalties:
- A trustee-to-trustee transfer moves money directly between financial institutions. It never passes through your hands.
- A 60-day rollover means you move funds from one IRA to another yourself. Miss the 60-day window and taxes and penalties apply.
SDIRAs share contribution limits with Roth and traditional IRAs. The overall IRA contribution limit for 2024 is $7,000, or $8,000 for people 50 and older with catch-up contributions.
Withdrawals, Penalties, and Prohibited Transactions
Withdrawals before age 59 1/2 trigger a 10% penalty, the same as a Roth or traditional IRA. A traditional tax-deferred SDIRA also requires minimum distributions starting at age 72.
The difference is how many rules there are. SDIRAs carry more complicated tax rules, and breaking them can mean added taxes, fees, penalties, or the loss of the account's tax-deferred status.
Taking personal possession of IRA metal is a prohibited transaction, and it's the kind of misstep with no equivalent in a fund-based IRA, because there's no physical asset to mishandle.
Opening an Account: Five Steps by Phone and Mail
You need to be at least 18. Since there's no online pricing or online signup, the process starts by phone.
- Call the toll-free number to reach a Gold Alliance team member.
- Provide contact details: full name, phone, email, address, and more.
- Work through which of the three custodians fits your situation.
- Complete the application and mail it back in the prepaid FedEx envelope the company sends.
- Fund the account with a trustee-to-trustee transfer or a check.
Gold Alliance says account setup takes a day after the application is processed, and a rollover can take up to five business days.
Selling Metal Back and How the Quote Gets Locked
Payment for metal held outside an IRA arrives as a check or a wire, and not until the coins reach a Gold Alliance account at the Delaware Depository and clear an authenticity check.
The amount was settled well before that, over the phone: a representative quotes a price, and accepting it locks the figure, so whatever the market does in the meantime is irrelevant. Gold Alliance supplies the shipping instructions.
For IRA holdings, the buyback program works similarly: a quote with the offer's details in writing, and after you agree in writing, Gold Alliance coordinates with your custodian to move the coins and the money.
A dealer makes money on the spread, which is worth remembering here. The price to buy is generally higher than the price to sell, and quotes from other dealers may differ. Locking a price protects you from a drop while the coins are in transit, and it also means you don't capture a rise.
Gold's Recent Annual Moves Set Against the Fees
Precious metals often hold up when stocks fall, which is the whole appeal. They also move sharply on their own. Recent annual gold moves:
- 2020: up 24.43%
- 2021: down 3.51%
- 2022: down 0.23%
Past performance doesn't predict future results. Gold Alliance itself frames precious metals as a long-term holding and suggests holding for several years for the best chance at a positive return.
Put the fee schedule next to those numbers. Consider an account paying the $225 minimum maintenance fee plus $100 in storage in a year when gold slipped 0.23%: the fees, not the metal, would be the larger drag on the balance. That's the mechanical reality of any account with fixed annual costs.
Fraud and Theft Risk, and the SEC-Regulated Alternatives
Self-directed IRAs are largely unregulated, which raises the fraud exposure compared with mainstream investments. Physical coins add theft and damage risk on top of that.
Investors who want gold exposure without holding metal sometimes look at gold mining stocks or royalty companies instead. Those are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which lowers fraud risk, though it does nothing about price risk. It's a different product, tracking company performance rather than the metal alone.
Where Stash and Public Differ From Gold Alliance
Neither of these offers SDIRAs or physical metal, so they're not direct substitutes. They're where people land who want portfolio diversification without the custodian-and-depository machinery.
| Gold Alliance | Stash | Public | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assets | Gold, silver, platinum, palladium | Stocks, ETFs, bonds, crypto | Stocks, ETFs, Treasuries (coming soon), crypto, fine art, NFTs, comics, memorabilia, collectibles |
| Account fees | Varies by custodian | $3 or $9 per month by subscription | Free to use |
| Minimum investment | Varies by custodian | $0 to $1 | $0 |
Stash charges a monthly subscription; its automated side buys fractional shares, and any gold or commodity exposure there comes through ETFs rather than metal. Public's draw is the alternative-asset shelf, music royalties and art among the items, sitting alongside ordinary stocks and ETFs.
The Research Articles and the Gold Allied Trust Portal
Gold Alliance publishes research articles on its main site and runs a second educational portal called Gold Allied Trust. Both host articles on how precious metals may work against inflation, current events touching the metals market, and general background. There's also a gold-ounce price calculator and price charts.
Keep in mind that a dealer's educational library is written by a company that profits when you buy. It can still be useful for learning terminology and mechanics, and pairing it with independent sources fills in the other side.
Physical Metal, Higher Costs, and the Alternatives
The arithmetic from the fee section is what an account here has to answer to. Storage and maintenance charges land every year at a fixed dollar amount, while gold's recent record includes a year up 24.43% and two years slightly down.
In a flat or mildly negative year, the fees are the biggest thing moving the balance. What the money buys in return is metal owned outright, sitting in IRS-approved storage, with three custodians to choose between and a buyback offer the company puts in writing.
The constraints come attached. IRA metal never comes home, because the IRS requires a bank or an approved depository to hold it. The annual fees are heavier than a conventional IRA's and keep applying whether metal prices rise or fall. SDIRA tax rules leave less room for error, and the fraud protections that come with SEC-regulated products aren't there.
Gold exposure without the paperwork is available through ETFs or mining shares. Metal owned outright, inside a retirement account, is the narrower thing this company is built to sell.
