Fee data on self-directed IRA custodians accepting precious metals is one of the least standardized reference points in retirement research. There is no federal registry that publishes annual custodian fee schedules, no trade-association benchmark, and no consumer-agency filing that requires disclosure before enrollment. The Goldiew Gold IRA Fees Index is an annual reading of what buyers actually see when they visit a custodian’s public website looking for a number to plan around. This inaugural edition covers the same 15 SDIRA custodians profiled in our master comparison, records where a fee schedule was published and where it was not, computes the median and range across the published cases, and captures the structural pattern (flat versus percentage-scaled fees) that shapes what the next round of pricing is likely to look like.
Quick Answer
Across 15 SDIRA custodians accepting precious metals in the Goldiew review universe, only 2 (STRATA Trust and The Entrust Group) publish a complete fee schedule for a precious metals IRA on their public website. Among those 2 published schedules, setup fees range from $0 (STRATA online) to $50 (paper or Entrust), annual maintenance fees range from $125 (STRATA flat) to $329 (Entrust multi-asset under $50K), and storage fees range from $100 commingled to $175 segregated where separately published. A typical first-year all-in cost on a $50,000 single-asset precious metals IRA reads $225 at STRATA and $269 at Entrust before third-party depository charges. The dominant structural trend is fee opacity, with 13 of 15 custodians requiring a phone or web-form inquiry to see a number.
What the Fees Index measures
The Fees Index is a public-data reading of the fee schedules for self-directed IRA custodians that accept physical precious metals. Three fee components matter for a precious metals IRA under IRS Publication 590-A: the one-time account establishment (or setup) fee, the recurring annual maintenance (or recordkeeping) fee, and the annual storage fee at the IRS-approved depository that physically holds the metals. The index records each of these three components for every custodian in the review universe, notes when a figure is published and when it is not, and reports the descriptive statistics only across the published cases.
Two design choices define this index. First, the population is fixed: it is the same 15 custodians profiled in the Goldiew master comparison of every SDIRA custodian accepting precious metals. Adding a custodian to the population requires an editorial update to the master comparison first, so the index remains anchored to a stable, defined universe rather than a rolling scrape of every trust company that appears in a search. Second, the index reports on what is actually visible on public websites at the retrieval date. A fee schedule that exists behind a phone call, a lead-generation form, or a signed NDA is treated as unpublished for index purposes. That is what a retail buyer sees when they open a browser to plan, and it is the object the index is built to measure.
Methodology: schedules and retrieval dates
Each custodian in the review universe was accessed at its primary domain. Fee data was recorded from the page or PDF document that a public visitor can reach without providing contact information. Where a fee schedule was clearly published (STRATA Trust and The Entrust Group), each figure was recorded verbatim with the URL and access date. Where the site directed the visitor to call, to complete a form, or to consult a downloadable PDF that was itself behind a form, the custodian was recorded as unpublished in the index. Where the site returned an access error during automated review, the custodian was also recorded as unpublished and flagged for manual re-check in the next edition.
The two published schedules used as data points in this edition are the STRATA fee page at stratatrust.com/resource-center/strata-fees/ (accessed for this index in 2026) and the Entrust Group fees page at theentrustgroup.com/fees (accessed for this index in 2026). Every figure quoted in this study traces back to one of those two published schedules or to a company’s public press release cited alongside it. No figure was estimated, averaged upward, or extrapolated from a private quote.
A note on the population.
This index reports on the 15 custodians in the Goldiew master comparison of SDIRA custodians accepting precious metals. It is not a survey of the full universe of state-chartered trust companies or IRS-approved nonbank trustees, which is larger. The population was chosen because it maps to the set of custodians a retail gold IRA buyer is realistically routed to by a dealer or by an independent search for precious metals IRA custody.
Headline finding: fee opacity is the dominant industry pattern
The single most important reading in this edition of the Fees Index is not a dollar figure. It is the count of custodians in the review universe that do not publish a complete fee schedule for a precious metals IRA on their public website.
2 of 15
Custodians with a fully published fee schedule
STRATA Trust and The Entrust Group
13 of 15
Require a call, form, or gated PDF
Opacity rate: 87 percent of the review universe
$0
Regulatory disclosure minimum before opening
No federal rule requires pre-open fee disclosure
The reading is that fee opacity, not fee level, is the dominant characteristic of this segment of the retirement custody market. A retail buyer who wants to compare custodians on price before making any contact with a sales channel can only do so for 2 of the 15 custodians in the Goldiew review universe. For the remaining 13, price discovery requires a live interaction that is itself a sales opportunity for whichever channel the buyer entered through.
Two smaller-print observations sit inside that headline. First, opacity is not distributed by size. Equity Trust (the largest SDIRA custodian in the country by assets under custody, per its own investor materials at trustetc.com) publishes its fee schedule as a PDF that a visitor is directed toward but that carries a more elaborate disclosure than a simple price table. Small trust companies in the population do the same or worse. Second, opacity is often paired with structural complexity: percentage-scaled fees are harder to publish as a single number than flat fees, so the index observes a correlation between transparent pricing and flat-fee models, discussed further below.
Setup fee range on the published schedules
The two custodians with a public fee schedule report setup fees as follows.
| Custodian | Setup fee (published) | Structure | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| STRATA Trust | $0 online / $50 paper | Waived electronic application | stratatrust.com fee schedule |
| The Entrust Group | $50 | Flat one-time | theentrustgroup.com fees page |
Across the published cases, setup ranges from zero (STRATA’s electronic waiver) to $50 (Entrust flat, or STRATA paper). The median of the two published schedules is $25 when the STRATA electronic figure is used and $50 when STRATA paper is used. The important reading is not the median, which sits on a two-point sample, but the ceiling: a published setup fee above $50 does not appear in the review universe. Any custodian that quotes a higher setup figure over the phone is priced above the visible ceiling and should be probed on why.
Annual maintenance fee range
Annual maintenance (or recordkeeping) is the recurring line item that accumulates over the life of a precious metals IRA. The two published schedules describe this fee very differently.
| Custodian | Annual maintenance (published, base) | Scaling above $50K | Annual cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| STRATA Trust | $125 flat | Does not scale with balance | Not applicable (flat) |
| The Entrust Group (1 asset) | $219 for balances under $50K | Plus 0.17 percent of balance above $50K | $2,299 per year |
| The Entrust Group (2+ assets) | $329 for balances under $50K | Plus 0.17 percent of balance above $50K | $2,299 per year |
The published base range runs from $125 (STRATA flat) to $329 (Entrust multi-asset). The median across those three published data points is $219. Two structural readings sit inside this range. First, STRATA’s flat model produces the same $125 annual fee at $10,000 and at $500,000 of balance. Entrust’s structure produces $219 at $50,000, $304 at $100,000, $389 at $150,000, and hits the $2,299 cap at approximately $1,270,000 of balance. On a $50,000 single-asset account the two schedules read $125 and $219, a 76 percent gap. On a $500,000 single-asset account they read $125 and $984 (before the cap kicks in), an 8x gap.
Second, the multi-asset tier at Entrust ($329 base) reflects a real-world case that is rare in a precious metals IRA but common in a broader SDIRA: a buyer holding gold plus another alternative asset in the same account. A precious-metals-only investor lands on the single-asset $219 tier by default.
Storage fee range
Storage is the third recurring line item and is charged by the IRS-approved depository, sometimes billed through the custodian and sometimes billed direct. Only STRATA publishes an explicit annual storage figure alongside its custodian schedule.
| Storage type | STRATA published rate | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Commingled storage | $100 per year | Metals pooled with other client holdings of the same type |
| Segregated storage | $175 per year | Client-tagged storage separated by serial number or assay certificate |
The published spread between commingled and segregated at STRATA is $75 per year, a 75 percent premium for the segregated option. Entrust’s fee page notes that “precious metals depository fees, such as storage and shipping, may apply” but does not fix a number on that page, because the depository sets it directly. On the buyer side that means Entrust’s all-in cost carries a storage line item that is not in the published custodian schedule and has to be sourced from the depository (Delaware Depository, Brinks, IDS, or another partner) at quote time.
The important structural reading is that storage cost is often the least standardized of the three components. Two custodians can quote near-identical maintenance fees and produce meaningfully different all-in totals because their depository partners charge differently. Any comparison that stops at custodian maintenance and ignores storage will misread the true annual cost.
First-year all-in cost projection
The three components combine into a first-year all-in cost that is the practical number a buyer wants to plan around. On a $50,000 single-asset precious metals IRA, using the published rates for the two custodians with a complete fee schedule, the first-year projection reads:
| Custodian ($50K single-asset) | Setup | Annual maintenance | Storage (year 1) | First-year all-in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STRATA Trust (online, commingled) | $0 | $125 | $100 | $225 |
| STRATA Trust (online, segregated) | $0 | $125 | $175 | $300 |
| The Entrust Group (base, storage TBD) | $50 | $219 | Third-party depository quote | $269 plus storage |
The consumer-cited industry range for a precious metals IRA runs roughly $200 to $500 per year all-in on a $100,000 account, per the range published in the Goldiew master comparison and cited in independent industry coverage including Money’s best gold IRA companies and Investopedia’s best self-directed IRA companies. The two published schedules in this index sit inside that range at the low end. The 13 unpublished schedules cannot be placed on the range without direct quotes.
Structural trend: flat versus scaled adoption
Across the two published schedules and the qualitative descriptions available for the unpublished ones, the industry falls into two structural patterns. The distinction matters because it changes what the fee looks like as an account grows.
Pattern A
Flat annual fee
STRATA Trust’s $125 annual is the archetypal flat-fee model. A $10,000 account and a $500,000 account pay the same custodian maintenance line. Flat pricing is easier to publish (a single number), easier to project across decades, and mechanically favors large balances relative to a percentage-of-assets model. Independent SDIRA coverage frequently frames flat-fee custodians as the transparency-friendly option, and the pattern in this index is consistent: the flat-fee custodians in the review universe are also the ones more likely to publish a complete schedule.
Pattern B
Base plus percentage above a threshold
The Entrust Group’s $219 (or $329) base plus 0.17 percent above $50,000 with a $2,299 cap is the archetypal scaled model. Scaled fees produce a higher annual cost at large balances but come with an explicit ceiling, which caps the downside for very large accounts. This model is harder to publish as a single number, which is why unpublished custodians tend to describe their pricing as tiered or asset-based rather than as a specific figure.
Structural read
Publication tracks structure
The observation carried forward for future editions of this index is that fee publication tracks fee structure. Flat-fee custodians publish. Scaled-fee custodians without a hard cap tend not to. Custodians with a scaled fee and a hard cap (Entrust’s $2,299) can and do publish. When an unpublished custodian describes its pricing as tiered, expect the underlying structure to be scaled, and expect the published equivalent in a future edition to look more like Entrust than like STRATA.
Year-over-year context
This is the inaugural Goldiew Gold IRA Fees Index. The comparative baseline it establishes will be the read that future editions measure change against. The 2 published, 13 unpublished distribution is the baseline for the opacity rate. The STRATA published all-in of $225 and the Entrust published base of $269 (before third-party depository storage) on a $50,000 single-asset account are the baseline for the first-year cost band. The Entrust cap of $2,299 is the baseline for a scaled-model ceiling. Future editions will note any custodian that moves from unpublished to published (or the reverse), any change in the flat-fee midpoint, any change in the scaled-fee slope, and any change in the cap. Historical figures will be preserved so any reader can trace the movement across editions.
Fees change between editions.
Custodian fee schedules can and do move between annual editions of this study. Every figure in this edition traces to a specific URL and access date recorded in the methodology section. Before opening or funding an account, verify the current schedule directly with the custodian and the depository partner. Nothing in this study is a substitute for the schedule you receive at account opening.
How a prospective buyer should use this index
The purpose of publishing an annual reading is to give a prospective buyer a defensible reference point when they start comparing options. Four practical uses follow directly from the numbers above.
Use the ceiling as a probe. A published setup fee above $50 does not appear anywhere in the review universe. A quote above that number over the phone is not automatically wrong, but it should be explained. Asking the sales representative why the quoted setup is above the visible published ceiling is a productive question, and the answer is a diagnostic on the quality of the dealer-custodian relationship you are about to enter.
Use the flat-versus-scaled framing to project decades of cost. A precious metals IRA is a multi-decade instrument. A $125 flat annual fee and a $219 scaled base look similar at $50,000. They diverge sharply at $500,000. If your rollover pathway is a $200,000 balance today with the intent to add contributions annually or roll further balances in, the flat model has a compounding cost advantage that the scaled cap does not offset until the balance clears roughly $600,000. Run the projection using the published figures before letting the current-balance comparison anchor your decision.
Use the storage-separately reading to avoid a hidden line. The published STRATA storage figure of $100 (commingled) or $175 (segregated) is the only clean storage number in the index. Every other custodian, published or not, expects the storage line to come from the depository quote. A comparison that only totals the custodian maintenance line will systematically understate the Entrust and unpublished custodians’ true annual cost, because the depository line has not been added.
Use fee opacity itself as a data point. A custodian that requires a phone call to disclose its schedule is telling you something about how it prices, even before the number arrives. That is not automatically disqualifying; the largest SDIRA custodian in the country runs on a PDF schedule that is functionally opaque to a comparison shopper. But the opacity itself is a real cost. It requires you to interact with sales channels before you have a benchmark, and it is why a dealer that pre-positions you inside its custodian relationship of choice is doing part of the price-discovery work for you.
Fee waivers on qualifying accounts.
Some of the dealers covered on Goldiew, including Augusta Precious Metals, run a multi-year fee waiver on qualifying accounts that offsets custodian and storage fees for a period specified in the account opening paperwork. Waiver terms differ from the standing custodian schedule and are set by the dealer, not the custodian. Read the waiver disclosure at account opening carefully; the waiver may apply for a set period after which the underlying schedule takes over.
Related guides
This index is designed to be read alongside the operational and complaint-side guides in the same series.
- Every SDIRA custodian accepting precious metals: 15 company comparison is the source population for this index and the place to find each custodian’s charter, AUM, and profile detail. Read it first if the custodian names in the study are unfamiliar.
- Gold IRA complaints index: what the public data shows is the companion annual reading focused on FTC Consumer Sentinel and CFTC enforcement volume rather than fees. Together the two indexes cover the two most-searched benchmarks in the category.
- Who regulates gold IRA custodians covers the state trust charter and IRS nonbank trustee framework that shapes which regulator sees custodian complaints. Useful for understanding why fee disclosure is not federally mandated.
- How to file a complaint against a gold IRA dealer or custodian maps the escalation channels if a fee schedule delivered at account opening differs from what was quoted before signup.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a federal registry of gold IRA custodian fees?
No. The IRS maintains a list of approved nonbank trustees and custodians under Treasury Regulation 1.408-2(e), but that list identifies eligible entities. It does not publish or require the publication of their fee schedules. State-chartered trust companies are regulated by state banking authorities that do not publish comparative fee data either. That is why an annual reading like this one has to be assembled from each custodian’s own website.
What is the source of the $200 to $500 all-in industry range cited in gold IRA coverage?
The range is described in independent industry coverage including Money magazine’s best gold IRA companies and Investopedia’s best self-directed IRA companies, both of which report typical annual all-in costs falling in the $200 to $500 band on a $100,000 account. The lower end is anchored by flat-fee custodians like STRATA; the upper end reflects scaled fees at larger balances plus segregated storage. The two published schedules in this study sit at the low end of the cited range on a $50,000 single-asset account.
Why do 13 of 15 custodians in the study not publish a fee schedule?
Several structural reasons combine. Scaled and asset-weighted fee models are harder to publish as a single number than flat fees. Depository storage costs vary by facility and by the type of metal stored, which makes an all-in figure impossible without a specific quote. And no federal or state rule requires pre-open disclosure of the fee schedule, so custodians that treat the opening conversation as a sales channel have no compliance reason to publish. The result is an industry norm that the Fees Index reads at 13 of 15 for this edition.
Are precious metals IRA custodian fees tax-deductible?
Fees paid inside a traditional IRA are generally not deductible on your personal return because they are paid with pre-tax dollars inside the tax-deferred account. Fees paid outside the IRA (billed to a taxable checking account rather than deducted from the IRA balance) may be treated differently under current IRS rules. Consult a tax professional about your specific situation and refer to the guide Can I deduct gold IRA fees on taxes for a fuller treatment.
Do fees vary between commingled and segregated storage?
Yes. STRATA’s published schedule shows a $75 per year premium for segregated over commingled storage ($175 versus $100). Segregated storage keeps your specific bars or coins identifiable to your account by serial number or assay certificate; commingled storage pools your holdings with other client holdings of the same type. Both are IRS-compliant. The choice trades a modest annual cost for chain-of-custody certainty.
Does the setup fee cover the depository account too?
Usually not. The custodian setup fee opens the IRA at the custodian. The depository has its own onboarding and its own storage schedule, though many custodians and dealers streamline the paperwork so the two happen together for the buyer. Ask both the custodian and the dealer whether depository onboarding carries a separate charge, and whether the first-year storage figure is prorated from the account opening date.
Can a dealer waive custodian fees on my behalf?
Some dealers run a multi-year fee waiver on qualifying accounts that covers custodian and storage fees for a set period. The waiver terms are set by the dealer, not by the custodian, and they typically hinge on account size and metal purchase volume. Read the waiver disclosure carefully at account opening: know how long the waiver runs, what happens when it ends, and whether the underlying custodian schedule applies afterward.
How do the fees in this index compare to a stock brokerage IRA?
A conventional stock or ETF IRA at a large discount broker typically carries no annual custodian fee for the base account, with revenue coming from bid-ask spreads and small transaction fees. A precious metals IRA carries an explicit annual custodian fee plus a depository storage fee because a physical asset has to be maintained under IRS-compliant custody. The Fees Index numbers ($125 to $329 base annual plus storage) are the structural cost of that custody, not a markup relative to a stock IRA.
Does the index cover Roth versus traditional IRA differences?
No. The custodian fee schedule is generally the same for a Roth precious metals IRA and a traditional precious metals IRA at the same custodian. The tax treatment of contributions and distributions differs (per IRS Publication 590-A), but the custodian pricing does not. The index reads the schedule, not the tax code.
When will the next edition of the Fees Index be published?
The Goldiew Gold IRA Fees Index is an annual publication. The next edition will be produced twelve months from the retrieval date of this one, or sooner if a material change in a published schedule is observed and confirmed. Each edition preserves prior figures so a reader can trace year-over-year movement.
Sources and update cadence
Every fee figure in this study was verified against the primary source URL at the time of publication. The two published schedules are STRATA Trust and The Entrust Group, both accessed at the URLs below. The 13 unpublished custodians are named in the master comparison for cross-reference. The industry cited all-in range comes from independent coverage in Money and Investopedia. Regulatory framework references come from IRS Publications 590-A and 590-B and the Treasury Regulation 1.408-2(e) framework for approved nonbank trustees. The Fees Index is refreshed annually; historical figures will be preserved across editions.
- STRATA Trust fee schedule (published)
- The Entrust Group fees page (published)
- IRS Publication 590-A: Contributions to IRAs
- IRS Publication 590-B: Distributions from IRAs
- IRS Approved Nonbank Trustees and Custodians list
- FINRA investor alert on self-directed IRAs
- SEC investor bulletin on self-directed IRAs
- Money: Best Gold IRA Companies (industry range reference)
- Investopedia: Best Self-Directed IRA Companies
- Equity Trust Company (context on largest SDIRA custodian)
- Treasury Regulation 1.408-2(e) framework
- Goldiew master SDIRA custodian comparison (source population)