Two people open gold IRAs on the same Tuesday with $200,000 each.
They buy identical coins. The metal goes to the same depository, into the same vault, guarded by the same people.
Ten years later, gold has doubled and both accounts hold the same forty ounces.
The first person has paid about $4,000 in fees over the decade.
The second has paid about $47,000.
Nothing dramatic happened. No fraud, no hidden charges, no fine print in a foreign language. One of them signed a fee schedule with the word "flat" in it, and the other signed one with a percentage.
That is the entire story, and it is worth twenty minutes of your attention because fees in this structure behave unlike fees almost anywhere else.