A gold IRA company will tell you their fees are low. Often they will tell you the first year is free.
Both statements can be perfectly true while the company earns thirty thousand dollars from your account.
This is not a trick question or an accusation. It is a business model, and once you can see it, every sales conversation you ever have about gold becomes readable.
The key fact is this. Gold IRA dealers are not paid by fees. They are paid by the difference between what metal costs them and what it costs you.
Which means everything about how they talk to you is shaped by one goal: getting you into a product where that difference can be large.
Here are the six ways the money actually moves.