We may earn a small commission from the companies mentioned in this post. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Do you want to secure your financial future?
It would be wise to diversify your investments and add stable assets to your portfolio that are less subjected to serious market fluctuations. To have a solid retirement portfolio, you’ll need to invest in a gold IRA company based on your choice.
Although it may sound simple, such a pursuit is not without its setbacks.
Perhaps you’re an amateur investor, and can’t distinguish a reliable company from an untrustworthy one? If so, chances are you may find yourself worse off than when you started your investment venture.
As such, it would make more financial sense to research and compare different gold IRA providers out there before you can finally pick one.
To help you with such decision-making, we’ve conducted in-depth research on two of the most popular gold IRA companies operating in the market.
The two leading companies that we’ll compare in this post are – Goldco Precious Metals and Birch Gold Group.
Keep reading to explore the most relevant and key details related to them.
Features Comparison: What Goldco and Birch Gold Group Offer
Let’s start by looking at an overview of each company, and how they compare. What are the key features? What is it about each company that would make a person want to use their services?
GoldCo Key Features & Overview
Goldco has earned some of the highest marks across the industry for customer service and integrity, including an A+ Rating from the Better Business Bureau.
- A+ Better Business Bureau Rating
- AAA Rating via Business Consumer Alliance
- Up to $10,000 in Free Silver with Qualifying Purchase
- Easy 3-Step Process to Get Started
"The crew at GoldCo are professional and accommodating, extremely helpful and very easy to work with. My service rep, Tony Pino, was always available and willing to answer/explian any questions. Highly recommend them." -Mark G.
Goldco Precious Metals has been in operation for 14 years and usually specializes in silver and gold IRAs. It also deals with the acquisition of silver and gold bars and coins. The company has an A+ rating on the Better Business Bureau, and a 4.8 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot.
The company has made it easy to transfer money from an existing 401(k), pension, 457, TSP account, or 403(b) to a self-directed gold IRA. Goldco also provides its clients with Roth IRA rollovers and conversions.
Goldco’s primary goal is to educate its clients on better ways to invest in precious metals and secure their retirement funds. Each client is guided through all stages of the gold IRA rollover process.
Additionally, you can purchase gold and silver from Goldco for application outside of a retirement savings account.
Goldco Pros & Cons
Depending on your needs, you might or might not find Goldco suitable. Here’s an outline of some of these pros and cons.
Pros
- Goldco generally charges lower fees
- The company has an A+ rating from the BBB
- Positive customer reviews
- Existing and new clients are offered educational materials
- Exclusive offers are offered to new customers that may help secure retirement assets
- It’s free to store precious metals that are not part of an IRA
- Easily include precious metals in 401K’s and IRA’s
- Goldco’s experts have a combined long-term investment experience
- Complete transparency of the company’s history
Cons
- A new precious metal can’t be included in an existing precious metal. You must purchase Goldco IRA holdings via the GoldCo website
- Fees charged by the organization are not transparent
- You can’t open an online account; instead, ask for a free gold IRA guide
- Bars and coins aren’t listed on the website
Birch Gold Key Features
Located in Burbank, California, Birch Gold Group is a precious metal brokerage institution.
Founded in 2003, the company manages Precious Metals IRAs and Gold IRAs for numerous clients in the U.S., holding silver, gold, platinum, palladium, or a mixture of these metals.
The best part is that the company’s senior management team also consists of several members who are in the Forbes
Finance Council. Physical gold, silver, palladium, and platinum are available for personal possession or IRA investments.
More importantly, Birch Gold Group’s IRA Department specializes in making the procedure of rolling over retirement savings or starting a Precious Metals IRA for customers as seamless as possible.
The organization focuses on client education, which ensures that each client knows the benefits and risks associated with their specific investment.
Pros
- Has been in business for almost 20 years
- They have excellent customer service
- Their website has a wide range of educational resources
- Complies with all IRS regulations
- Birch enables you to invest in silver, platinum, gold, and palladium
- High ratings and reviews from lots of consumer review platforms
- Lower initial investment compared to other gold IRA companies
Cons
- Only caters to US investors
Product Compare
Each of these gold IRA companies provides a range of IRS-approved precious metals. Although silver and gold are the most popular metals, there’s also an offer of palladium and platinum.
Client education is also provided by Goldco and Birch Gold Group. Here’s everything you need to know about the products each company offers.
Goldco’s Products
This company can be classified as a full-time and Gold IRA precious metals company. Once you sign up with Goldco, you get a complete investment kit for precious metals. It typically includes precious metals IRA, as well as SDIRA, and non-IRA marketplace for precious metals.
What Are the Precious Metals IRAs Provided by Goldco?
Goldco offers a precious metals IRA package, which allows you to set up and finance your gold or silver IRA package. This generally gives you benefits such as enhanced tax rates and terms, wealth and asset diversification, as well as security from financial upheavals linked to volatile assets like bonds and stocks.
RELATED READING: Is Goldco a Legit Company?
With a precious metals IRA from this company, your financial assets are shielded from possible cyber-attacks. They’re also protected from the characteristic instability of global currencies – particularly when the market plays rough.
Your precious metals IRA package from Goldco will currently allow you to invest and trade in gold and silver coins and bars.
Below is a detailed breakdown of products to expect from Goldco:
- Self-Directed Individual Retirement Account (SDIRA)
When it comes to a self-directed IRA Goldco package, you could further diversify and protect your retirement wealth. Usually, this diversification may occur through investment in alternate assets such as private equity and real estate.
While Goldco is not an actual custodian of SDIRA, it partners with trusted IRA custodian firms – providing clients with legal, transparent, and secure protection for their assets. The preferred IRA custodian for Goldco is Equity Trust Company.
- Non-IRA Marketplace For Precious Metals
As previously stated, Goldco provides gold and silver IRA as well as SDIRA services. What’s more, it also offers a marketplace for customers to buy and sell precious metals inside the non-IRA segment.
Specifically, this private option is ideal for investors and collectors of precious metals.
Once you’ve bought something in this marketplace, you could either get it stored in a safe vault or ask the company to have it shipped to a particular address.
Regardless of your choice, your purchased assets are classified as belonging to your private collection. Therefore, they’re separate from the IRA you’ve opened with Goldco.
The company also allows its clients to trade in a wide range of silver coins and gold coins.
Birch Gold’s Products
Birch Gold Group provides its customers with a comprehensive package of precious metals consisting of silver, gold, platinum, and palladium. This package entails creating a gold IRA account, sourcing, buying, and selling precious metals in their physical form.
As previously stated, all clients at Birch Gold Group can diversify wealth via the purchase of physical precious metals.
Once you purchase, you could store your wealth in approved precious metal assets such as silver, gold, platinum, and palladium. In most cases, investors tend to hold their possessions in the form of silver or gold assets.
Alternatively, you could choose to hold yours as platinum or palladium assets. Since they’re rarer, they’re more valuable.
- Self-Directed IRA (SDIRA)
With Birch Gold Group, any investors can grow and diversify their retirement portfolios into gold SDIRA. So, how does this work?
This IRA hands over to you complete freedom when it comes to managing your investments in a manner that you feel okay – making nearly all the investment decisions.
More importantly, the company’s market-wise investment and highly experienced specialists are always available should you need to get professional assistance at any point in time.
The company’s SDIRA not only gives you full control of your investments but also provides you with added flexibility in what you may invest in.
You’re no longer restricted to what investors often invest in, what might be termed as traditional investments, such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.
Instead, full freedom is granted to you to diversify your investments into alternative/ non-traditional assets that include precious metals, real estate, debt, cryptocurrencies, and business.
What’s more, Birch Gold Group’s Gold IRA can help maintain and protect your retirement wealth even when unfortunate events afflict global financial markets.
IRA Rollover Comparison
First things first! What is a Rollover IRA? It’s a retirement account that enables you to move funds from your previous employer-sponsored retirement program, into an IRA.
Let’s compare the rollover process for each:
Birch Gold’s Rollover Process
Do you have an existing retirement account?
If so, Birch Gold Group allows you to partially or fully roll over your investment into the Gold IRA held with the company.
They offer access to the advantages of accruing to an IRA account using an earlier investment. That said, you need to purchase physical assets like precious metals to support your investment.
Below are several retirement accounts that are eligible for rollover to a Gold IRA opened with Birch Gold Group:
- SIMPLE IRA
- Roth IRA
- SEP IRA
- Traditional IRA
- 401(k), 403(b), 457, and TSP accounts that qualify
Goldco’s Rollover Process
Are you an investor with an already existing IRA and qualified 401(k) account? Then, you can always roll over partly or fully your money to a gold or silver IRA opened with Goldco.
The only thing you need to do is to successfully create an IRA with the company, and contact the support desk for expert guidance on the way forward.
Once you’ve transferred your money to your newly created Goldco IRA, they’ll assign you a friendly financial expert to guide you through the entire process of picking the most suitable precious metal assets for investment.
You’ll also get guidance on the best way of storing your gold and silver assets.
Birch Gold Group vs Goldco: Fees
What are the fees each company charges?
Goldco’s Fees
Typically, Goldco doesn’t publish an all-inclusive list of its fee structure and pricing. Customers need to carefully identify all the fees they might have to incur for receiving certain services. Goldco charges a one-time account setup cost of $50, as well as a one-time money wiring fee of $30.
The yearly custodial fee and maintenance fee are fixed at $100 and $80, respectively. The minimum amount to invest is $25,000.
Birch Gold’s Fees
What’s different with Birch Gold? Except for the annual fees, the company doesn’t publish the details of any fees on its site. It also doesn’t provide any price matching services.
The annual maintenance fee for a Birch Gold’s IRA investment account is $75, but IRA storage’s custodial fee is usually fixed at $100. Furthermore, the yearly depository storage fee is $100. The good news, Birch Gold waives any shipping and transit charges for its investors. The minimum amount to invest is $10,000.
Summary
When choosing the most suitable gold IRA company, you ought to consider numerous factors since this is a crucial decision.
Now that you’ve learned the key things about Goldco and Birch Gold Group, you can weigh the pros and cons before deciding which works for you.
Here’s a summary to help you:
You Should Pick GoldCo if…
- You’re an investor interested in a legit and reliable marketplace for diversifying your retirement investment portfolios via physical and digital precious metal assets
- You’re a small and medium investor looking for alternate investment options to improve your future financial security.
- You’re an investor with little or no experience
- You want gold and silver IRAs
- You’re looking for lower fees than the average.
You Should Pick Birch Gold if…
- You prefer to diversify and enhance your retirement wealth through investments in tangible precious metals
- You’re an aspiring investor, retiree, or headline trader interested in more stable financial options
- You’re looking for a relatively lower initial investment
- You want to invest in silver, gold, platinum, and palladium
- You’re a US investor
Learn more at the Birch Gold website
Bearing these factors in mind, you should make an educated decision regarding your retirement savings.