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Investing in gold IRAs should be a part of any prudent portfolio diversification strategy, particularly during times of high market volatility. If you are looking to invest in precious metals to safeguard your retirement savings, this article will help you choose the better option: Goldco or Birch Gold Group.
What is Goldco?
Goldco is an IRA Brokerage company dealing in gold, silver, palladium, and platinum products suitable for precious metals IRA accounts. Goldco representatives will help customers throughout the entire process starting with the opening of an IRA account, funding, making the purchase, to getting the precious metals delivered to a secure depository.
What is Birch Gold Group?
Established in 2003, Birch Gold Group is among the oldest precious metals IRA brokerage companies. It deals in gold, silver, palladium, and platinum IRA accounts. The company assists investors in growing, diversifying, and securing their wealth assets and retirement portfolios through purchasing and selling bullion, storing precious metal assets, and securely planning for retirement.
What do they both offer?
Both companies are trusted for their top-quality service in terms of convenience, customer support, and security.
Goldco and Birch Gold Group offer gold, silver, palladium, and platinum precious metals for retirement investment. Their dedicated and customized customer support team provides the required assistance with your current IRA rollover.
Goldco has partnered with reliable IRS-accredited IRA depositories like Delaware Depository, Brinks Salt Lake City, and IDS Texas to ensure the best in storage security for its customers investing in precious metals.
On the other hand, Birch Gold Group recommends using Brink’s Global Services and Delaware Depository for secure and convenient storage of your precious metal assets.
However, both companies currently do not offer price matching facilities with other market competitors.
Investors can rollover several different retirement accounts through Goldco and Birch Gold Group. These include 401(k), 403(b), traditional IRA, and Roth IRA among others.
What does Goldco offer that Birch Gold Group does not?
While Goldco features a transparent and straightforward fee regarding its buy-back program, this option is not available in Birch Gold Group. The average delivery time of your precious metals investment is fixed at 1 week for Goldco IRA while the delivery time varies for Birch Gold Group depending on the investment option chosen.
What does Birch Gold Group offer that Goldco does not?
Birch Gold Group allows a minimum investment of $10,000; for Goldco, it’s $25,000. This makes Birch Gold suitable for low and medium investor groups. Birch Gold emphasizes customer education and long-term asset preservation. It provides an online portal where customers can monitor and track their investment portfolios.
Fees
Goldco: Goldco does not provide a comprehensive list of its prices and fees on its website, and it does not offer price matching with its competitors. We contacted them directly to find out their fee structure and this is what they shared with us:
"The required minimum purchase at Goldco to start a gold IRA is $25,000. Goldco’s preferred Custodian charges a flat annual account service fee which includes a one-time IRA account set-up fee of $50, as well as a $30 wire fee. Annual maintenance is $100, and storage is $150 for segregated storage or $100 for non-segregated storage.
Fees for gold storage and custodianship can vary depending on the company you select to handle these services (required by the IRS, as all IRA assets must be managed by a custodian). Depending on the Custodian, storage fees can range from $10 to $60 per month, or as a percentage of assets, from 0.35% to 1% annually. Goldco does not charge any storage fees for cash transactions over $25,000."
Birch Gold Group: Except for the annual fees, Birch Gold does not publish the details of any other fees on its website. Nor does it offer any price matching services. While the annual maintenance fee for an IRA investment account is $75, the custodial fee for IRA storage is fixed at $100. The annual depository storage fee is $100. The company waives any shipping and transit costs for its investors. Investors need to make a minimum investment of $10,000.
How trustworthy is Goldco?
Goldco holds an AAA rating from the Business Consumer Alliance and an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. It has an overall satisfaction score of 4.8 out of 5 stars. The company protects the retirement savings of its customers by rolling their existing IRA, 401(k), 403(b), and other retirement accounts to precious metals investments such as Gold IRA.
Goldco has resolved all queries and complaints from its customers, thereby exhibiting dependability and ethical business practices.
How trustworthy is Birch Gold Group?
Since its inception in 2003, Birch Gold Group has received an outstanding rating for remarkable customer service and educational resources. With 5 out of 5 stars, it has been rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau. Business Consumer Alliance gives it an AAA rating with 4.8 out of 5 stars. TrustLink has awarded it 5 out of 5 stars.
Who is behind Goldco?
Goldco was founded in 2006 by Trevor Gerzst, a respected precious metals dealer in Los Angeles with more than 20 years of experience in asset and wealth protection. Mr. Gerzst is a member of the Board of Directors of the Better Business Bureau of LA and Silicon Valley.
Who is behind Birch Gold Group?
Birch Gold Group was founded in 2003 by Laith Alsarraf who is currently the CEO of the company. In August 2016, the company partnered with Ben Shapiro, the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Wire. It also worked with Dr. Ron Paul who is well known for his advocacy on sound money and common-sense economics.
Educating the customers
Winner
Goldco has relatively fewer years of experience as an IRA brokerage service than Birch Gold Group. It’s best suited for small and medium investors looking to enhance their future financial security. Goldco’s high minimum investment requirement of $25,000 compared to the $10,000 investment for Birch Gold makes Goldco less ideal for investors with little or no experience.
In contrast, Birch Gold Group is suitable for many headline traders, aspiring investors, and retirees looking for a complete investment package on precious metals bundled with a wide range of options to choose from.
In our view, Birch Gold Group has the edge over Goldco.
