Editorial standards and affiliate disclosure

Selection criteria for company reviews

We review companies by size of the market, by reader-submitted requests, and by their regulatory record. Specifically:

• BBB record (grade, complaint count, complaint resolution rate).
• Founding year and continuous operation history.
• Assets under management where publicly disclosed.
• State licensing and secretary-of-state filings.
• Custodian and depository partner disclosures.
• Reader-submitted documents that meet our authentication checks.

We do not accept payment for placement in any review or comparison. Editorial selection is independent of affiliate status.

Required primary sources for every review

Before a company review publishes, we collect the following:

• Company-disclosed fee schedule (PDF or screenshot from the company website, dated).
• Custodian relationship documentation (which IRA custodian the company uses, current).
• Storage / depository partner name and segregation policy (allocated vs commingled).
• BBB grade and complaint summary (URL captured, dated).
• Founding date, state of incorporation, parent entity.
• At least one third-party regulatory record (state license, FINRA registration where applicable, secretary-of-state filing).

Affiliate disclosure policy, in plain English

BullionLens earns a commission when a reader opens an account or completes a purchase through a link on the site. Commission does not change the price the reader pays or the fees a Gold IRA company quotes the reader. Disclosure appears on every page that names an affiliate partner, in two places: a callout box above the fold, and in the site footer.

The full list of named affiliate partners is published on /affiliate-disclosure/. The list is reviewed quarterly.

Comparison-page methodology

Comparison pages ("Augusta vs Birch," "APMEX vs JM Bullion") use objective criteria only:

• Founding year and continuous operation.
• Setup fees, annual maintenance fees, storage fees (in USD, monospace, with snapshot date).
• Custodian and depository partners.
• BBB grade.
• Minimum investment requirement.
• Segregated vs. commingled storage.

We do not compare "customer service" or "trustworthiness" subjectively. We do not rank companies as "best" without a published methodology.

Words we will not use

The following words and phrases never appear on any BullionLens page in a context that implies a return guarantee or a tax treatment we cannot defend:

• "Guaranteed" — no precious-metals product guarantees a return.
• "Risk-free" — physical gold has counterparty, storage, and market risks; nothing about it is risk-free.
• "No fees" — Gold IRAs have setup fees, custodian fees, and storage fees; we surface them, never deny them.
• "Tax-free" for a Traditional Gold IRA — Traditional IRAs are tax-deferred; distributions are taxed as ordinary income.
• "Tax-free" for a Roth Gold IRA without the qualifier — Roth distributions are tax-free on qualified distributions; contributions are not deductible.
• "Top X for [year]" — without published methodology.
• "Best Gold IRA" without methodology context — see comparison-methodology above.

Snapshot-date discipline

Every fee schedule, BBB grade, custodian disclosure, and AUM number on the site is labeled with a snapshot date (e.g. "Fee data accurate as of 2026-Q2"). We re-check every quarter. If a number has gone stale, the page shows a warning band rather than the stale number alone.

Correction and update policy

If a published page contains a factual error, we publish a correction inline with the date the correction was made. To submit a correction, email hello@bullionlens.com with the URL of the page and the specific claim. Corrections are prioritized over editorial queue.

State financial-regulator considerations

Some states (California, New York) have stricter rules on Gold IRA marketing. BullionLens's default copy avoids the phrases listed under "banned words" above, which addresses the largest single source of state-regulator complaint risk. Where state-specific addenda are warranted (e.g. California Corporations Code §§ 25230 et seq. or N.Y. General Business Law § 359-eee), they appear as inline regulatory-disclaimer addenda on the relevant page.

In plain English. We don't write anything we can't cite. Numbers come from LBMA, World Gold Council, IRS publications, BBB, and company-disclosed fee schedules. We don't predict prices. We don't recommend allocations. If you want personalised advice, talk to a licensed adviser. If you want sober, citation-heavy reading about the precious-metals market, that's what we publish.