Best Silver IRA Companies

Choosing the best silver IRA companies is not an easy task. There are many different types of companies out there that offer a variety of options to people who desire to invest in silver through their retirement plans.

Many people will tell you that it’s important to research precious metals companies before making any decisions about your silver investment, but how much time should you spend researching? In this article, we’ll go over some things that might help you find the company for you!

At a Glance Rating:

Top 5 Gold IRA Comparison Chart

At a Glance Rating:

Top 5 Silver IRA Comparison Chart

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AUGUSTA PRECIOUS METALS

Silver IRA Company Reviews

Augusta Precious Metals

Star Rating

Augusta Precious Metals is an award-winning gold IRA company and clear winner of our top spot. We selected them, in part, because they stay with customers through the life of their physical gold and silver accounts. They are a leader in the precious metals retirement account community and have zero complaints with the BBB since they started a decade ago, competitive prices just about 5% over cost for bullion, and are endorsed by Joe Montana after Augusta was recommended to him by his own financial advisors as “the best silver IRA company in the United States.”.

We also like the fact that Augusta Precious Metals, which does nothing but gold and silver IRAs and “cash accounts,” is committed to transparency. When you buy from Augusta, the entire staff makes sure that you know everything about the product – including what you’re actually paying. This company was voted “Most Trusted in the U.S.” by a top industry rating organization.

And before you buy, you can call the Augusta analytics team to find out more about gold and silver as portfolio assets.

Augusta Precious Metals specializes in helping investors set up silver and gold self-directed IRAs quickly and easily through a well-practiced, streamlined process. The company’s professional gold IRA agents also educate investors who want information about precious metals before they decide to fund a silver IRA. Augusta provides a lot of information on its website.

Its online resources include current market news, videos led by their on-staff Harvard-trained economist, and a required minimum distribution calculator. The company even has a unique free one-on-one (customized) web conference designed by that same on-staff Harvard-trained economist.

Pros

• Lifetime customer account support
• Zero complaints at BBB (Better Business Bureau) and BCA (Business Consumer Alliance) – and thousands of 5-star reviews; the support team really takes care of each customer whether new or old
• Streamlined approach to the account-opening process
• Most transparent and most competitive pricing
• Voted the most trusted gold IRA company in the U.S.
• Endorsed by hall of fame quarterback Joe Montana – an actual customer whose own advisors judged Augusta to be the best silver IRA company in the U.S.
• Free one-on-one educational web conference designed and led by Augusta’s on-staff Harvard-trained economist (the only one of its kind we could find)

Cons

• No online orders

American Hartford Gold

Star Rating

American Hartford Gold Group is a family-owned business that sells precious metals (gold, silver and platinum) and precious metal IRAs.

You can use a gold or silver IRA to help protect your retirement savings. Gold and silver IRAs are an alternative to a traditional IRA, which typically is used to access bonds, stocks, and other similar “paper” investments. Precious metals IRAs help diversify your retirement savings with the goal of improving your overall long-term portfolio returns.

American Hartford Gold Group will not charge you to set up your own IRAs, and they do retirement accounts. They also won’t charge for shipping your precious metals and do not charge for insurance and tracking.

Depository fees vary depending on the amount that you invest. American Hartford’s online catalog for precious metals doesn’t list prices, so you will need to talk to a company representative. The website does provide price charts for gold, silver, and platinum.

Pros

• Buy-back guarantee
• Good customer service experience
• IRA experts ready to help
• No shipping fees

Cons

• Does not include prices in the online catalog

Goldco

Star Rating

Goldco is a company that sells precious metals to people who want to add them to their IRAs. Goldco was founded in 2006, and it has offices in Woodland Hills, California. You can buy gold and silver from Goldco for your IRA instead of stocks or bonds. 

The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 created a few exceptions to the IRS’s “no collectibles in an IRA” rule. Precious metals IRA investment is possible because certain types of gold and silver are among those exceptions. The exceptions are for those precious metals that meet a minimum fineness requirement. Goldco helps people open new accounts, and they help people who want to transfer their IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s or other qualified retirement account from other companies or financial institutions to Goldco.

The company has a good rating from the Better Business Bureau. They have a Triple-A rating from the Business Consumer Alliance, which means that they have been reviewed positively by customers and their business practices are ethical.

Pros

• This company offers IRAs for gold and silver.
• You can get up to $10,000 in free silver by opening a qualifying IRA account with them (at the time of writing)
• Can help you with your gold or silver retirement portfolio
• Goldco has many years of experience and specializes in precious metals-backed IRAs
• This company has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.
• Quality customer service

Cons

• Only offer gold and silver IRAs
• $50,000 minimum investment

Birch Gold Group

Star Rating

Founded in 2003, Birch Gold Group’s professional team is dedicated to educating customers on how best to diversify their savings, including within retirement accounts. Birch Gold offers a wide range of precious metal specialists with years of experience in the industry who aim to provide clients with quality customer service.

They have helped many Americans move their IRA, 401(k), and other tax-advantaged retirement accounts out of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds and into IRAs backed by physical gold or silver. It’s because of this that Birch Gold Group prides itself on being Precious Metal IRA Specialists.

Pros

• They offer a variety of precious metals
• Partners with depositories
• Customers work with an expert
• Diversifies your savings

Cons

• No guarantees (such as price guarantees, transparency, etc.)
• Have to pay for shipping
• Doesn’t work with conventional IRAs

Regal Assets

Star Rating

Regal Assets gets a lot of praise from its customers. According to these customers, when they called Regal on the phone, the company was very helpful. They said that their account opening experience was good.

Regal also told us that they had recently been ranked #20 in Inc. Magazine’s famous top 500 list. They’ve been in financial newspapers such as Smart Money, Forbes, Yahoo! Finance, and Market Watch.

There are many reasons that Regal Assets became one of the top gold IRA firms in 2021. Among them: they have very good customer reviews, though they had four complaints in the last three years with the BBB and BCA (now resolved), and competitive prices.

Pros

• Official member of the Forbes Finance Council
• AAA Rating with the Business Consumer Alliance
• This company has a rating of A+ with the Better Business Bureau
• Customers on TrustLink gave this company a 5 out of 5-star rating, and the company is a preferred member

Cons

• Currently, they only work with people from a limited number of countries.

Silver IRA: What You Should Know

A silver IRA is a special kind of retirement account that permits you to invest in IRA-eligible silver coins and bars. The IRS rules are very much the same as those for any other IRA, except you can purchase silver and other eligible precious metals in your account, whereas “typical” IRAs are invested in stocks and other paper assets.

Silver IRAs are good because they provide the opportunity to diversify from other investments.

Many people are familiar with more standard kinds of IRAs containing well-known assets such as stocks and bonds that you can open at a brokerage firm such as Fidelity or Schwab.

A less common option is to open a self-directed IRA with an independent custodian that specializes in administering these accounts. Most financial managers won’t include this in their options for you because they don’t offer them. This type of account has the same tax benefits and guidelines as other types of IRAs but with one difference—you manage the investments. This means you can choose your investments instead of being limited only to what the broker offers.

Self-directed IRAs enable investors to choose from a wide variety of asset options including precious metals such as gold, silver platinum, and palladium.

Is Silver a Good Retirement Investment?

Silver is seen as a safety net asset in times of uncertainty. People use silver to protect their wealth in difficult times, like the times our nation is experiencing now, when tensions are running high.

What to Look For in a Silver IRA Company

Not every silver IRA company advertised today is trustworthy, and it’s important to understand the strict regulations IRAs must follow with regard to storing precious metals.

Informative

IRAs are not always easy to understand. A lot of rules about what transactions you can and which ones you cannot. With this in mind, we put together a list of companies that make the most information about IRAs easily accessible. All of these companies offer some educational resources, but not all of them have the same amount.

Fair Marketing Tactics

Many companies that sell precious metals and offer silver IRA products and services make unsupported claims about “guaranteed” profits. Many also charge their websites with alarming headlines about impending economic disasters. Some companies try to trick or scare seniors into investing in precious metals without thinking carefully about it first.

Reputable

You should look at companies that have a history of service and a good reputation in their communities. It is important to remove companies from your list that have unclear origins or that have negative reviews from reputable rating organizations.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Silver IRA Company

You should consider these things in looking for a silver IRA Company:

Track Record and Reputation of the Company

Check with state regulators for any problems. You can do a background check to see if the people who are running the company have done anything bad in the past. You can also do a Better Business Bureau search and see if there are complaints against the company and find out how they were resolved.

Ratings are a number that tells how well companies are doing. These ratings come from people who have bought from the company before. The more people say good things, then the better the company is doing.

The best ratings are from the Better Business Bureau, the Business Consumer Alliance, and TrustLink. Consumer information websites can help you find out more about the service quality and professionalism of a company. These websites tell you what other people have said about the company, and they also let you know if there are any complaints.

Our review of consumer reviews and website ratings (including number of complaints) weighed heavily in our decision of which gold IRA companies to include in our top recommendations.

Upfront and Reasonable Individual Retirement Account Fees

Experts say that you should only consider firms that offer a flat fee for their yearly fee. Firms that have fees that go up with the size of your account are just taking unfair advantage of you because they know you have more money. Investors with a medium-sized account ($50,000) or larger should be careful to always get fees in writing before making a transfer into silver.

Investors with plans to increase their account size over time should also be careful. Some firms charge customers a fee merely for having a balance. They might charge this even if the customer doesn’t deposit money. These firms have been known to assess literally thousands of dollars in fees each year.

We suggest you choose a silver IRA company that has flat fees and maybe even offers to pay some of them for you. Augusta, for example, (our #1 choice of silver IRA company) pays your fees for up to 10 years, depending on what kind of account you have.

Silver Storage Safety

You need to know the policies of each precious metals IRA storage depository. They might have different rules. Some have commingled storage, which means that different customers’ metals are stored together in one place. Some depositories have segregated storage, where individual customers’ metals are kept separate from others and stored in their own place. Commingled storage of metals is when the vault holds in one place metals that belong to many different people. Segregated storage is when silver is put into a locker system with individual lockers inside the depository.

Also, with segregated storage, the coins or bullion bars stored are the same ones that you purchased originally. But with commingled storage, even though the metals are the same kind you purchased originally, they might not be the exact same coins or bars that were transferred there on your behalf after you bought them.

Again, segregated storage means your metals have their own place in the vault. This means that no one else’s metals will be near yours, and they won’t mix together. If you want to sell your silver, gold, and other precious metals in the future, it is good to store them with firms that have segregated storage. That makes it easy and fast if you need to sell them, and you’ll know the exact condition of the metals you want to sell. You should be careful how much storage firms charge for international storage or segregation.

Generous Company Buyback Policies

If you anticipate wanting to sell your silver in the future, make sure you find a company that is willing to buy it back (no company can guarantee it by law, but they should have a buyback program). If they will not be able to buy it back quickly and easily, then you might not be able to take advantage of the best spot prices at the time of sale.

You should pick a precious metals company that is willing to buy back anyone’s silver at the current market price. That way, you can sell your silver quickly at fair market value.

Sincere ‘Trust Signals’ From the Provider

A well-rounded silver IRA company should be able to offer other precious metal investments besides silver. These can include gold and platinum. They are different from silver in some ways, but they might be something you would want in the future when the market changes.

If you want one of these different types of precious metals, be sure to as if the company you want to go with will handle them—they often will, even if they don’t advertise it. This is true of Augusta, our #1 company, for example.

It is important to choose a silver IRA company that is trustworthy (has a positive track record with customers and the industry) and knows about the current trends in the market. They can help you decide which type of silver IRA to invest in.

Conclusion

Choosing a silver IRA company is important to your retirement and your future. You need to think about the company’s reputation and integrity before you entrust them with your money.

We recommend that you also choose a company that can show it is transparent, has competitive pricing, and will take time to talk with you about investing and precious metals. Finally, you need to understand the company’s buying process—make sure other people say it’s smooth and easy.

Investing in a silver IRA gives you a lot of benefits, such as stability in your future investments and protection from the market’s ups and downs. If you can find diversification from the usual kinds of assets, like stocks, then if anything does go wrong you’ll have backup that helps you keep the value of your accounts up as high as possible.

Addtional Resources