Augusta Precious Metals Fees: Every Cost, Line by Line

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. Fee figures below come from Augusta’s published disclosures and were verified in July 2026; they can change, and waiver terms vary by account size. Confirm every number on your own call, in writing, before funding an account.

Augusta Precious Metals charges three account fees, and here they are without the wind-up: a $50 one-time setup fee, a $125 annual custodian fee, and $100 annual storage, or about $275 in year one, then roughly $225 a year. Qualifying account sizes can have up to ten years of those fees waived. That is the entire published schedule, verified against Augusta’s disclosures for our full Augusta review in July 2026.

If that were the whole cost of owning gold in an IRA, this would be a very short page. It is not the whole cost. The largest expense of physical gold ownership at any dealer never appears on a fee schedule, and Augusta is no exception. So this page does both jobs: the schedule line by line, and the honest arithmetic around it.

The published fee schedule

Augusta discloses every line below before any transaction, which sounds like a low bar until you learn how many dealers let you discover fees inside a custodian agreement after you have wired the money.

Two structural notes. The custodian fee goes to Equity Trust, not Augusta; the custodian is a separate company that administers the IRA under IRC §408, which requires IRA assets to be held by a qualified trustee. The storage fee goes to the Delaware Depository, which carries $1 billion in all-risk insurance through Lloyd’s of London underwriters per its published terms. Augusta itself earns from neither line; it earns from the metal it sells you, which is exactly why the next section matters more than this one.

The fee that is not on the schedule: the spread

Every physical-metals dealer earns most of its revenue from the spread — the difference between what you pay per coin and what that coin is worth at market. Buy a coin at 8 percent over spot price and the account is down 8 percent before the vault door closes. No annual fee compounds like that.

Augusta does not publish its premiums; they are quoted on the phone, coin by coin. That is common practice in this industry and it is also the single biggest gap in any fee discussion, including this one. The published $225 a year is knowable in advance. The spread is knowable only if you ask, so ask precisely, on the order call, before committing:

1. “What is the premium over spot on this exact coin, today?”
2. “What would your buyback bid be on this same coin, today?”

The distance between those two answers is your true round-trip cost. Standard bullion coins carry the narrowest spreads; “premium,” “exclusive,” or “semi-numismatic” coins carry the widest, a distinction that regulators have repeatedly flagged in enforcement actions across this industry, documented in our Augusta lawsuit record check. Augusta’s zero-commission written buyback, covered in the full review, softens the exit side of the trip; it does not eliminate the entry premium.

The ten-year waiver, read before you lean on it

Augusta advertises up to ten years of account fees waived for qualifying account sizes. Taken at face value, that turns $2,250 of decade-long carrying cost into zero, which is a genuinely strong term, the strongest fee concession we have seen from any major dealer.

The qualifying thresholds are not published online, so treat the waiver as a negotiation item, not a given. Three things to pin down on the call, in writing: which balance qualifies, which of the three fee lines the waiver covers, and what happens if your balance later drops below the threshold. A waiver you cannot document is a waiver you do not have.

Fee math at different balances

Flat fees mean the percentage cost depends entirely on your balance. Using the ongoing $225 total:

This table explains Augusta’s $50,000 minimum better than any marketing copy: below $50,000, a flat $225 starts to behave like an expensive expense ratio, and the arithmetic favors either a lower-minimum dealer, a gold fund inside your existing IRA, or Fidelity’s percentage-fee metals desk if you already bank there. At and above the minimum, flat fees become cheap relative to percentage-based alternatives, and they get cheaper every year the balance grows. The minimum is not gatekeeping for its own sake; it is the point where this fee structure starts making sense.

How Augusta’s fees compare with the other major dealers

Published schedules across the big four, from the figures verified for our best gold IRA companies comparison:

The spread of published fees across the entire category is about fifty dollars a year: noise, relative to a five-figure account. Which is the quiet conclusion of this whole page: published fees do not differentiate gold IRA companies. Minimums decide who will take your account, spreads decide what the metal actually costs you, and buyback terms decide what you get back out. Fees are simply the easiest number to verify, and a dealer’s willingness to disclose them before a transaction is a useful character test. Augusta passes that test, as do the other three names in the table, to be fair.

Affiliate disclosure: if you use a link on this page to request information from a company we review, this site may earn a commission at no cost to you. Every fee figure above is drawn from published schedules regardless.

Frequently asked questions

What are Augusta Precious Metals’ annual fees?

A one-time $50 setup fee, $125 a year to the custodian (Equity Trust), and $100 a year for storage at the Delaware Depository, or about $275 in year one and $225 a year thereafter. Qualifying account sizes can have up to ten years of fees waived; the thresholds are quoted by phone.

What percentage of my account do the fees represent?

At the $50,000 minimum, roughly 0.45% per year. At $100,000, about 0.23%; at $250,000, about 0.09%. Flat fees fall as a percentage while the balance grows, which is the arithmetic behind Augusta’s high minimum.

Does Augusta really waive fees for up to 10 years?

That is the advertised ceiling for qualifying account sizes. The qualifying balance is not published, so confirm three things in writing before funding: the threshold, which fee lines are covered, and what happens if your balance later falls below it.

What is the dealer spread, and why is it not in the fee schedule?

The spread is the gap between a coin’s price and its market value. It is the real cost of physical ownership at every dealer, and typically far larger over time than account fees. Augusta quotes premiums by phone. Ask for the premium over spot and the same-day buyback bid on the exact coin; the difference is your round-trip cost.

Is my gold insured while stored?

Yes. The Delaware Depository carries $1 billion in all-risk coverage through Lloyd’s of London underwriters, per its published terms, covering theft, loss, and physical damage in the vault. Market-price movements are not insured, at any depository.

How do Augusta’s fees compare with Goldco, Birch Gold, and American Hartford Gold?

Within about $50 a year across the board: Goldco ~$225, Birch ~$235 plus a $30 wire fee, American Hartford ~$175 to $225 with no setup fee. Fees are effectively a tie in this category; compare minimums, buyback terms, and spreads instead, which is what our company comparison does. For the Goldco question specifically, the head-to-head Augusta vs Goldco breakdown settles it by account size.