Every number has a source you can open.

Prices

The live prices on this site come from a market data feed, gold-api.com, through our own server. The server asks for fresh prices every couple of minutes and your browser checks for an update once a minute. Spot is the wholesale benchmark for gold traded in bulk. It isn’t a price anyone will sell you a coin at, which is why our calculators show the premium separately.

Gold’s price history comes from the World Bank’s Commodity Price Data, the monthly series known as the Pink Sheet, published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. We use monthly averages because they are the longest consistent public record and they don’t pretend to more precision than they have.

Coins and bars

Weights, purity and dimensions come from the issuer: the U.S. Mint for the Gold Eagle and Buffalo, the Royal Canadian Mint for the Maple Leaf, Rand Refinery and the South African Mint for the Krugerrand, the refiners for bars. Whether a refiner is accredited comes from the London Bullion Market Association’s own Good Delivery list, not from the refiner’s marketing.

Rules and taxes

IRA rules come from the tax code itself, Internal Revenue Code section 408, and from IRS Publications 590-A and 590-B. Tax treatment comes from IRS topics, form instructions and, where it matters, court opinions such as the Tax Court’s decision on home-stored IRA gold. Consumer warnings come from the FTC, the CFTC, the SEC and FINRA.

Companies

A company’s minimums, fees, custodians and buyback terms come from that company’s own pages, and we say so in the sentence (“Goldco says…”). Ratings and accreditation dates come from the Better Business Bureau. Facts about Augusta Precious Metals come only from the materials Augusta provides to its partners. How we check companies has the full method.

When sources disagree

Sometimes a company says two different things. One gold IRA company lists one annual fee on its pricing page and a lower figure in its FAQ. When that happens we print the figure from the more specific page, mention the other, and tell you to ask which applies. We don’t pick the friendlier number.

What we leave out

If we can’t open the original source, the claim doesn’t go in. That has meant leaving out some coin thicknesses the mints don’t publish, fee amounts hidden behind a sign-up form, and ratings from sites that wouldn’t load on the day we checked. Where a figure isn’t published, our tables say “Not published” instead of guessing.

Dates and checks

Every guide shows the date it last changed, and the sources panel at its end shows when the sources were checked. Prices and fees change, so check current terms with any company before you act on them.

Found a figure that’s out of date? Email hello@goldinvesting.app with the page and the source, and we’ll check it.