Affiliate Disclosure
Effective: May 14, 2026
Best Gold Company is a reader-supported publication. This page tells you exactly how we make money, who pays us, and why those commercial relationships do not change what we publish.
How we earn money
When you click certain links on this site and then open an account, fund an account, or complete a qualifying purchase with one of our affiliate partners, we may receive a referral commission from that partner. This is sometimes called “performance marketing,” “affiliate marketing,” or “referral marketing.” It is a long-standing model used by publishers across the financial information industry — for example, NerdWallet, Money, Forbes Advisor, and Investopedia all run on similar revenue structures.
The reader pays nothing extra. Our partners pay us out of their own customer acquisition budgets, not by adding markup to your purchase or your account fees.
Who pays us
Best Gold Company has active or potential affiliate relationships with the following Gold IRA companies, in alphabetical order:
- American Hartford Gold (referral tracker: tracking.hgoldgroup.com)
- Augusta Precious Metals (referral tracker: learn.augustapreciousmetals.com)
- Birch Gold Group
- Goldco (referral tracker: gcjdjhs3e.com)
- GoldenCrest Metals (referral tracker: ghv0u2trk.com)
- Noble Gold Investments
Where a company is reviewed or compared on this site, the page disclosure at the top of that page identifies the relationship in plain language. If you do not see a disclosure on a particular review page, that means we do not currently have an active commission relationship with that company.
How the link mechanics work
Every external recommendation on this site routes through a short branded redirect URL (for example, https://bestgold.company/goldco or https://bestgold.company/apm). When you click that link:
- Our short URL sets a brief cookie used to attribute your click to Best Gold Company.
- You are redirected to the partner’s official website.
- The partner site sets its own tracking cookies under its own privacy policy.
- If you complete a qualifying action (open an account, fund a rollover, etc.), the partner credits us with a referral and pays a commission.
Cookies typically expire within 30 to 90 days, depending on the partner’s program terms.
You are always free to bypass our affiliate links and visit any partner directly from a search engine. We will not earn a commission in that case, but the products, pricing, and service you receive from that partner will be identical.
Why commission does not change our rankings
Best Gold Company’s editorial framework is documented in our Editorial Policy. In short:
- Companies are scored against a published rubric covering fee transparency, storage quality, customer service, regulatory record, and investor education. The rubric weights and pass/fail hard gates are public, not negotiated with partners.
- A company that pays us nothing can outrank a company that pays us a higher commission, if the evaluation data supports it.
- Companies that fail our hard-gate requirements — non-approved custodians, undocumented buyback terms, evidence of high-pressure sales tactics, IRA collectible upselling — are excluded from our recommended list regardless of commission terms.
Commission rates have no influence on whether a company appears, where it ranks, or what we write about it. We have ranked partners below companies that pay us less, and we have left lucrative partners off the recommended list entirely when they failed a hard gate.
What we do not do
Best Gold Company does not:
- Sell direct advertising space disguised as editorial content.
- Run paid placement or sponsored ranking within our review or comparison pages.
- Allow partners to review, edit, or pre-approve our content before publication.
- Accept gifts, trips, hosted travel, or other non-monetary inducements from any company we review.
- Cover up negative findings about a partner in exchange for commission continuity.
If any of those practices change, this disclosure will be updated to reflect them.
Why we publish this
The Federal Trade Commission requires affiliate marketers to disclose material commercial relationships. We go beyond the legal floor:
- Every review and comparison page on this site that contains an affiliate link carries a disclosure at the top of that page, in plain language.
- This standalone disclosure consolidates all of our partner relationships in one place.
- Our Editorial Policy documents the methodology that keeps editorial decisions independent from commercial relationships.
- Our Privacy Policy explains how affiliate click attribution interacts with cookies and your personal data.
If you have questions about a specific affiliate relationship, a commission amount, or whether a particular link is an affiliate link, email [email protected] and we will answer plainly.
Tim Schmidt’s personal investment disclosure
Tim Schmidt has executed his own Gold IRA rollover and holds positions in physical precious metals via a Self-Directed IRA. Those personal investments were made independently of Best Gold Company’s affiliate structure and prior to any commission relationship with the companies involved. His personal investment positions do not change which companies appear in our reviews or where they rank.
Updates to this disclosure
We will update this page whenever we add a new partner, end a partner relationship, or change our commission structure. The Effective date at the top reflects the most recent update.
