Lear Capital vs Goldco (2026): Which Gold IRA?

Two guided gold IRA dealers, one clear trade-off. Lear Capital opens an IRA at a $10,000 minimum, against Goldco’s $25,000, so on access alone Lear is the lower bar to entry. Weigh that against the public record and the picture reverses. Lear carries the heavier regulatory history by a wide margin: a $6 million New York Attorney General settlement, a separate Los Angeles City Attorney settlement, and a 2022 Chapter 11 filing whose plan folded in a multistate settlement. Goldco’s public record, by contrast, is a single $2 million class-action settlement over marketing text messages. Lear suits a saver who cannot meet Goldco’s minimum and is willing to read its regulatory file in full. Goldco suits a larger rollover from someone who wants its onboarding and finds a marketing-conduct settlement the lesser concern. Neither is the low-cost or high-transparency option here.

On structure the two are close to identical. Both are representative-led dealers built around rollovers from an existing IRA, 401(k), or similar plan, and both assign a dedicated point of contact who walks the customer through funding and metal selection. Both sell IRS-eligible gold and silver coins and bars. Both publish their account fees. And both withhold the number that matters most to total cost: neither posts the markup or spread it charges on the metal itself. That shared omission is why neither scores well on our cost-and-transparency rubric, and it caps how far the two can be compared on price from public pages alone.

Dimension	Lear Capital	Goldco
IRA minimum	$10,000	$25,000
Published account fees	$50 setup; $125/yr custodian; $110/yr non-segregated storage ($160 segregated)	$50 setup; $125/yr custodian; $100/yr non-segregated storage ($150 segregated)
Metal-price transparency	Not published; quote by phone	Not published; quote by phone
Storage detail	Names the Delaware Depository; publishes a claim of $1 billion in all-risk insurance	Custodian and depository not named on its IRA page
Product breadth	Gold and silver coins and bars	Gold and silver coins and bars
Public record	$6M New York AG settlement (2022) and a Los Angeles City Attorney settlement over alleged undisclosed commissions; 2022 Chapter 11 with a multistate settlement in its plan	$2M TCPA class-action settlement (2026) over marketing texts

On posted account fees the two land close. Lear lists a $50 setup, $125 a year for the custodian, and $110 a year for non-segregated storage ($160 segregated). Goldco lists a $50 setup, $125 a year for the custodian, and $100 a year for non-segregated storage ($150 segregated). Goldco is the modestly cheaper account on published storage; Lear is the far lower bar on the minimum. On storage disclosure the order flips again. Lear names the Delaware Depository and publishes an insurance claim; Goldco does not name its custodian or depository on its IRA page.

Regulatory and legal records

Both companies have public regulatory or litigation records. The summaries below describe public filings and their resolutions. Allegations are allegations, and a settlement or consent order is a negotiated resolution, not a finding or admission of liability.

Goldco. Goldco Direct LLC agreed to a $2,000,000 settlement to resolve a class action, Summerton v. Goldco Direct LLC, No. 23-cv-238-wmc, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The complaint alleged that the company sent marketing text messages to people who had asked it to stop, in violation of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Goldco denies the allegations and any wrongdoing, and the court did not decide the merits. Legal-news and settlement-administration sources report that the settlement received final approval on March 26, 2026.

Lear Capital. Lear’s record is longer and centers on how it charged for metal. On January 3, 2022, the New York Attorney General announced a $6 million settlement, entered as a consent order, resolving a June 2021 lawsuit that alleged Lear failed to disclose commissions of up to 33 percent charged to investors, including many elderly New York residents. The Los Angeles City Attorney separately brought a June 2019 lawsuit that alleged similar conduct, again involving often elderly or inexperienced customers; it was resolved by a settlement that included no admission of liability and required business-practice changes such as a 24-hour cancellation right and written fee disclosure. Lear filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2022. A multistate settlement was embodied in its reorganization plan: the company’s principal contributed $5.5 million, and the bankruptcy court confirmed the plan on June 12, 2023, with distributions to customers who transacted with Lear between January 1, 2016 and March 3, 2022, calculated as the difference between the spread actually charged and a hypothetical 12 percent fee.

Who should be cautious

Anyone particularly sensitive to sales conduct should read the Lear file closely. The elderly-targeting allegation is not isolated to one action; it recurs across the New York and Los Angeles matters, both of which centered on undisclosed or high transaction costs borne by retirement savers. These are allegations resolved without admissions, but the recurrence across separate regulators is the relevant signal. Goldco’s settled matter concerns marketing text messages, not the pricing of the metal, which is a narrower issue. Even so, its higher $25,000 minimum and unpublished markup mean a buyer still cannot see all-in cost before a sales call. For either company, get the metal quote, the buyback terms, and the named custodian and depository in writing before funding.

Bottom line

This is a genuine split decision, not a default to one name. Lear Capital’s lower $10,000 minimum makes it the more accessible account, but its regulatory history is materially heavier: two separate government settlements over alleged undisclosed commissions and a bankruptcy that resolved a multistate matter. Goldco asks for $25,000 and carries a lighter record, a single settlement over marketing texts, which it denies wrongdoing in. Neither publishes its metal markup, so neither can be verified on the cost question that most affects a buyer, and neither earns trust on transparency from its public pages alone. Choose on the trade-off you can live with, and put every price and term in writing before you fund.