BullionVault Review: Vaulted Gold Against Coins in a Drawer
BullionVault charges 0.5% to trade and 0.12% a year to store gold, with insurance included. We ran the five-year sums against coin premiums and found where each option wins.
8.4/10
For holdings above roughly $40,000, BullionVault is the cheapest way we know to own allocated gold you can sell in seconds: 0.5% to trade, 0.12% a year to store, insurance included. Below $10,000 the $4 monthly minimum bites and coins in a safe run level. Skip it if you want to hold the metal in your hand.
Best for
Long-term gold holders with $10,000 or more, who never plan to take delivery
Gold storage is 0.12% a year including insurance, with no cap on cover
Bars are allocated, so you own them outright rather than a claim on a bank
Choose from vaults in Zurich, London, Toronto, Singapore or New York
Commission falls to 0.10% after $75,000 of purchases in a year
Cash withdrawal reaches your bank the next business day
What does not
A $4 monthly minimum storage fee makes small holdings costly
Taking physical delivery costs 3% to 5% or more, so it is a poor exit
Silver, platinum and palladium cost 0.48% a year to store, four times gold
The order board is plainer than a phone app and takes practice
Specs
Commission (first $75,000 a year)
0.50% buy and sell
Commission ($75,000 to $825,000)
0.10%
Commission (above that)
0.05%
Gold storage
0.01% a month (0.12% a year), insurance included
Minimum storage fee
$4 a month for gold, $8 for other metals
Vault locations
Zurich, London, Toronto, Singapore, New York
Ownership
Allocated, held in trust
Cash withdrawal
Next business day wire
Delivery of 100g gold bars
About 3% to 5%
Scale
$9 billion, over 130,000 users (BullionVault figure)
The cheapest way to own gold is not a question of coins against a website. It is a question of how much you own, and for how long. We priced both routes over five years and the answer flips at a figure smaller than most people expect.
What you are actually buying
BullionVault sells you bars, not a promise. Each purchase is allocated to specific bars in a professional vault, held in trust, so BullionVault is the custodian and never the owner. You pick the city: Zurich, London, Toronto, Singapore or New York. Holdings can be spread across several vaults at no extra cost. Armoured-transport firms named on the vaulting FAQ, Loomis International, Malca-Amit and Brink's, do the physical work.
The company says it looks after $9 billion for more than 130,000 users. That is its own figure, and we cannot audit it. What we could read is the pricing, which is refreshingly short.
The two fees, read line by line
Commission is tiered by what you have bought in the year: 0.50% on the first $75,000, 0.10% on the next $750,000, then 0.05%. Discounts run separately for buying and selling and by metal. A $20,000 purchase therefore costs $100 to buy and about $100 to sell.
bullionvault.com
BullionVault's commission table: the rate steps down as your dealing in the year grows.
Storage is the number that matters over time. Gold costs 0.01% a month, which is 0.12% a year, and the fee includes insurance. There is a floor of $4 a month. Silver, platinum and palladium cost 0.04% a month with an $8 floor.
bullionvault.com
Storage rates from BullionVault's own table, set beside the fees charged by exchange-traded funds.
The insurance line deserves a second look. BullionVault says its cover protects the full value of your bullion with no cap, which is not how bank deposit protection works. We have no way to test a claim on that policy, so treat it as a promise to read in the terms, not a fact we verified.
Five years, worked through
Our arithmetic, using BullionVault's published rates and the coin premiums that dealer guides report (roughly 3.5% to 6% over spot on one-ounce Britannias, Maple Leafs and Eagles):
$10,000: BullionVault costs about 3.4% all in (the $4 floor makes storage $240). Coins cost 3.5% to 6%.
$50,000: BullionVault costs about 1.6%. Coins cost 3.5% to 6%.
$150,000: BullionVault costs about 1.2%. Coins cost 3.5% to 6%.
The coin column ignores the cost of a safe, insurance for a home, and the discount a dealer may take when you sell. It is also generous to coins, since it ignores their resale spread. Even so, at $10,000 the two are close. At $50,000 the vault wins clearly. Below $5,000 a monthly floor of $4 turns 0.12% into 0.96% a year, and coins in a drawer are cheaper.
Where it stops being cheap: leaving
Selling is instant during market hours and cash reaches a linked bank account the next business day. That is the good exit.
The bad exit is delivery. Per the company, 100g bars cost roughly 3% to 5% to take out, a 400-ounce bar 2.5% plus shipping, and non-standard weights 7.5%. Silver, platinum and palladium leave only as whole bars at a 10% fee. If your reason for owning metal is to hold it in a crisis, this is the wrong tool, and you should say so to yourself before funding.
bullionvault.com
The live gold chart page: BullionVault quotes wholesale gold from one gram upwards.
The order board
There is no phone app that hides the mechanics. You post or hit prices on an order board, and client-to-client trades can sit inside the quoted spread. New users usually take the live price and pay the full 0.5%. It takes an evening to learn, then it stops mattering. Funding is by bank transfer, and money is only ever in one of two states: cash awaiting a trade, or metal in a vault. Trades settle at once, because the gold is already sitting in the vault when you buy it, which removes the delay and counterparty chain you meet with most brokers.
Who should skip it
Skip it if you hold under $5,000, if you want coins to hand, or if you trade gold every week: this is a buy-and-hold vault, and a bad week in the gold price will outweigh any saving on fees. Gold can also fall for years. Nothing here is personal advice, and no fee table changes that.
Choose it if you hold $20,000 or more, want the metal insured and audited daily, and will sell for cash. The official page has the current tables.
6.2
Vaulted Review: Fractional Gold at the Royal Canadian Mint, Priced Fairly?
