OneGold Review
These days, it’s easier than ever to buy what you need thanks to the internet and apps. Gold and other precious metals are no exception. This is where OneGold comes into play.
OneGold is a precious metals trading app where people can buy gold, silver, and platinum without talking to anyone. They also offer gold IRA services, but we will get to that later in the review. Primarily, OneGold is for those who want to invest in precious metals.
I wasn’t always aware that OneGold even existed, but once I did, I had a lot of questions. I wanted to know who or what was behind OneGold, I wanted to know if it was a legitimate digital gold investing app, and if it was better than working with a human precious metals dealer.
To do this, I used OneGold to invest in both gold and silver, and I set up a precious metals portfolio by using the site/app. I explored everything I could possibly think of, and I used almost every feature.
What do I think about OneGold? Let’s find out.
What to Know About OneGold – Buy Gold, Silver, and Other Precious Metals
OneGold is all online and it’s a very user friendly platform. You can buy and sell on the website, itself, or you can download the One Gold precious metals investing app. You can take a bullion position in minutes, and the seamless trading is very attractive to many investors.
I quickly discovered that OneGold was created as a partner project in 2018 by two major players in the greater precious metals industry, Sprott and APMEX. (I’ll explain more about those below.)
The main goal of OneGold is to help investors who want an easy way to invest in gold and silver bullion, which is their main products, but you can also invest in platinum products. OneGold holds the assets within an account, and you don’t have to worry about much else. Additionally, you can buy and sell your assets to other people on the platform, or back to OneGold itself.
When you buy gold or buy silver bullion from OneGold, you are the only owner. If you want to close your account with OneGold, you still own the metals unless you want to sell them. This also means that if OneGold fails, your precious metals are still yours.
The best way to know more about OneGold is to get to know the two companies that created it, APMEX and Sprott:
APMEX
One of the top precious metals dealers in the world is APMEX. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, APMEX has been around since the late 1990s. It works with investors around the globe, and it claims working with more than a million investors and processing sales of more than $10 billion in precious metals.
Sprott
Sprott has been around for more than 40 years, and it specializes in managing alternative assets and providing real assets like real estate and precious metals. The goal of the company is to connect its customers to tangible assets. Currently, Sprott has more than 200,000 clients, and it manages around $7 million in assets.
Now that you know who founded and created OneGold, let’s look at what products are available from OneGold.
Products Available from OneGold
OneGold has gold, silver, and platinum products from around the world. You can invest in the following:
- US Gold
- Switzerland Gold
- Canada Gold
- UK Gold
- US Silver
- Switzerland Silver
- Canada Silver
- UK Silver
- US Platinum
When you buy these products, the company stores them for you in storage locations in the country where you purchase from. In the US, for instance, they work with companies like APMEX and Brinks for storage. All of the vaults meet IRS rules for holding precious metals for IRAs, too, so you know that the real vaulted precious metals you buy are secure. All of these top-tier global vaults are also insured by companies like Lloyd’s of London, which means you never have to worry about your vaulted gold, silver, or platinum. The vaulted bullion is tucked away safely in these top tier vaults and are fully insured.
Investing with OneGold – Making Precious Metals Investments
Investing with OneGold couldn’t be any easier. In fact, this is why most people want to use it. The whole process is very user friendly, and unlike other companies, there are not a lot of contracts or applications to fill out. Also, you don’t have to talk to anyone, so no worries about any high pressure sales tactics. You buy what you want to buy.
The first step is to create an account on the app or the OneGold website. You will need to create a login and password as well as fill out a basic profile with information like your name, address, and phone number, and then you can add your financial information. With verification successful, waiting is over, and you can start browsing the products and see the precious metals prices.
Once your account is created, you can see the products, and see the current platinum, silver, or gold price. keep in mind that platinum, silver, and gold prices on the site/app are a bit higher than spot price. This is because OneGold adds a premium to the prices. For instance, on the online gold price page you will see live precious metals prices, but there is also a premium listed, which is added to the price. Below, you can see the gold price live right on the sales page, and the premium, which is currently 0.30%. At the time of this review, it was around $10 per ounce. So, if you are tracking precious metal prices, just keep in mind that you will almost always pay more than spot price, but that’s with every company…not just OneGold.
Once you see the platinum, gold, and silver prices, you can start your purchase. Remember, these are real metals, which will be stored in a vault for you. They aren’t like stocks or bonds. You actually own a product that you can hold in your hands, not a gold stock. However, you will manage them digitally until you either sell to someone else, sell back to OneGold, or close your OneGold account. When that happens, they will ship the metals to you, and you can store them yourself.
OneGold has some unique investment tools that customers can also take advantage of. For instance, if you want to buy precious metals, but you aren’t sure the time is right, or if you want to research more, you can pre-fund your account. This way, when platinum, gold, or silver prices rise, you aren’t stuck buying at a higher price. When it falls, you can then make your purchase and the money will be there waiting for you.
Another thing that OneGold offers to customers is the Auto Invest feature. (Acre Gold offers a similar service.) With this, you can set up a schedule to buy precious metals at a certain time, like every week, month, or quarter. This is a wonderful feature for those who don’t have a lot of money to invest, or for those who want to slowly grow their portfolio. For instance, you can set either a fixed dollar amount of an ounce amount, and the platform will automatically make the purchase for you from your bank account. For instance, you can set it to buy a set number of silver ounces every month, or set it up so you are spending a specific dollar amount every quarter. You can also set alerts to let you know, for instance, when the gold price hits a specific price.
I set up automated trade for myself while doing this review, and I only chose to invest $20 a week, but by the time my gold was in there for a few weeks, my portfolio value had already risen by 124%. For many people, investing like this makes buying precious metals easy.
You can also get information on gold price movements, get custom market alerts, sign up for a gold news update, get daily market news, and see live gold prices.
As easy as it is to buy precious metals, you can easily sell silver, gold, and platinum on the site, too. When you sell bullion products back to the site, you can do it all online, and you can sell to other users on OneGold or to OneGold, itself.
Gold, Silver, and Platinum IRAs
OneGold has IRA services, too. However, they are not complete services. Really, the only services they offer is that people can buy the precious metals for a gold IRA from OneGold. Yes, you can open a gold or silver retirement account today, but you don’t do that through OneGold. Instead, you choose a custodian first. OneGold currently lists the following custodians on their website:
- New Direction Trust Company
- Strata Trust Company
- Preferred Trust
- Rocket Dollar
If you have a custodian that you prefer that is not on this list, you can give OneGold a call to find out if they work with them or not.
OneGold never walks you through the IRA process. Instead, they refer you to the custodian you choose, and the custodian will help you create the account and then fund it. Once the account is funded, you can then go back to the OneGold mobile app or site and access silver, gold, and platinum to add to the account.
In my opinion, there are much better companies out there for gold IRAs. These companies will walk you through the process, speak to the custodian for you, and you never have to do anything other than speak to your initial company. OneGold is not a gold IRA specialist; it’s only an option if you want to buy platinum, gold, or silver to hold in the IRA.
Fees and Costs Associated with OneGold
It doesn’t matter what type of company you work with for precious metals, there is always a fee or cost associated with the product. Unlike traditional retail products, all of these companies add a premium. OneGold is no exception. I will say, however, that OneGold does have ultra competitive premiums, and when bullion trading, the company has a lower cost compared to other companies I have used. Some of the retail premiums are sky high.
OneGold charges fees for both buying and selling on the platform. If you have an IRA, you will also pay fees to your custodian in certain situations.
On the OneGold platform, you can see clear prices, as well as the dollar cost of the premiums. The spot prices of the metals are listed at the top of the screen, so you can easily compare the spot price of the metals to the price you will pay.
I will say that OneGold seems to have reasonable prices, but the transaction fees can add up very quickly, especially if you buy and sell often.
You also have to pay for storage with OneGold. The rates are based on a percentage of your holdings. Because of this, the more you have, the more you will pay. However, OneGold is very clear about this, and they even have a calculator on the website so you can see how much storage is.
The OneGold Mobile App
OneGold has a mobile app, and most people buy and trade on that app. You can buy and sell precious metals anywhere and everywhere by using the app. I have downloaded it, and it works on both iOS and Android devices. It’s the most convenient app I’ve used for trading gold, but that might be because there aren’t a lot out there.
When you log in, it shows all of your holdings, your account value, and how much your account has risen or fallen in value since your last purchase. You can see a breakdown of your portfolio, as well as a timeline of your purchases. there is a feature that shows the spot price of gold, silver, and platinum as well as market news.
You can buy and sell on the app, too, of course, and set alerts.
One Gold Reviews – Is it Legit?
OneGold is totally legit, and it’s not a scam. Being backed by Sprott and APMEX shows that it’s a solid option, especially for those who are interested in a simple and easy way to trade physical metals. Let’s look at some consumer review sites to see what other people think about OneGold:
Better Business Bureau
On the BBB site, OneGold holds an A+ rating, and it’s an accredited company. However, when we look at customer reviews on the Better Business Bureau, OneGold has a rating of 3.27/5, which is quite low. Though a couple of the reviews were positive, and people believed that the company was great to work with, there are several 1-star reviews that state that the company has poor customer service, a very slow withdrawal process, and a couple of reviewers stated they felt like they were scammed by One Gold.
There are two complaints filed against OneGold on the BBB website. One simply says the person wants their account re-activated, and the other complaint was due to an issue with a wire transfer.
TrustPilot
Things look a bit brighter on TrustPilot for OneGold. It has a 4.2/5 star rating. The biggest issue that people complained about was the length of time it took for withdrawals from OneGold. There were also complaints about the fees, which I mentioned above. You have to be mindful about buying and selling due to the fees associated with every transaction.
Shopper Approved
Finally, on Shopper Approved, OneGold has a 4.8/5 star rating. Almost all of the reviews are positive, and there are more than 10,000 reviews.
Pros and Cons of OneGold
Before closing out this review, I want to just briefly give you a quick pros and cons list about OneGold:
Pros
- You can buy and sell gold, silver, and platinum right from the app or website within seconds
- There are no hassles to sign up and you don’t have to even speak to a customer service rep if you don’t want to
- Mostly positive reviews, plus it’s accredited by the BBB.
Cons
- Only offer gold, silver, and platinum products
- Fees are charged for every transaction
- The withdrawal process is very lengthy according to reviews
My Final Thoughts About OneGold
OneGold is a very popular platform, especially for those who want a quick and convenient way to buy and sell precious metals. By using the app, you can own and trade precious metals without worrying about storage or any other maintenance.
There are a few issues with OneGold, though. It’s very simple, but for that simplicity, there are a lot of fees, and people report that even though the company says it takes up to 10 days for a withdrawal, in reality it takes a lot longer.
The biggest issue I have with OneGold is the poor gold IRA offerings. There are so many wonderful companies out there offering gold IRAs, so why would you work with OneGold for one? I wouldn’t, and I don’t recommend it. I think OneGold is just fine if you want to play around with precious metals investing, but for a long-term plan like a gold IRA, I would be happy to share my opinions and reviews about companies that are so much better.