Custodian Fees for Gold IRAs - My Experience & Questions

• •Okay, so I'm trying to wrap my head around these custodian fees for my Gold IRA.
• •I put about $75k into my Gold IRA about two years ago, mostly in American Gold Eagles and some South African Krugerrands.
• •I’m a school principal here in Little Rock, and I teach financial literacy, so I *should* be good at this, but it’s still confusing.

Okay, so I'm trying to wrap my head around these custodian fees for my Gold IRA. I’ve been researching different companies and it feels like every single one has a slightly different fee structure, which makes direct comparisons a real pain. I put about $75k into my Gold IRA about two years ago, mostly in American Gold Eagles and some South African Krugerrands. I’m a school principal here in Little Rock, and I teach financial literacy, so I should be good at this, but it’s still confusing.

My current custodian charges a flat annual fee of $250, plus a separate storage fee that's another $100. So that's $350 total per year. I've seen some companies that have a percentage of assets under management (AUM) fee, which makes me nervous if the price of gold skyrockets. Other places bundle everything into one annual administrative fee. It’s hard to tell what’s truly the best deal without feeling like I need a full-time financial analyst. My main goal was to diversify away from traditional stocks, and my Gold IRA has definitely helped me sleep better at night, especially with all the market volatility.

I stumbled across this Eligibility Checker tool at goldirablueprint.com the other day, which was pretty neat for figuring out if I even qualified for a Gold IRA in the first place (spoiler: I did!). But it didn't really help me with the nitty-gritty of fee comparisons. Does anyone have a good system they use to compare these fees across different custodians? Are there hidden fees I should be looking out for that aren't immediately obvious?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from anyone with similar sized portfolios ($50k-$100k) or living in areas with lower cost of living, as I wonder if that makes a difference. Is a flat fee always better than a percentage fee for a portfolio of my size? I'm trying to be as diligent as possible because every dollar saved in fees is another dollar working for my retirement fund. Any insights or recommendations would be hugely appreciated!