Gold IRA fees - comparing across providers, what's everyone seeing?

• •Diving into the weeds on Gold IRA fees lately and it's a jungle out there.
• •I'm sitting on a portfolio of around $350k that I've been slowly building up – mostly 401k rollovers from my years in steel.
• •You know, you spend decades watching commodity prices like iron ore and scrap, you get a feel for the real stuff.

Diving into the weeds on Gold IRA fees lately and it's a jungle out there. I'm sitting on a portfolio of around $350k that I've been slowly building up – mostly 401k rollovers from my years in steel. You know, you spend decades watching commodity prices like iron ore and scrap, you get a feel for the real stuff. Gold just always made sense as a solid, tangible asset, especially with all the digital currency hype these days. But man, the fee structures are all over the place.

I'm looking at a few different providers right now, and some are quoting flat annual fees for storage and administration (around $250-$300 total), while others have a sliding scale based on the value of your holdings. One company pitched me an annual fee that looked low, but then I dug into the fine print and found a bunch of transaction fees buried in there for buying/selling. Another one had a higher flat fee, but seemed to include everything. It almost feels like they're intentionally opaque sometimes. Just trying to figure out which structure is going to be most cost-effective in the long run for someone like me, who's not planning on a ton of trading, just holding for stability.

What are y'all seeing out there? Are the flat fees generally better for larger portfolios, or does it depend more on expected activity? And what about setup costs? Some waive them, some charge a few hundred. I'm based here in Birmingham, AL, and it seems like everyone wants to talk to you, but getting a straight answer on ALL the costs upfront is like pulling teeth. Would love to hear some real-world examples of what people are actually paying annually, and which companies seem to be the most transparent.

Also, sidebar for those of us getting closer to retirement age (or already there): have any of you used an RMD Calculator specifically for your Gold IRA? I'm trying to get a clearer picture of future distributions and how those fees might impact the withdrawals. Most general calculators don't really factor in the specific storage and admin fees associated with a physical gold IRA. It's a whole different ballgame than a regular stock portfolio.