Gold IRA minimums - what are you seeing out there?

• •I’ve been heavily allocated in physical metals for decades now, long before this whole Gold IRA thing became popular.
• •Always been my safe haven, especially seeing how things played out on Wall Street during my tenure.
• •Made a lot of smart moves over the years, plenty of bad ones too, but the gold always kept the portfolio afloat.

I’ve been heavily allocated in physical metals for decades now, long before this whole Gold IRA thing became popular. Always been my safe haven, especially seeing how things played out on Wall Street during my tenure. Made a lot of smart moves over the years, plenty of bad ones too, but the gold always kept the portfolio afloat. Now I'm looking to diversify a bit more of my retirement funds into a Gold IRA, specifically rolling over a significant chunk of a traditional IRA – probably somewhere in the $750k range to start. It’s a nice piece of change, but I’ve been hearing wildly different numbers on minimum investment requirements from these Gold IRA custodians and it’s a bit jarring.

Some of these companies are quoting minimums as high as $50k, while others are down in the $25k range. One I spoke with even tried to tell me their "preferred" minimum was $100k for their top-tier services, which just felt like an upsell tactic more than anything else. I’m in NYC, so I’m used to higher prices for everything, but this feels a bit arbitrary. Are these minimums really firm, or is there some wiggle room, especially when you’re talking about a substantial rollover like mine? I'm not looking to nickel and dime, but I'm also not keen on paying unnecessary fees or being cornered into a specific allocation amount just because of some arbitrary minimum set by the custodian.

My concern is less about meeting a minimum and more about understanding the transparency of these "requirements." Are these minimums mostly about justifying their backend operational costs for smaller accounts, or is there a genuine service level difference that warrants, say, a $50k minimum over a $25k one? I'm looking for a reliable custodian with good storage options, preferably in Delaware or something similar outside the immediate NY area, and a solid reputation for handling larger accounts. What kind of minimums did you guys encounter when setting up your Gold IRAs, especially for those of you doing larger rollovers? And did you find any custodians more flexible than others?