At first glance, Acre Gold presents itself as a reliable and cost-effective way of collecting gold over time. In essence, the company offers a monthly subscription service where you receive a certain weight of gold every time your deposits reach certain thresholds.
This actually makes a lot of sense on paper. After all, gold is often touted as the best hedge against inflation and periods of economic downturn. Most of these claims are also true as well. Just look at the recent COVID pandemic and how gold retained its value during a time when every other asset was going down.
But, the purpose of this review isn’t to analyze the viability of gold as an asset. Instead, the topic of today’s discussion is Acre Gold’s gold subscription service and how it compares to a gold IRA.
Company Background
While I couldn’t locate an official launch year on Acre Gold’s website, I know the company is fairly young as the oldest customer review I found is from mid-2020. Acre Gold is also backed by Science Inc. — a multi-asset investment firm with over 60 companies under its belt.
The primary aim of Acre Gold is to change the way people buy gold and make it more convenient. Its vision is to provide a service where investors don’t have to physically visit pawn shops or access old gold retailer websites that haven’t been updated in the last decade. Instead, all they have to do is subscribe to Acre Gold and they’ll receive gold to their home on a regular basis.
Before I dig deeper into Acre Gold’s service quality, let’s analyze how the company operates and what it sells.
How Acre Gold Works
The primary draw of the company for me is definitely its gold subscription service. Here’s how it works:
This process repeats after each delivery — allowing you to build a physical stash of gold as a safety net for your future. Plus, you have the option to choose between four different gold bar sizes including 1 gram, 2.5 gram, 5 gram, and 10 gram. The subscription cost increases with the weight of the bar.
Other than the subscription, Acre Gold also sells these gold bars directly at a flat price. At the time of writing, these bars cost:
Lastly, Acre Gold also lists a green lacquered and suede display and storage box to store the gold you’ve acquired from the company. It cost 119 USD.
Membership and Subscription Options
Let’s take a closer look at the Acre Gold subscription service:
Different subscription levels
As I mentioned above, there are four different pricing tiers for the subscription service.
For starters, the cheapest tier will set you back 30 USD per month for a 1-gram gold bar. The next tier after that costs 50 USD per month and builds towards the delivery of a 2.5-gram gold bar. The third most expensive tier is priced at 100 USD a month for a 5-gram gold bar.
Lastly, the largest tier has a monthly fee of 250 USD and will earn you a 10-gram bar of gold once the “Gold stash” reaches the threshold.
As far as I’m aware, you also have to pay a flat 12 USD membership fee in the beginning, regardless of the subscription tier you select.
Flexibility and customization options
According to my research, you can stack each subscription tier as many times as you want. Plus, the company promises complete customer control over the service. In other words, according to Acre Gold’s website, users can cancel or modify their subscriptions whenever they want.
Product Quality and Authenticity
Before we pass any judgment about the subscription service, there are a few more questions that need answers. For instance, how is the quality of the gold sent by Acre Gold? Is it even authentic?
First things first. Yes, the bars sent by Acre Gold are made of authentic gold. To be more specific, these bars are created from 0.999 fine gold. The front face of the bars also have the Acre Gold logo stamped into them, alongside the purity and weight of the bar.
Packaging and delivery
Each gold bar is packaged in tamper-evident packaging to ensure the safety of the package. They’re also delivered discreetly to avoid any issues during shipping.
Customer Service and Support
This is quite possibly the weakest aspect of Acre Gold. For reference, the company has a mixed 2.45 out of 5-star rating on Better Business Bureau with many 1-star reviews. I also found a significant number of customer complaints about missed deliveries and extremely high margins. There are also enough complaints about similar issues that they appear to be regular occurrences for the company.
In addition to this, Acre Gold also lacks an actual customer support network. There is no phone number or live chat option; just one email address. To test this available customer support line, I sent a query a couple of days ago and still haven’t received a reply at the time of writing. If you are looking for a company with better customer service, take a look at the best precious metals companies in the US.
Pros and Cons
Now that we have a complete picture of the Acre Gold company, here are my thoughts on its services:
Pros
Cons
How it compares to regular gold bullion and gold IRA
Both traditional gold purchases and gold IRAs are much better at helping grow your gold to a meaningful amount. Gold IRAs, in particular, are a fantastic hedge against inflation and a surefire way to alleviate financial stress from your retirement years. I personally prefer to invest in gold IRAs, and you can see my article on the top gold IRA companies here. If you have never heard of gold IRAs, have a read of this article on what is a gold IRA and why you should invest in one.
Final Verdict and Recommendations
All things considered, the Acre Gold monthly subscription is not comparable to actual gold accumulation and investment. Besides, the poor service quality and lackluster customer support of Acre Gold doesn't help its case either.
Instead, I recommend checking out my list of the best gold IRAs if you’re serious about investing in gold. These gold IRA companies can even help you convert your existing retirement funds like 401(k) into gold and other precious metals.
That said, if you’re still struggling to find the right gold IRA company that fits your needs, my top recommendations are Goldco and Augusta Precious Metals. Good luck!