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If you are comparing ways to buy and store physical gold online, BullionVault and Gold Avenue are two of the platforms that come up most often.
Both let you buy allocated precious metals through a browser and leave them in professional vault storage instead of shipping bars to your house.
At Gold Investor Research we looked at how each platform prices a trade, where the metal actually sits, and what happens when you want to sell it back. Here is what separates them.
Key Points
- BullionVault charges a trading commission on every order plus a monthly storage fee, while Gold Avenue offers free storage up to a set value and charges 0% commission on buybacks.
- BullionVault runs a live peer to peer order board across vaults in five countries, while Gold Avenue stores exclusively in Switzerland through its parent company, MKS PAMP Group.
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How the two platforms are built
BullionVault opened in 2005 and works like a marketplace. Buyers and sellers post prices on a live order board, and the platform matches them, closer to how a stock exchange works than a traditional dealer quoting you a price.
It serves customers in more than 175 countries and holds gold, silver, platinum, and palladium in LBMA accredited vaults. Gold Avenue works differently.
It is the retail arm of Bullion International Group, the consumer facing division of MKS PAMP Group, a Swiss refining and trading company that also owns APMEX and several other bullion brands.
than matching you with another trader, Gold Avenue sells metal directly at a price it sets, sourced from its own refinery, PAMP.
Fees, side by side
| Fee type | BullionVault | Gold Avenue |
|---|---|---|
| Buy or sell commission | 0.5% on orders under $75,000, dropping to 0.1% up to $825,000 and 0.05% above that | Built into the buy price; 0% commission on buybacks |
| Gold storage | 0.12% per year, billed monthly, $4 monthly minimum | Free up to CHF 10,000 in stored value, then a flat CHF 8 per month up to CHF 100,000 |
| Selling back to the platform | Sold on the live order board at whatever price a counterparty is offering, minus commission | Instant buyback at the spot price, no live counterparty needed |
That structure changes who each platform suits. Someone trading in and out frequently, or holding a large position, benefits from BullionVault's sliding commission scale, since the rate drops the more you trade in a year.
Someone buying gold once and holding it for years is often better off with Gold Avenue's free storage tier, because there is no ongoing percentage fee eating into the position while it sits untouched.
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A quick example
Say you hold $50,000 in gold for five years and never trade it. On BullionVault, storage runs roughly $60 a year at 0.12%, or about $300 over five years, plus the 0.5% commission paid once at purchase.
n Gold Avenue, if that $50,000 sits within the free storage bracket, you pay nothing ongoing, though Gold Avenue has announced a change to its storage pricing effective November 1, 2026, so check its current terms before funding an account.
Where your metal actually sits
BullionVault stores metal in five vault locations across different countries, including Zurich and Singapore, and clients choose which one holds their gold.
Each vault is run by an independent, LBMA associated operator, and BullionVault publishes daily bar lists so you can check what is held against your account.
Gold Avenue stores everything in Switzerland, in segregated vaults it says sit outside the banking system.
Silver, platinum, and palladium held (not delivered) through Gold Avenue's Swiss freeport option are also VAT free, since the standard Swiss VAT on those metals is 8.1%.
Gold itself is VAT exempt in most jurisdictions already, so that saving applies mainly to the other three metals.
Gold's price backdrop right now
Context matters here because storage fees are usually charged as a percentage of value, so they move with the gold price.
As of mid September 2026, spot gold trades in the $4,250 to $4,350 per ounce range, according to Kitco and Trading Economics data, roughly 18% higher than a year earlier.
Gold also hit an all time nominal high above $5,500 per ounce in January 2026, per Kitco. At today's prices, a 0.12% annual storage fee on $100,000 of gold runs about $120 a year.
A flat CHF 8 monthly fee (roughly $9) comes to about $108 a year once a position crosses Gold Avenue's free threshold.
The gap is small at that size and widens at larger holdings, since BullionVault's fee scales with value while Gold Avenue's flat fee, up to its CHF 100,000 cap, does not.
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Which platform fits which investor
Both companies are established. BullionVault has operated since 2005 and reports well over 100,000 users and several billion dollars in client assets, backed in part by the World Gold Council.
Gold Avenue sits inside MKS PAMP Group, which also owns refining and minting operations and has offices across a dozen countries, giving it a supply chain most pure trading platforms do not have.
Conclusion
BullionVault suits active traders and larger holdings through its scaled commission and order board, while Gold Avenue suits buy and hold investors through free or flat rate Swiss storage.
Check each platform's current fee schedule directly before funding an account, since both have adjusted pricing within the past year.