About MetalsAlpha

How it started

It started, as most things do, with a complaint.

Philip and Jonathan had been buying physical gold on and off for years, separately, never comparing notes. They got talking one evening and realised they'd both run into the same wall: the sites you'd find when you Googled "best gold dealer UK" were ranking dealers by commission rate, not quality. The reviews were years out of date. The "independent" comparisons were anything but. Philip had built comparison sites himself (Kelkoo, BroadbandGenie) so he knew exactly how the money worked. Jonathan had spent twenty years building community commerce platforms like EverydayCarry.com and ThisIsWhyImBroke.com, so he knew what a good product discovery experience looked like, and that the bullion market didn't have one.

They started keeping their own notes. Spreadsheets, initially. Which dealers were pricing tightly, which were padding premiums, how long orders actually took to arrive. Late evenings, mostly. Neither of them was doing this full time; both of them were doing it because the alternative was going in blind.

Alex had been doing the same thing, independently, for fifteen years. He'd spent two decades building comparison sites and pricing platforms, including Top10 (sold to uSwitch) and Motorway.co.uk, so he had the same instinct as Philip: you can build a market around pricing transparency, or you can exploit the fact that nobody has. When they compared notes, the pattern was identical from every angle. A market moving serious money (gold coins, silver bars, allocated storage accounts) with no systematic premium tracking, no delivery performance data, and buyers making four and five-figure decisions based on review sites that were paid by the dealers they were supposedly rating.

They decided to build the thing they'd been wishing existed. That became MetalsAlpha.

What we actually do differently

Most dealer comparison sites are passive. They collect dealer-submitted data, republish marketing copy, and earn affiliate revenue without ever placing an order. We do it differently.

We place real orders with real money. Every dealer we rank has been tested through actual purchases, not phone surveys or form-filling exercises. We buy coins and bars, track what arrives and when, and assess the experience as a genuine buyer would. The metrics we track across every ranked dealer include:

Rankings update monthly. A dealer who performed well two years ago and has since declined will move down. We've done it, and we'll keep doing it. We also distinguish between dealers suited to different buyer types: the best option for someone placing a first-time order of one coin is not necessarily the best option for someone making a five-figure purchase.

Who built this

MetalsAlpha is built and run by its three co-founders. There is no wall between the people who do the testing and the people who write the content. It's the same team. Every article carries a named byline, and the person who signs their name to it is the one who did the work.

What you'll find here

We focus on physical precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, and palladium) with particular attention to the UK market. Specifically:

• Dealer rankings: Updated monthly based on real purchases. We rank UK dealers and flag which are better suited to first-time buyers versus larger orders.
• Monthly market reports: Analysis of gold and silver price drivers, including macro conditions, central bank activity, and supply/demand dynamics. Written to actually say something, not to hedge every sentence into meaninglessness.
• Guides: How to buy, where to store, how UK CGT applies to bullion, how VAT works on silver, what to look for in a first purchase. Practical, updated when rules change, and written for people who want facts without a sales pitch.
• Live prices: Spot prices updated in real time with historical charts for context.
• Best deal finder: Live coin and bar prices compared across multiple dealers in one place, so you can see immediately where the premium is lowest.

How we stay honest

We earn money through affiliate links with some dealers. When you click through to a dealer from MetalsAlpha and make a purchase, we may receive a commission. That's how we keep the site free.

The rankings are not part of that arrangement. Affiliate revenue has no bearing on where a dealer is placed, and several of our consistently top-ranked dealers have no commercial relationship with us at all. We test every dealer the same way.

If we get something wrong, we correct it promptly and note it on the page. If a dealer's service declines (slower delivery, worse pricing, deteriorating customer experience) their ranking drops. We've done it, and we'll continue to do it. See our Affiliate Disclosure for full details on how the money works, and our Editorial Policy for how content is produced and reviewed.

We're also honest about the downsides of precious metals. Prices fall. Dealers go bust. Storage costs add up and erode returns over time. The spread between buy and sell prices is often larger than people expect going in. We write about all of it, not just the upside.

Important disclaimer

The team

Full bios for each author are on our Authors page. Every article on MetalsAlpha carries a named byline. No anonymous content, no generic "staff writer" attributions.

Meet the team →

Get in touch

Spotted an error? Got a dealer horror story? Want to challenge something we've written? We'd like to hear it. We correct things when we get them wrong, and we read everything that comes in.

Contact us →