Full review
APMEX (American Precious Metals Exchange) is the largest US online bullion dealer by catalog breadth and one of the oldest by tenure. Founder Scott Thomas started the business in 1999 in Edmond, Oklahoma, selling his late grandfather's coin collection on eBay, and has served as President continuously since then. The company is now headquartered in the former Federal Reserve building in Oklahoma City, has been BBB-accredited since April 2004 with an A+ rating, and operates dedicated business lines for IRA gold, wholesale bar contracts, the OneGold storage product, and the Citadel vault service. If you are buying online bullion in the US, APMEX is the largest counterparty in the category — but "largest" isn't the same as "cheapest."
On pricing, APMEX is consistent rather than aggressive. Our own snapshot data shows APMEX's premiums tracking closer to the middle of the field on standard bullion (silver Eagles, generic 1 oz silver rounds, common gold weights), and APMEX is regularly undercut on those categories by leaner dealers. Where APMEX shines is the long-tail catalog: pre-1933 US gold, foreign sovereign coins, IRA-eligible specialty products, and graded numismatics. If your basket is unusual, APMEX is more likely to have it than any competitor. If your basket is a stack of silver Eagles, you're paying for inventory breadth you aren't using.
Shipping follows the payment method. Credit-card, wire, PayPal, Bitcoin, and Bitcoin Cash orders ship within three business days of confirmed payment. Personal checks and eChecks are held four to six business days before shipping, then ship five to ten business days after the check is received — total order-to-doorstep on the cheapest payment path runs around three weeks. All shipments are fully insured for the sale value. Tampered-package issues must be reported within two business days; missing-shipment claims have a clear process through APMEX's Claims Team. International shipping is available to Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Norway, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand, with per-region published rates plus weight surcharges; customers pay all duties and customs.
Returns are the weakest part of the policy. The window is seven days from the date the customer receives the order, which is on the short end of the industry — most peers we review offer 14 to 30 days. Notification must go through the Returns Department by chat, email, or phone within that window. The restocking fee is the greater of $50 or 10% of the order total on most returns, with a 5% fee specifically on returned credit-card orders. Returns of bullion can additionally be subject to a discretionary market-loss invoice — if spot has fallen between purchase and return, APMEX can require you to cover the difference, with 30 days to pay. The market-loss clause is standard across the industry, but the 7-day window combined with the $50-or-10% floor makes a successful return materially worse than walking away on most other policies.
Customer service is structurally strong but not extraordinary. The main 800-number is staffed Monday through Thursday 8 AM – 8 PM EST and Fridays 8 AM – 6 PM EST. Live chat runs M–F 9 AM – 6 PM EST. Department-specific lines exist for international orders, gold IRAs, OneGold, Citadel storage, the Bullion Card, and wholesale. There is no weekend support of any kind, which is structurally tight given the 7-day return clock — a Saturday delivery effectively burns two of your seven return days before you can reach anyone. We deliberately do not consult third-party review aggregators in our customer-service scoring; APMEX's score reflects what their published infrastructure tells us, not what users have said elsewhere.
APMEX is the right dealer if you value catalog breadth, want broad payment options (including a meaningful crypto-discount path for BTC, BCH, and ETH), or are placing larger orders (above $1,500, where bank wire opens up; above $500,000, where wire is required). APMEX is also the right dealer if you're new to bullion and want the most-established counterparty available — the A+ BBB tenure since 2004 is genuinely difficult to match. APMEX is the wrong dealer if you're optimizing premium-over-spot on standard bullion, if you want a comfortable 14- or 30-day return window, or if you ever need weekend customer support. For bulk silver Eagles or generic rounds, run our `/cheapest/[metal]` comparison first.