philoro Review 2026 – Pros and Cons
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(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)
If you want to buy physical gold, you will need to find a seller. These days there are many gold shops in many cities, but you can also conveniently order physical gold online. philoro is an online shop that sells and buys precious metals.
In the past, I have used philoro to buy a few gold coins. So, in this review, I want to go into detail about philoro, its advantages and disadvantages. By the end of the article, you should know whether you want to use philoro or not to buy (and possibly sell) gold coins.
philoro for gold and precious metals
philoro is a trading house for precious metals, founded in 2011. Their headquarters is in Austria, so they are not a Swiss company. But they have a Swiss entity (philoro Schweiz AG) and a Swiss website.
They offer trading services in multiple precious metals:
- Gold
- Silver
- Platinum
- Palladium
You can either get the gold delivered physically to your home or use their holding services to keep the gold with them. Many people are using philoro in Switzerland to invest in gold. Gold and precious metals are an interesting alternative investment for many investors.
So, we should look at what we can do with philoro and how much it costs to use their services.
Buy precious metals with philoro
If you want to buy gold and other precious metals with philoro, the process is simple. It is the same as any online shop.
You can create an account on their website, and then you can start shopping. You can choose ingots or coins for each metal (palladium only has ingots). And you can select different weights for ingots and different sizes for coins.
The only direct fee you will pay is the delivery fee. This fee is based on the value of your order:
| From | To | Delivery fee |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1,500 | 13.50 CHF |
| 1,501 | 5,000 | 17.50 CHF |
| 5,001 | 10,000 | 20.50 CHF |
| 10,001 | 25,000 | 25.50 CHF |
| 25,001 | 35.50 CHF |
And if you order more than 10 kg, you will pay 3 CHF per extra kg. But in this case, you are unlikely to look at delivery fees, given the size of the order.
You can also skip the delivery and go get it yourself at one of their offices. They have one in Wittenbach and one in Zurich. So, if you live near them, you could save on delivery fees.
Additionally, we must also consider the difference between the spot price and the price of the gold per weight. As of August 28th 2025, a kilogram of gold is worth 87,430 CHF. Buying a one kilogram gold ingot at philoro is 88,949 CHF. This is a 1.7% difference, which is not bad at all for buying physical gold. For a 100g ingot, the spread would be 2.2%. Interestingly, the spread was only 1.3% on Philharmoniker coins. Of course, this is only a sample. If you want to limit the spread, you will have to compare the price of gold and the price of various items on philoro and buy when the spread is low.
The process and fees for buying gold and other precious metals with philoro are good.
Sell precious metals with philoro
You can also sell precious metals with philoro. All the coins and ingots they sell on their website also have an option to sell, and they also take on miscellaneous precious metals by the weight.
The process is almost the same as for buying precious metals. You will select “Sell” instead of “Buy” on the item and then add it to your cart. You can then choose how to deliver it. Likewise, you can either send it yourself, use their delivery services (they will send you the information), or go to an office to give it.
Then, when they have received it, they will validate it and then pay you if everything is alright (or send back the merchandise).
Like buying, there are no direct fees. However, there is a spread between the buy price and the sell price. So, the sell price will be significantly lower than the buy price. Here are some examples as of August 28th, 2025:
- A spread of 3.8% on a 1 kg gold ingot
- A spread of 4.0% on a 100 g gold ingot
- A spread of 3.6% on a Philharmoniker gold coin
- A spread of 4.7% on a Vreneli gold coin
So, the spread is quite significant. However, compared to the industry in general, this is still a great price, especially for gold coins, where this is very low. For large ingots, you can find better spreads from other sellers, but individuals will rarely buy kilograms worth of gold.
The service for selling precious metals with philoro is good and will have decent fees.
Store your gold with philoro
You can also store your gold and precious metals with philoro. There are actually three ways to store precious metals with philoro.
First, philoro offers safe deposit boxes. These are the same as the safe deposit boxes from banks. You will pay an annual price from 325 CHF to 2500 CHF for a safe deposit box in Zurich. They also have some in Wittenbach, but they do not share the price online. This includes insurance for up to 5000 CHF. Since this is a standard safe deposit box, you can also deposit other things inside.
These safe deposit boxes are significantly pricier than a safe deposit box from a bank. The smallest size at ZKB (in Zurich) is only 97.30 CHF and is only slightly smaller than the one from philoro. On the other hand, most bank safe deposit boxes do not include any insurance, so this may explain some cost difference.
Another option is the standard precious metal depot that costs 0.20% (plus VAT) per quarter (with a minimum of 30 CHF). This deposit is either in Zurich or Wittenbach. Or you can opt for the duty-free depot that is in Kloten but will cost 0.65% per year for gold, platinum, and palladium and 0.95% per year for silver. The advantage of the duty-free depot is that VAT does not apply.
These two options are really practical because your precious metals are stored immediately after you buy them. You do not have to get it yourself and then deposit it in your safe. However, you cannot deposit any other valuables yourself.
These 3 options are practical but not very cheap. If you can get a safe at your local bank, this will likely be cheaper.
My experience
I am only investing a little of our net worth in gold for diversification and getting something physical.
I have personally bought gold coins on two occasions. Once I bought Vreneli coins, one for each of the three of us. And once I bought Philharmoniker coins. Next time I invest in gold, I will likely buy small ingots. Generally speaking, the spread (between buy and sell price) is higher on smaller coins and ingots.
I have not yet sold any of our gold coins. I plan to do that with philoro when the time comes.
Finally, since we already have a safe in our local bank, we do not need to store our gold with philoro. Additionally, the local safe we have is significantly cheaper than philoro’s, but there is no insurance.
Overall, I am happy about my experience with philoro.
User Reviews
Before trusting money to a service, we should look at what its users are thinking of it. I checked the reviews on August 28th, 2025.
On Google Reviews, the philoro Zurich office has a 4.3 star review (out of 5) out of 124 reviews. Positive reviews are about the good customer service in the office and about the excellent prices they have online. People apparently received excellent advice in a timely manner.
On the other hand, the negative reviews are also about the service at the office. Apparently, some people had to wait a long time, and the service was not always satisfactory. Some people also complained about the lack of discretion since the orders are done at the counter with possibly other people hearing in.
There are unfortunately not enough reviews on Trustpilot for the Swiss website or office to have a good idea.
Overall, I have been hearing mostly good things about philoro from my readers. The reviews online are good even though there are some outliers. And my personal experience is also good.
%seo_title% FAQ
Who is philoro good for?
philoro is great to buy gold coins and other precious metals.
Who is philoro not good for?
philoro is not cheap when it comes to storing gold and other precious metals.
Does philoro have good fees for buying gold?
Yes. philoro does not have direct fees when buying gold and other precious metals, and its spreads are good for the industry.
philoro Summary
philoro is an online shop for gold and precious metals. We review it in detail to see its advantages, disadvantages, and fees.
4
philoro Pros
Let's summarize the main advantages of philoro:
- Very good spread when buying gold coins
- Lots of coins and ingots are available
- Safe deposit boxes are available
- Depot is available
- Good customer reviews
philoro Cons
Let's summarize the main disadvantages of philoro:
- Spread for selling is not that great
- Depot services are not cheap
Conclusion
philoro is an excellent service to invest in gold and in other precious metals. If you want to invest some money in physical gold and store it yourself, philoro will be great.
Ordering from philoro works just like any other online shop. You can simply put your order online, pay for the order, and then you will receive your delivery safely at home. I have done this twice, and it works great.
Selling with philoro is also excellent for gold coins and small ingots, but the spread on large ingots is not ideal. And their depot options are rather expensive.
In our case, we already have a safe in a bank in Fribourg, so we use this one alongside other valuables for our tiny investment in gold. In the future, we may buy a little more gold to diversify, but we are talking about a tiny portion of our net worth, not really part of our portfolio. We will be using philoro again for that.
What about you? What do you think about philoro?
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I have used philoro a couple of times. I have not tried Degussa or others, but as you have explained the spread is attractively low.
The best feature, in my opinion, is that philoro now offers limit orders just like a stock broker :)
Thanks for sharing your experience, Anna.
Limit orders are indeed rare to get on physical gold as far as I know.
I usually buy from Degussa as well. Very similar spread and delivery, then I have my own safe box at a bank. I think it’s better to store wealth in gold at 20% of my portfolio.
Thanks for sharing, Effeti. I still have to check out Degussa, I have also heard some good feedback about it.
If “End of World” scenario is not relevant, then why even consider buying Gold in physical form. It’s a hassle and expensive to buy and sell, storage is expensive and not sure whether in EOW it can actually be retrieved. Gold ETF much cheaper and simpler. For EOW you can have a bag of diamonds .. at least you can run away with them, try that with 10 kilos of gold -;)
Hi Jeroen
I agree with both your points :) EOW is not relevant to me. And gold would not help much anyway. And in a global bank failure scenario, I think we would be in enough trouble anyway to not really care about our physical gold.
For me, it’s about having a small portion of our wealth on physical form. Otherwise, ETFs are indeed great.
I think wiLLBe is a better option for buying physical gold, as there is no spread, as far as I know, they use ZKB Gold to track the gold price. Also is significantly cheaper if you want them to hold it for you. The delivery can be more expensive, but you can go and pick it up for free yourself.
Thanks for sharing, Erno. The goal here indeed was to get the physical gold. I will check out the fees for delivery with wiLLBe.
Some people don’t like deposit boxes at banks for gold because in the “end of economy” event, banks will be probably closed and you would have troubles getting your coins from the box when you need to run away from the civilization :)
Hi Marki
I am not sure if I would worry about my gold if we came to the “end of the economy” :) But for them, they have a good option of storing the gold themselves.
ZKB has MUCH smaller spreads and the process of buying/selling is trivially easy.
Walk into a big branch, no pre-order necessary, either give them cash or if you are a customer, tell them which account to take the money from, walk out the door with your gold within minutes.
The full buy/sell spread is 0.3% for 1kg, 1% for 100g, which is around 6-20x less than what this Philoro seems to offer. No idea why you’d suggest such a crazy expensive service.
https://zkb-finance.mdgms.com/home/commodities/metals/metalprices/index.html
Hi Marc
Thanks for sharing.
The problem is that, as you said, you have to “walk into a big branch”. This is fine for people in Zurich, but not so great for people living far.
The difference is indeed large in spreads, especially for 1kg ingots (which most people will never buy), but it’s not so bad on 100g ingots and smaller ones.
Hi Marc, thanks for sharing the link. From the link you shared, it seems Philoro still offers better price than ZKB for buying, but ZKB offers slightly better deal to book profits at time of selling. Thanks for the information. I wonder why Gold.ch comparisons never included ZKB.
Ehm, this is absolutely wrong.
At the time of this comment, the prices for 100g gold (normal, not traceable) are:
ZKB: sell: 11’022.85, buy: 11’108.15
Philoro: sell: 10.895,14, buy: 11.248,49
Now tell me, for which metric is Philoro better?
Hi Baptiste,
This is an interesting subject to me. I appreciate your review of Philoro and would add the following points.
– Precious metals are often neglected in the portfolio. Yes, they tend to be cyclical and don’t generate revenue but you’re happy to have them during periods of monetary debasement.
– The most typical use case is the purchase of gold where the buyer takes delivery. For that, there are many choices in CH but Degussa seems to be the market leader. Numismatics aside, the market leader tends to sell bars that are widely accepted by buyers. So if you buy bars yet don’t buy from Degussa, at least see what manufacturers have a good reputation amongst buyers.
– As you noted, no VAT in CH for gold bars, gold coins or silver coins. 8.1% TVA for pretty much anything else, including silver bars. Silver is in the news right now, a lot of people would like to buy, but the TVA is quite penalizing. Dealers such as Philoro or Gold Avenue who offer a duty free port (port franc / zollfreilager) at a reasonable price are very interesting. It’s 8.1% TVA one shot for delivery vs. 1% per year storage costs. Degussa proposes a duty free port but the minimum is big. The reputation of the dealer is important when you never see your metal and just leave it with the dealer. For example, I just couldn’t bring myself to trust Gold Avenue because it’s essentially a start up — and precious metals are meant to be an insurance policy for bad times.
– Dealers whether Philoro, Degussa or Gold Avenue buy back precious metals. Their bid price reflects their spread but that information is sometimes more opaque. Best case seems to be around a 1.25 to 2% spread (see gold.ch to get an idea). Good that you obtained that info directly from Philoro.
– The situation involving safe deposit boxes at banks gives me an ulcer. Lots of ‘probably’, ‘maybe’, ‘surely’ from banks regarding what happens in various scenarios. You write that Philoro insures up to 5k CHF for their safe deposit boxes — but it’s really easy to touch that limit.
– You have possibly one other reasonable choice, if you want to invest in precious metals directly: metal backed ETFs like ZGLD and ZSIL. Potential use cases:
* You want precious metals as an investment in the face of economic uncertainty.
* You do periodic purchases to put aside enough money for that bar of x grams while protecting your purchasing power if the metal rises in price significantly.
* You’re of the opinion that the gold and silver markets (and by extension most gold and silver ETFs) are vulnerable to some seriously questionable practices.
Cordially,
AJ
Hi AJ,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the subject!
It’s true that there are some limits to the guarantees of banks and other safe deposit box providers. People who fully don’t trust banks are likely better off with a safe in their home.
Indeed, ETFs have a lot of advantages. If gold was a significant portion of my portfolio, I would likely have a gold ETF rather than have too much in physical gold. I used physical gold as a small physical hedge, but it’s only a small portion of our net worth.