Alto IRA Review: $400 a Year Flat Over $30,000, NM Trust Charter

Why this review exists

People who search “alto ira” are usually choosing where to hold an alternatives IRA: a private equity deal, a real estate offering, a startup fund. The first results are Alto's own pages and affiliate roundups. What they leave out is the paper record: which company actually holds your account and who charters it, what the dated fee schedule costs at your size compared with other custodians, what the agreement says you give up, and what else Alto sells to the same customers. We read those documents. We also found that the picture changed in the past year: Alto sold its crypto IRA business in November 2025 and agreed in October 2026 to buy another custodian.

If you are weighing custodians, our SDIRA custodian comparison and the reviews of Equity Trust, STRATA Trust and Provident Trust Group use the same kind of records. For the tax rules on what an IRA may hold, see self-directed IRA real estate rules.

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. Fee figures are Alto's published claims as of the date read; court and complaint searches describe disputes, not the accounts that never had one.

1. Who the custodian is

Alto sells under the name AltoIRA, but the company on the legal documents is Alto Solutions, Inc., which describes itself as “an administrator of self-directed individual retirement accounts.” The account itself is held by a separate company, Alto Trust Co. The agreement you accept appoints Alto Trust Co. “as the passive, non-discretionary custodian” and says Alto Trust has delegated “certain administrative functions” to Alto Solutions, which performs them using AltoIRA's technology.

Three points matter to a holder. First, the 2021 filing and the current pages together show that the custodian changed from an outside trust company to one Alto controls; the documents we read do not say when or who the earlier custodian was, so if your account was opened before the change, ask which entity holds it today. Second, a New Mexico trust charter is not deposit insurance: Alto's footer says neither Alto nor its affiliates is an FDIC-insured bank, and the only FDIC coverage it describes is pass-through coverage up to $250,000 for undirected cash at Needham Bank (the agreement also names Pinnacle Bank), “certain conditions” applying. Third, we found no public financial statements for Alto Trust Co. itself, and no examination report; the state list tells you it holds a certificate, not how it is capitalized.

2. The company behind the account

Alto Solutions is a private company that used SEC exemptions to raise money and left a few filings that show its size in 2019 and 2020. It has filed nothing on EDGAR since a Form D on January 4, 2022.

The last two lines match the company's own timeline, which lists a $17 million Series A in April 2021 and a $40 million Series B in December 2021, and says assets under custody reached $2 billion in 2025. That $2 billion is a company figure: we saw no audited statement for it. The Form C-AR also says plainly what the business earns: “investor account fees, including recurring annual or monthly fees plus transactional fees.” The point for a holder is that the administrator behind your account is a venture-funded technology company that reported losses in the two years we can see, and that publishes no recent financials. That is not unusual for a startup; it is different from a bank-owned custodian such as STRATA, which is owned by Horizon Bank.

3. What it charges

The fee page has no date or form number. We saved it on November 11, 2026, and everything below is Alto's claim as of that day. The page says “All fees are subject to change upon 30 days' written notice” and that fees are non-refundable.

Two details change the bill. The base is “Total Invested Capital,” the purchase price of the assets you hold, not your account balance: cash held at Alto is not counted, and securities moved in kind are valued at $1.00 per investment. And the page says “Issuers, including Alto affiliates when acting as an issuer, may charge a separate fee,” so the deal itself can carry its own costs.

There is no crypto fee on the page. Alto announced on November 13, 2025 that Public had acquired its CryptoIRA business, and its press release says “While Alto will no longer operate as a direct provider in the crypto segment.” The agreement still refers to Coinbase and CryptoIRA accounts, which is stale wording rather than a current product.

The same account at Alto, Equity Trust and STRATA (our arithmetic)

We priced a $50,000 and a $250,000 IRA that hold only private deals, using each custodian's published schedule as we read it in our own reviews: Alto's fees above, Equity Trust's Universal IRA schedule (Rev. 110625: $500 at $50,000, $1,000 at $250,000, alternative asset buys and custody included, $50 online set-up) and STRATA's schedule #300-090126 ($395 Flex tier, $50 per private asset purchase, $50 a year per asset held from year two, online set-up waived). We assume every dollar is invested, so Alto's cash exclusion does not help.

At $50,000 the three are within $150 of each other and which is cheapest depends on whether your deals sit on Alto Marketplace or are private. At $250,000 Alto is cheapest unless you place five private deals, where STRATA is lower by $130 (our arithmetic). Alto's tiers stop at $30,000, so its fee as a share of the balance keeps falling as the account grows: $400 is 0.8% of $50,000 and 0.16% of $250,000. A smaller account behaves differently: with $25,000 invested out of $50,000, the fee is $150 a year because idle cash is not counted. Alto's per-deal charge falls on every new private deal, so a plan with many small private deals can change the order. Re-run the arithmetic with your own number of deals.

4. What the agreement says

We read the Custodian Account Agreement posted on altoira.com on November 11, 2026, marked “Updated: November 14, 2025.” Yours may be an earlier version.

These are common features of passive custodians; STRATA's and Equity Trust's agreements also put investment checking on the holder. The Alto-specific points are the cap tied to fees paid, the arbitration route and the waiver of conflicts. The agreement does not tell you how much of your cash sits in the pooled bank accounts, which banks hold it on a given day, or how Alto is paid on that cash beyond “fees or interest.”

5. Alto also sells deals and runs its own vehicles

Alto's pages describe Alto Marketplace, “a curated selection of private market investments,” and a broker-dealer that places those deals. The same group also has an investment manager that sponsors fund vehicles. We read the regulators' records for each.

The broker-dealer files audited statements with the SEC each year. Placement fees from deals sold on the platform are its stated source of revenue.

The filings are for the broker-dealer only, not the custodian, and the 2025 statement carries a clean auditor opinion dated March 30, 2026 (David Lundgren & Company). Revenue grew from nearly nothing to $528,723 in two years. The conflict is built into the business: Alto earns an account fee from you and, on some deals, a placement fee from the sponsor, and the agreement has you waive the conflict.

Alto Capital also sponsors its own investment vehicles. Form D filings from Alto Capital's Nashville address show these.

These are small private funds with a $25,000 minimum (the sports vehicle $250,000). We did not read their offering documents. The first filing shows Alto Securities in the sales commission field. We do not say any holder was steered to them; we note that the platform that holds your IRA and the sponsor of a deal you might buy can be the same group, which is the case for asking Alto who is paid on a given deal before you direct money. Several unrelated Form D filers use similar names (for example Palo Alto Capital vehicles in California), and we left those out.

6. The Forge Trust deal

On October 6, 2026 Alto announced it had “agreed to acquire Forge Trust Co. and its parent company, Forge Services Inc.,” from Forge Global, Inc., a Charles Schwab company. Alto says the combined business would have “more than $20 billion in assets under custody and administration” and “more than 60,000 self-directed IRA accounts holding private market assets,” as of June 30, 2026, and over 3 million Custody-as-a-Service accounts. The press release says “The transaction is expected to close subject to approval by the South Dakota Division of Banking” and “Financial terms were not disclosed.” It adds that Forge Trust clients “do not need to take any action at this time.”

For an Alto account holder the release says nothing about changes to Alto Trust Co. or its fees. For a Forge Trust holder, our custodian comparison lists Forge among the custodians platforms use, so the deal bears on readers of that page. Alto's own 2025 figure for assets under custody is $2 billion, so by the company's own numbers most of the combined $20 billion would be Forge Trust's (our arithmetic; the two figures are dated a year apart). We cannot say when the deal closes.

7. Complaints, courts and regulators

• CFPB complaint database. We probed the company-name lookup on November 11, 2026 for Alto Trust, Alto Solutions, AltoIRA and Alto Securities and got no match; a control lookup for “hometap” returned that company correctly. The database has no complaints under those names. It does not show complaints made only to a state regulator, FINRA or the company.
• State regulators. We found no New Mexico or Tennessee order naming Alto. We did not search every state or read any examination.
• SEC and FINRA. BrokerCheck lists no disclosures for Alto Securities. We found no SEC action naming an Alto entity.
• Courts. Search listings show a federal case in the District of New Mexico, No. 1:22-cv-00062, captioned against “Alto Trust Co. et al,” with court documents numbered 30, 58 and 70 listed for 2022 and 2023. Justia, CourtListener and the Internet Archive blocked automated access, so we read no ruling and state no outcome or subject. We searched federal listings only.

8. What a reader can do with this

• Run your own numbers. Use the fee tables above with your count of deals and where each is sold (Marketplace, integrated partner or private). Add $50 to close and $100 per private asset you move out.
• Ask who holds the account. Request the name of the custodian on your statement and the version date of your agreement. The record shows an outside custodian in 2021 and Alto Trust Co. now.
• Check the deal, not the custodian. The agreement says Alto has no duty to review investments or verify values. Read the offering document and the sponsor's filings yourself. Our crowdfunding IRA guide covers what the account structure changes.
• Ask who is paid. For any deal on Alto Marketplace, ask whether Alto Securities or an affiliate receives a placement fee and whether an Alto Capital vehicle is the issuer.
• Read the arbitration clause before you sign. The opt-out has to be a signed, mailed notice naming your account.
• Compare the tax setup too. For some real estate plans a solo 401(k) matters more than the custodian fee; see solo 401(k) vs SDIRA.

Sources: Alto pricing page (altoira.com/pricing), Alto Trust Company, Alto Securities and about pages, Alto press releases of November 13, 2025 and October 6, 2026, and the Custodian Account Agreement updated November 14, 2025, all retrieved November 11, 2026; New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department trust company list; SEC EDGAR filings of Alto Solutions, Inc. (CIK 1719369: Forms D, C, C-U and C-AR, 2017 to 2022), Alto Securities, LLC (CIK 1905657: Form X-17A-5, 2023 to 2025) and five Alto Capital vehicles (Form D, 2023 to 2026); FINRA BrokerCheck and SEC adviser public disclosure records; CFPB Consumer Complaint Database company lookup; search-result listings for D.N.M. No. 1:22-cv-00062; our reviews of Equity Trust Company and STRATA Trust Company for their fee schedules.