Privacy

The short version: the calculators run in your browser, and the numbers you type into them never leave it. The site measures visits, and exactly what that involves is described below.

Measuring visits

The site uses Cloudflare Web Analytics, provided by Cloudflare, the company that hosts it, to count visits and measure how quickly pages load. For each page view it records which page was viewed and the site you came from, your browser, operating system and type of device, the country the visit came from, and how long the page took to load. Cloudflare states that its Web Analytics does not use cookies or local storage and does not track you across other websites.

The site also uses Google Analytics, provided by Google, to understand how the site is used: which pages and calculators people use, how they arrive, and roughly where from. Google Analytics sets cookies, named _ga and _ga_ followed by an identifier, so that it can recognise a returning browser. Those cookies do not identify you by name. The site has switched off Google signals and ad personalisation, so this data is not used for advertising. Google's own privacy policy applies to what it collects.

Neither service sees anything you type into a calculator. None of it is in the page address, and none of it is anywhere those scripts read. A check on the live site types known figures into a calculator and searches every request the page makes for them.

What the site does not do

• It does not send the figures you enter to anyone, including this site, Cloudflare or Google.
• It sets no cookies of its own. The only cookies are Google Analytics', described above, and it does not use your browser's local storage.
• It does not run advertising scripts or tracking pixels.
• Apart from the two analytics scripts above, it does not load fonts, images or scripts from another company's servers.
• It does not ask you to sign up, and it has no way to identify you by name.

These are not only promises. Before each release a check loads every page in a real browser, types into the calculators, and fails if a request goes anywhere not named on this page, if the site writes a cookie other than the analytics cookies above, or if the site's own code contains a way to send data out. A second check does the same against the live site, because the analytics are added on the live site rather than in the site's own code.

What you should know

The web host can see an ordinary visit. Whoever serves a website can see the connection details any web server sees, such as your IP address and which page you asked for. That is true of Cloudflare here, as it is of any host for any site.

You can refuse the cookies. Blocking cookies for this site in your browser settings stops Google Analytics from recognising a returning visit, and every calculator keeps working without them.

Links leave the site. Guides link to the authorities they cite, such as the IRS. When you follow one, that site's own privacy practices apply.

Paid referral links are labelled. Where the site is paid for sending someone to a lender, the link says so beside it. The link is a fixed address chosen when the site is built. It does not carry the numbers you entered, so the company you click through to learns nothing from the calculator. It will, like any site you visit, see that you arrived.

If this changes

If the site ever collects anything else, this page will change first, and the checks will have to change with it. It is written to be checkable, so that it stays true.