Editorial Standards

These are the standards behind every guide and calculator. They’re also the yardstick we’d like you to hold us to.

Accuracy and sourcing

• We link to the sources we rely on, favoring primary ones: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve, the IRS, and nonprofit consumer organizations.
• We don’t invent facts. No made-up interest rates, APRs, approval statistics, expert quotes or customer stories ever appear on this site.
• Examples use hypothetical, round numbers, and we label them as hypothetical. They show how the math works, not what you’d be offered.
• We separate general education from anything that depends on your situation, a lender’s underwriting, or the law where you live.

Reviewing and updating

Each guide shows when it was published and when it was last reviewed. Facts that change, such as regulations, program details, and fee norms, are flagged internally and checked on a schedule. When something material changes, we update the guide and the review date. A build-time register tracks the time-sensitive claims in each article so nothing goes stale unnoticed.

Independence

Commercial relationships never shape our guidance. Partner placements are labelled Sponsored and kept out of the guides and tools entirely. We explain the arrangement in full in how we make money.

How our tools are built

Our calculators use standard, documented loan math, and they show the inputs behind every result. We test the math against an independent reference implementation. The assumptions and limits of each tool are written out in how our calculators work.

Corrections

If we get something wrong, we want to fix it. Tell us and we’ll correct the guide and note material changes. We can’t offer individual financial advice, but we read every correction.