How the figures on this site are produced
Every number here is quoted from the page of the organization that sets it, and every page says when those pages were last read. This is how that works, and what the tool's annualized figure is and is not.
Where a number has to come from
Every figure on this site is quoted from the page of the organization that sets it: the lender, the scheme, the regulator, or the statute itself. Trade press and law-firm round-ups are read to find out what to look for, then set aside. The number that reaches the page comes from the primary document.
That rule has two visible consequences. Where no primary source publishes a figure, this site does not publish one either — there is no table of representative factor rates here, because no lender or regulator publishes one. And where a summary and a statute disagree, the statute wins, even when the summary is tidier. The US disclosure states are the example: the number of states with a rule and the answer to the borrower's actual question — does the rule get me a rate I can hold against a bank quote — are different things, and only the statutes settle the second one.
The ledger
Each figure is stored with the URL it came from, the date it was read, and the wording it appeared in. A check runs over the article text before every build, pulls out every currency amount and every percentage, and reports any that is not in that ledger.
The check does not know whether a number is correct. It knows whether the number is either quoted from a source or shown together with the arithmetic that produced it, which is the property that can be enforced mechanically. A figure with no visible origin does not survive it.
Arithmetic this site performs itself — an amortization schedule, an annualized cost, a comparison between two offers — is marked as ours in the text, and its inputs are shown so you can redo it.
What the dates mean
Sources re-read, at the top of a page, is the day a person opened the primary sources behind that page and read them again. It moves only when that has actually happened. A rebuild, a typo fix or a rewrite does not move it.
Checked dates inside a Sources list are per-source. An SBA page read in September carries September; a Bank of England page read in August still says August. Mixed dates in one list are the honest outcome, not an oversight.
The arithmetic behind the cost tool
The cost tool turns three products into one comparable pair of numbers: total cash cost, and an estimated effective annualized cost.
The annualized figure is the internal rate of return on the payment stream, compounded to a year. The tool finds the rate per payment period at which the discounted payments sum to what you actually receive, then compounds it over a year of those periods: twelve months, 52 weeks or 260 business days, whichever you told it you pay. Fees taken out of the advance are treated as reducing what you receive rather than as an extra payment, because that is how they are felt: you get less, and you repay the same.
How often you pay is not a detail. The same total, collected every business day rather than monthly, returns the money to the lender sooner, so the annualized figure rises while the cash cost does not move at all. Daily or weekly collection is the normal shape of an advance, and it is one reason a total-repayment figure on its own cannot be held against a rate.
A factor rate is a multiplier rather than a rate. The tool turns one into a total by multiplying the amount advanced by it, then reports the annualized cost of that total on the schedule you typed in. Factor rate vs interest rate sets out why the two cannot be compared as they stand.
On a revenue-share facility the term is not fixed — it moves with takings — so the tool estimates it from the holdback and the receipts you type in. Run it at your best month and at your worst, and the gap between the two annualized figures is the real uncertainty in the offer.
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or seen by us. An offer you choose to save is written to your own browser on that device and goes no further; the privacy page sets out what is kept and how to delete it.
What the annualized figure is not
It is not a statutory APR. A legal annual percentage rate — the one a California or New York disclosure has to carry — is defined by that law's own formula, with its own rules about which fees count and how the term is measured. Those formulas do not all agree with each other, and none of them is the calculation above.
Use this site's figure to hold two offers against each other on the same basis. Where a legal figure is required, use the disclosure the provider is obliged to hand you. Which rules reach your borrowing sets out which states require a rate and which require dollar amounts only.
Software and AI
The site is generated from plain text files by a build script, so the markup is identical on every page and nobody hand-edits HTML. The same script runs the ledger check and a browser pass over every route before anything is published.
AI tools are used for research triage and for drafting structure. They are not a source and they are not the author. Every regulatory statement, legal citation and figure is put back against the primary document by the editor before it goes out, and the fact-check date on a page moves only when that has been done again.
Corrections
If a figure here is wrong or out of date, the fastest fix is to say so: contact the publisher with the page and the number. Corrections are made quickly. Anything that changes a figure or a regulatory statement is written into the change log with its date, so a page you read six months ago can be compared with the one in front of you.
The log is not only for corrections. Four kinds of change go in, each marked as what it is: a correction; something new, meaning a page, a source read for the first time or a tool that answers a question it could not answer before; a change in what this site does with what you type into it; and a change of address, because a link you saved has to keep working. Editorial tidying and typography do not go in. Entries are written on the day the change goes out, so a day's release grows through that day rather than being written up afterwards.
What changed on this page
7 September 2026 New — The cost tool now asks how often you pay - monthly, weekly or every business day - takes a factor rate directly, and separates a fee deducted from the advance from the amount that reaches your account. How often you pay turned out not to be a detail: the same advance, repaid every business day rather than monthly, does not cost a penny more in cash and returns a materially higher estimated annualized cost, because the money goes back to the lender sooner. Daily and weekly collection is the normal shape of an advance, so the figure the tool gave before was the gentler of the two.
7 September 2026 Your data — The cost tool can now keep up to four offers so it can put them side by side, and can produce a link that carries the figures you typed. Saved offers are written to your own browser on the device you are using; they are not sent anywhere and we never see them. A shared link carries the numbers in the part of the URL a browser does not send to a server. The pages that used to say nothing you type is stored now say what is kept and where, and the privacy page sets out three ways to delete it.