About LoanRig
LoanRig exists because most financial calculator sites are built for ad impressions, not for people making real financial decisions. They bury a simple mortgage formula under walls of filler content, gate results behind email sign-ups, and serve calculations without explaining the math behind them.
We took a different approach: build every calculator as if a financial professional would use it, then make it free and accessible to everyone.
What LoanRig Offers
LoanRig provides 21 free financial calculators spanning mortgages, auto loans, investing, retirement planning, taxes, and debt strategy. Every tool delivers real-time results as you type - no submit buttons, no loading screens, no "enter your email to unlock results."
Beyond the standard calculators, we develop original financial tools that approach money from angles other sites don't cover:
- Financial Comfort Index™ - measures your financial security across five dimensions, not just net worth. A composite score that reflects emergency preparedness, debt load, savings rate, retirement trajectory, and discretionary margin.
- Personal Dollar Rate™ - converts every purchase into hours of your life by calculating your true after-tax, after-expense hourly wage. A $150 dinner might cost 6 hours of work when you account for taxes and commuting.
- True Cost of a Car - reveals the full five-year ownership cost including depreciation, insurance, fuel, and maintenance. A $35,000 car often costs $50,000-65,000 over five years.
- Debt Snowball vs. Avalanche - runs both strategies side by side with your actual debts, showing total interest paid and payoff timeline for each method.
- Lifestyle Creep Calculator - quantifies the opportunity cost of incremental spending increases over 10-30 years of compound growth.
Accuracy and Verification
Financial calculators are only useful if they're correct. A mortgage calculator that's off by $50/month could mislead someone into buying a home they can't afford. That responsibility shapes everything we build.
Every calculator on LoanRig is backed by an automated test suite that verifies mathematical accuracy across multiple configurations. Our mortgage calculator isn't just tested with one set of inputs - it's verified across 10-year, 15-year, 20-year, and 30-year terms with different down payment amounts. The tax bracket calculator is checked against all four filing statuses. The compound interest calculator is tested with daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual compounding.
These tests run automatically every month. If any calculation drifts from the expected result, we're alerted immediately. You can read more about our approach on our Methodology page.
Editorial Standards
The educational content on each calculator page is written to help you understand the financial concepts, not just use the tool. We follow these standards:
Specific, Not Generic
We use real dollar amounts, actual tax brackets, and concrete examples. "Your first mortgage payment on a $300,000 loan at 6.5% is roughly $1,625 in interest and $271 in principal" is more useful than "interest makes up a large portion of early payments."
Perspective, Not Paranoia
Our tools like the Real Cost Calculator and Lifestyle Creep Calculator are designed to offer awareness, not guilt. We present the numbers so you can make informed decisions - not to make you feel bad about buying a coffee.
Math Over Opinions
When comparing strategies (like debt snowball vs. avalanche), we show the actual numbers for both approaches and let you decide. We note the behavioral research, but we don't push one answer.
No Dark Patterns
No email gates, no pop-ups, no "create an account to save your results." Every calculator works instantly, computes locally in your browser, and never transmits your financial data.
How the Calculators Work
Every LoanRig calculator runs entirely in your web browser using JavaScript. When you move a slider or type a number, the result updates immediately because the math is happening on your device, not on a server. This design means:
- Your data stays private - nothing is sent to our servers. We literally can't see your inputs.
- No internet lag - calculations are instant because there's no round trip to a server.
- Works offline - once the page loads, the calculator functions without a connection.
The formulas we use are industry standard. Mortgage and loan payments use the standard amortization formula. Compound interest uses the standard exponential growth formula with configurable compounding frequency. Tax calculations use the actual IRS bracket tables for the current filing year. Details are on our Methodology page.
Revenue and Transparency
LoanRig is supported by two revenue sources, and we believe you should know exactly what they are:
- Display advertising via Google AdSense. These are standard web ads that appear on our pages.
- Product recommendations via Amazon Associates. Some calculator pages include book and product recommendations. If you purchase through these links, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. These recommendations are clearly labeled.
Neither revenue source influences calculator results or editorial content. The math doesn't change based on who's advertising. Our calculators will give you the same answer whether you click an ad or not.
Why "LoanRig"?
A rig is a machine built for a specific job. An oil rig extracts oil. A camera rig holds equipment steady. LoanRig is your financial calculation rig: purpose-built, reliable, and designed to do one thing well. We started with loan calculators, expanded into investing, retirement, and tax tools, and kept the name because the mission hasn't changed - give people the tools to understand their financial math.
User Feedback
Every calculator page includes a feedback form where you can report issues or suggest improvements. We investigate every submission. If someone reports a calculation that looks wrong, we verify it against our test suite, check the formula, and fix it if needed. User-reported issues are one of the ways we maintain accuracy beyond our automated testing.
Contact
Questions, bug reports, or calculator suggestions: hello@loanrig.com
For technical details about our calculation methods, see our Methodology and Accuracy Standards page.