Corrections policy

How to report a calculation error, what makes a report useful, and what happens after you send it.

Last updated

A wrong number is the worst thing this site can produce, because a calculator invites you to act on its output. We treat numerical errors as urgent.

What counts as an error

  • A calculator returning a wrong result. The output does not match the formula the page documents, at any input.
  • A formula stated incorrectly on the page, or a symbol left undefined.
  • A worked example that does not reproduce, either by hand or in the tool.
  • A stale statutory figure -- a tax bracket, contribution limit or wage base that has since been superseded.
  • A broken edge case -- a division by zero, a negative input handled badly, a date that crosses a leap day or a shift that crosses midnight producing nonsense.
  • A citation that does not support the claim attached to it.
  • A misleading omission -- a limitation significant enough that leaving it out would predictably lead a reasonable reader to a wrong conclusion.

Disagreement with a modeling choice -- our 7% selling-cost assumption, our decision to deduct 21 square feet per door -- is not an error, but we still want to hear it, and it may lead us to make the assumption adjustable or explain it better.

How to report one

Email corrections@lifecalculator.space with:

  1. The page address.
  2. The exact inputs you used, if it is a calculator result.
  3. What the tool returned and what you believe it should return.

Inputs matter more than anything else in a bug report. "The mortgage calculator is wrong" is very hard to act on; "at $400,000, 25% down, 5.75%, 20 years it returns X and I make it Y" can be reproduced in a minute.

How we handle it

  1. Acknowledgement -- we aim to reply within five business days.
  2. Reproduction -- we run your inputs against both the live tool and our independent reference implementation.
  3. Fix -- confirmed calculation errors are corrected as a priority, ahead of any other work on the site. Wording and citation errors are corrected promptly.
  4. Disclosure -- any correction that changes a calculator's output is noted on the page with the date, a description of what was wrong, and which inputs were affected. Typographical fixes and broken-link repairs are made without a note, but always update the page's visible "last updated" date.

Why the update dates matter

Most of this site does not go stale, because rates and prices are inputs you supply rather than values we hard-code. The exception is any page containing a statutory figure -- principally the take-home pay calculator -- where the numbers are reset each tax year.

If a page states a figure for a specific tax year, check that the year is the one you care about before relying on it.

Removal and complaints

If you believe a page infringes a copyright you hold, or contains something that should not be published, write to hello@lifecalculator.space with the page address and a description of the issue. We respond to substantiated requests promptly.