Editorial Policy

What gets published here, where every figure comes from, when pages are updated, and the things this site will not do for money.

Most editorial policies are written to reassure. This one is written so you can check it: every rule below is either visible on the page or enforced by the build script, and if you find one that's neither, that's a correction and the IRS-figure rules below say how to send it.

A page exists here only if there's something to compute

Calculators, and the explanation a calculator needs. That's the whole list.

A page earns its place by computing something that changes with your inputs and is hard to do by hand, like the federal tax saved on a pre-tax deferral at your bracket, or the match you forfeit at a given contribution rate. There are no news posts, no opinion pieces, no "top 10 retirement tips", and no page written to occupy a search term the site has nothing to say about. A thin page pulls down the ones that aren't thin, and the IRS doesn't change enough in a year to feed a news section anyway.

The site is small on purpose and will stay that way.

Figures come from the IRS document itself, never from a summary of it

Primary sources only: the IRS notice, revenue procedure or publication, and the Social Security Administration for the wage base. Never another website's summary, however reputable. That's how a wrong number travels for three years without anyone noticing, and the accuracy check found exactly that happening.

This isn't a promise. It's a mechanism:

• One file. Every statutory figure lives in one data file, limits.json, with its citation attached, so an annual update can't leave a page behind. The mechanism is documented.
• The build refuses. Every block of figures, down to an individual phase-out range, carries a verified flag, the date it was read against the primary document, and who read it. The only permitted answer to who is the one person who runs the site, so the field can't quietly fill up with a process or a reviewer who doesn't exist. While any block is unverified, undated or unsigned, the site won't compile.
• The tool switches itself off. If a calculator's data is ever marked unverified, the calculator stops and says why, instead of showing a number nobody stands behind.
• Dates are held to. Any page showing a "last checked" date fails the build once that date goes stale. A date we can't keep can't be published.

The IRS source in force is printed at the foot of every page, with a link to the document itself.

Nobody signs these pages, and no byline is invented to hide that

This site has no named expert reviewer: no CFP®, no CPA, no editorial board. That's a real limitation. It's stated on the about page instead of being papered over with a house byline or an anonymous "editorial team", because a name that can't be checked is worth less than no name at all. An IRS notice number can be checked.

What stands in for it is verifiability. You don't have to trust a name; you can follow any figure to the IRS document it cites in about five minutes, and every formula is on the methodology page with its approximations marked and the point where each one stops holding.

What it doesn't replace is judgment. Source-checking catches wrong numbers. It doesn't catch a formula that's arithmetically correct and conceptually wrong for your situation, and nobody here has read your plan document or knows whether your Roth election makes sense at your bracket. Use the tools to see the shape of a decision, then confirm anything you intend to act on with your plan administrator or a licensed professional.

Pages change when the IRS publishes, or when something is found wrong

Two triggers, no others:

• When the IRS publishes. The annual cost-of-living figures arrive in the autumn for the following tax year. That's when limits.json changes, and every page showing a limit changes with it in the same build.
• When something is found to be wrong. Immediately, whoever found it.

You won't find a claim here that pages are "reviewed monthly" or "re-checked each quarter". Those promises are common, almost never kept, and trivially disproved by comparing last year's IRS figures to what's on the page. We'd rather publish the date of the actual last check and be judged on it.

Corrections are made on the page and left visible

A correction changes the page and is noted on it. Nothing is silent. The original error isn't deleted from the record as though it never happened, whether it was a typo or a wrong IRS figure. A site that hides its corrections is asking to be trusted more than it has earned, and this one is new enough that it hasn't earned much yet.

Send anything wrong to corrections@401kscalculator.com, or read the contact page for what makes a report quick to act on. If a figure here conflicts with a primary IRS document, the IRS document is right.

Display advertising pays for the site, and nothing else does

Funded by display advertising only.

• No affiliate links to brokerages, robo-advisers or planning services.
• No referral fees for sending you anywhere.
• No sponsored posts, paid guest posts, paid links or link exchanges, at any price.
• No advertiser has any say over what's published, and none sees content in advance.

Providers are named where naming one helps you, never for payment. If any of this changes it'll be disclosed here and on the affected pages before it goes live, not after somebody notices. The IRS doesn't care how a calculator is funded, but the difference between an ad and an affiliate link is whether the site earns more when you pick one broker over another, and that's the conflict this rule exists to rule out.

We test other calculators and don't name them

We compare this site's arithmetic and figures against other 401(k) calculators and publish what we find on the page how accurate 401(k) calculators are, which checks each one against the IRS notice. The sites aren't named.

That's a deliberate trade, and it costs you something. With the names removed you can't verify the finding directly, and you're entitled to discount it accordingly. What's published instead is the exact inputs and the exact figures checked, starting with the IRS deferral limit, so you can run the same test on whichever calculators you like. If you want to publish what you find, names and all, that's yours to do.

Four things that would prove this policy broken

A policy that can't fail isn't one. Failure looks like this:

• A figure that disagrees with the primary source it cites.
• A "last checked" date older than the most recent IRS release affecting that page.
• A calculator input the tool doesn't actually use, or an output whose method isn't on the methodology page.
• An advertising relationship not disclosed here.

Any of those is an error, not a matter of taste. Tell us and it gets fixed.