Updated August 1, 2026. Quick answer: Clear Money Guide is an independent publisher of financial-advisor fee research, calculators and planning guides, and this page states the verification rules it actually operates. This page describes how the work is actually produced. Everything below is a rule we operate, not an aspiration — where we fall short of one, the result is a logged correction.
Primary sources, or we do not publish the claim
Statutory, regulatory and filing-based claims are taken from the primary document — the statute on the legislature’s own site, the SEC filing, the IRS revenue procedure, the company’s own disclosure page — and quoted with its date. A summary of a document is not the document. We have had search summaries and extraction tools return fluent, on-point quotations that the underlying filing did not contain, so anything naming a company or quoting a statute is read from the source itself.
Where we cannot reach a document, we say so on the page rather than repeating what others assert. Several claims have been withdrawn on exactly that basis.
Calculators are verified in two engines before they ship
Every calculator’s logic is implemented twice — once in Python, once in the JavaScript that runs in your browser — and the two are run against a vector set that deliberately includes the boundaries: threshold edges, zero and negative inputs, and the exact points where a rule changes. They must agree on every vector before the page can be published, and the live script is re-executed against the same vectors after publication to prove that what shipped is what was tested. A mismatch blocks the release.
Numbers carry their basis and their date
Dollar figures and thresholds are labelled with the tax year or the verification date they belong to, because most of them change annually. Where a figure is measured rather than quoted, we publish the sample size and, where the underlying data is a range, an interval rather than a false point estimate.
What fails the gate does not get built
Planned pages are checked against the evidence before they are written, and pages whose premise does not survive that check are dropped and recorded as dropped. This is the least visible standard and the one that most affects what you read: it is why some obvious topics are missing, and why the pages that exist tend to carry a figure or a citation rather than a summary of other people’s coverage.
Independence, stated plainly
We earn referral fees when readers use certain advisor-matching links, and we say so on the pages where it applies — our affiliate disclosure sets out exactly how we are compensated. Around 1,300 of our pages carry no commercial ask at all, by policy. Partner compensation does not change our calculator math, our measured fee figures, or which pages exist. Where a partner is discussed, the relationship is disclosed on that page.
Our data is free to reuse
Five datasets are published under CC BY 4.0 with permanent DOIs, so they can be cited and will resolve independently of this site: see the research index. Our methodology pages document how each was built.
Questions, corrections or data requests: [email protected]. Nothing on this site is personalised financial, tax or legal advice.