About Calcbase
A site for working out roughly what something costs, before anyone tries to sell you anything.
How this started
Every time we wanted a quick sense of what something would cost, the same thing happened. Search for it, and the top results are banks and comparison sites that want a phone number before they will show you a number. The ones that do give you an answer each do it their own way, with their own assumptions buried somewhere you cannot see, and none of them agree.
So working out something ordinary, like whether a car is affordable once insurance and fuel are counted, or what a pay rise is actually worth, turned into an afternoon of cross-checking four sites that disagreed with each other.
That is the gap Calcbase was built to fill. Not advice, not a lead form, not a sales funnel. Just a quick, honest sense of what a thing costs, with the arithmetic shown so you can see how the number was reached.
What we mean by estimates
Every calculator here works from figures you enter. We do not guess your salary, assume a growth rate, or fill in a national average on your behalf. You put in what you know, and the site does the arithmetic.
That is a deliberate choice. A calculator built on assumptions is only as good as assumptions someone else made about you, and it quietly goes out of date the moment those assumptions change. One built on your own figures does not.
Where a calculator has to look forward, like a savings projection, it says so plainly and tells you the answer is only as good as the rate you entered.
Where the numbers come from
Tax bands, National Insurance thresholds, student loan plans, stamp duty bands and council tax proportions all come from HMRC and gov.uk. Every calculator that uses them lists the figures it applied and the date they were last checked, on the page itself rather than buried in a footnote.
Statutory rates change every April. Updating them is the one piece of maintenance this site will always need, and the last-checked date on each page tells you whether it has been done.
What we deliberately leave out
Some things are excluded on purpose, and where that happens the page says why. Depreciation is not in the car comparison, because it depends on resale value that nobody can enter honestly in advance. Mortgage interest is not in the rental yield, so the figure describes the property rather than your financing.
Leaving a number out and saying so is more useful than inventing one and making the result look more precise than it is.
What this is not
Calcbase is not financial advice, tax advice or a personal recommendation, and we are not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Nothing here recommends a product, a lender or a course of action.
Lenders, HMRC, employers and providers all apply their own rules and will reach different figures from ours. Treat what you get here as a starting point for a conversation, not a substitute for one.
No accounts, no tracking, no cost
Every calculation runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us, stored, or shared with anyone. There is no account to create, no email to hand over, and no advertising or analytics cookies on the site.
The typefaces are served from our own server rather than a third party, so no outside company sees your visit either.
Who runs it
Calcbase is operated by Digevo Limited, a company registered in England and Wales, number 16415485. The site was designed and built by Pagecraft Studio.
If a figure looks wrong, tell us which calculator and what you expected. Rates move, and we would far rather hear it from you than leave it wrong. Write to hello@calcbase.co.uk or use the contact form.
Suggesting a calculator
Every calculator on the site started as a question somebody could not answer easily. If you were trying to work something out and gave up, that is worth telling us about, and it is the most useful thing you can send.