Free guide · no account · nothing sold

A $42,000 aid package is not $42,000.

We take the letter apart so you can see what is a gift, what is a loan, and what your family actually pays. Then we find the money you have not applied for yet.

About ten minutes. No card, no login, and you see your numbers before you are asked to pay for anything. Your plan stays on your device.

On this page: What goes wrong · What you get · How it works · Privacy · Plans · For counselors · Who built this · Guides and videos

The same offer, decoded

A made up family. The letter says $42,000, a "financial aid package". Free money, never repaid: $27,500. Loans, repaid with interest: $11,500. Work-study, you earn it: $3,000. Your family pays this year: $16,300. Yours shows your own numbers.

The sticker price is not the price, and almost nobody tells you that in time.

Four things go wrong for almost every family. None of them are your fault, and all four are fixable with better information.

The sticker price is not the price

Almost nobody pays what a college advertises, but the number families plan around is the advertised one. It rules out schools that would have cost less.

The money is scattered

Federal, state, institutional and private awards each live somewhere different, with their own forms and their own dates. There is no single list.

Deadlines pass quietly

Some state programs award until the money runs out. You often hear about a missed one months later, from someone else's parent.

Award letters are hard to read

Two offers can look alike while one quietly counts a loan as aid. Comparing them properly means separating money you keep from money you repay.

Three steps, and the first one takes about ten minutes.

Tell us about your family
A few plain questions: your state, your household situation, your student's year and the colleges you are curious about. Estimates are fine. Roughly ten minutes. Nothing is sent anywhere.
See your plan fill in
Aid you may qualify for, what each college would really cost you, the scholarships you match and every deadline that applies, in one place. Free, and yours to keep.
Work the next thing
The plan always tells you the single next step and when it is due. Come back through the year and it keeps up as deadlines move. The paid plans add essay coaching and award letter comparison.

How the plan is kept honest:

Re-verified every week

The aid library covers all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and it is checked weekly. Where a date cannot be confirmed with the awarding body, we flag it rather than guess.

We could not leak what we do not hold

There is no account and no database of families. The privacy claim is not a policy we promise to follow, it is a consequence of how the product is built.

It ends by itself

Every plan runs to 30 June and then stops. No card is stored, nothing auto-renews, and there is a seven day refund less the processor's fee.

Your family's information stays with your family. We built it that way.

Your plan stays on your device unless you turn on sync; turn it on and an encrypted copy that only you can open is saved to your own Google Drive, which we can never read.

Sync is off until you switch it on. The passphrase that unlocks the encrypted copy never leaves your browser, so we hold neither your plan nor the key to it. How the whole thing is built.

Account or login required: None
Your plan stored on our servers: Never
Data sold or shared with advertisers: Never
Cross-device sync, by default: Off
Who holds the passphrase: You only
Third-party trackers on this page: None

Start free. If you pay, it is one payment and it ends 30 June.

No card stored and nothing renews on its own. Seven day refund, less the payment processor's fee.

Free guide, $0. Aid estimate, the real cost of up to 4 colleges, matched scholarships and every FAFSA and state grant deadline.
Decision Pack, $49 once. For the family deciding between offers right now. Award letter comparison and real cost for your list. Upgrade within 30 days and the $49 counts toward Family Pro or Household. See what you get
Family Pro, $149 per school year. Everything in the guide, plus essay coaching that never writes for your student and award letter comparison. Early-bird price, rising to $179. One student.
Family Household, $299 per school year. Family Pro for every student in your household, each with a plan of their own, on one payment.

Counselors and schools are priced separately, from $899 per seat for the school year. See the plans · See counselor pricing

One board. Every senior. Zero student data.

If you are carrying a caseload rather than a kitchen table, there is a separate free tool for you. Paste your roster and see aid progress, deadlines and who needs attention, without standing up another central student database. Read the counselor page.

Who built this

We are a couple with three daughters. Our oldest is Class of 2027, and we built this because we could not find it. We wanted one place that told us the truth about the money, without selling us anything and without asking us to hand over our daughter's information first. (A and M, ClaimYourCollege)

College aid by state

Every state runs its own grants and scholarships. See how yours works, and how to apply: All 50 states and DC · California · Texas · Florida · New York · Pennsylvania · Illinois

Guides in plain English

Short, honest reads on how college money works, and every video we have made, grouped by topic. Start with one of these.

See your own numbers before you decide anything.

The guide is free and it stays free. No account, no card, and nothing to uninstall if you change your mind.