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.
Free guide · no account · nothing sold
Find the college money your family may be missing.
Scholarships, grants, state aid, a FAFSA estimate, what each college will really cost you and every deadline that applies to your student, held in one private plan. So you can see the numbers and know what to do this week.
Start with the free guide. There is nothing to install and no account to create, and you will see your plan before you are ever asked to pay for anything.
Free guideStays free
No accountNothing to log into
Nothing soldNo ad profile, ever
Stays with youSync is off by default
Maya's plan
Sample data
Aid she may qualify for
$24,180
First year. Federal, state and matched awards.
Programs matched
17
Re-verified weekly.
What is coming up
Cal Grant filing2 Mar · 12 days
Horatio Alger application25 Oct
FAFSA opens1 Oct
What each college would really cost
State flagship$11,240 / yr
Private liberal arts$18,905 / yr
Community, then transfer$4,610 / yr
Your next step
File the FAFSA the week it opens. Two of Maya's state programs award on a first come, first served basis.
The Family Plan
The flagship costs your family $4,900 less a year.
The private offer is $14,500 larger on paper and carries $11,500 of loans. Strip the loans and the work study out and the free money is identical, so the whole difference is money you would have repaid.
Line
Private liberal arts$42,000 package
State flagship$27,500 package
Aid package, as writtenThe number in the letter
$42,000
$27,500
Free money you keepGrants and scholarships
$27,500
$27,500
Loans, repaid with interestNot aid
$11,500
$0
Work study, you earn itHours, not a discount
$3,000
$0
Cost of attendanceThe college's published figure
$58,300
$38,900
What you actually payCost less free money. Loans do not reduce this.
$30,800
$11,400
From your family this yearAfter the loans and work study you were offered
$16,300
$11,400
Cost of attendance is each college's own published figure. Only free money is subtracted from it.
Sample data
Why this is so hard
You are being asked to make a six figure decision with worse information than you would accept for a car.
None of this is your fault. The information is genuinely scattered, and almost nobody explains that the sticker price is not the price.
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.
How it works
Three steps, and the first one takes about ten minutes.
01
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.02
See your plan fill in
Aid you may qualify for, what each college would really cost you, the scholarships you match, including the members-only awards your school's clubs unlock, and every deadline that applies, in one place.
Free, and yours to keep.03
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.
Look inside the plan
This is the whole product. Nothing is hidden behind a demo request.
Four views of the same plan. Choose one to see what it actually looks like when it is filled in.
Every figure on this page is sample data from a made up family. Your plan shows your own numbers, and it stays yours.
Aid you may qualify forSample data
Estimated first year aid$24,180
An estimate built from your own numbers, not an average. It moves as you fill more in.
SourceTypeEstimated
Federal Pell GrantGift aid$5,900
Cal Grant AGift aid$9,400
Institutional need awardGift aid$6,200
Matched scholarships, 14 openApplications$2,680
Federal subsidised loan, offeredRepaid laterNot counted
What we would tell you to doFile the FAFSA the week it opens. Two of these programs award on a first come, first served basis and close early in a strong year.
What each college would really cost youSample data
Lowest real cost on your list$4,610
Real cost is tuition, fees, housing and books, minus the gift aid you would actually receive.
CollegeSticker priceYou would pay
Community college, then transfer$6,180$4,610
State flagship$28,400$11,240
Private liberal arts$61,300$18,905
Out of state public$47,900$39,150
What we would tell you to doThe private college is cheaper than the flagship once aid is applied. Do not remove a school from the list because of its sticker price.
Every deadline that applies to your studentSample data
Next deadline12 days
Only the deadlines that apply to your state, your colleges and the awards you were matched to.
What is dueDateStatus
Cal Grant filing2 MarDue in 12 days
Horatio Alger application25 OctNot started
FAFSAOpens 1 OctSubmitted
CSS Profile, two colleges15 NovSubmitted
Institutional aid, private LA1 AprNot yet open
What we would tell you to doStart the Cal Grant filing this weekend. It shares its documents with the FAFSA, so doing them together saves you an evening.
Award letters, side by sideSample data
Difference in what you pay$7,665
The two offers look similar until the loans are separated out from the money you never repay.
In the offerState flagshipPrivate liberal arts
Grants and scholarships$17,160$42,395
Work study$2,400$2,400
Loans presented as aid$0$7,500
What you actually pay per year$11,240$18,905
What we would tell you to doThe private offer is larger on paper but $7,500 of it is a loan. Compare gift aid only, then decide whether the loan is worth it.
Privacy
We built this so that we could not sell you out even if we wanted to.
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.
Your device
→
Encrypted in your browser
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Your own Google Drive
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.
Account or login requiredNone
Your plan stored on our serversNever
Data sold or shared with advertisersNever
Cross-device sync, by defaultOff
Who holds the passphraseYou only
Third-party trackers on this pageNone
How the whole thing is built
Plain language, no legal training required
Read it
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
Free, and what you can pay for
One payment. It runs to 30 June and then it simply ends.
No card is stored and nothing renews on its own. If it is not useful in the first week, write to us within seven days and we will refund it, less the payment processor's fee.
Free guideAlways free
$0
Aid estimate, real cost comparison, matched scholarships and your full deadline list. Free, and it stays free.
No card, no account. Open the free guideDecision PackOne time
$49once
For the family deciding between offers right now. Award letter comparison and the real cost breakdown for the colleges on your list.
One payment. No renewal. Buy the Decision PackFamily ProMost families
$149school year
Everything in the guide, plus essay coaching that never writes for your student, award letter comparison and the full deadline toolkit.
Early-bird, rising to $179. Runs to 30 June. Start Family ProFamily HouseholdMore than one student
$299school year
Family Pro for every student in your household, each with a plan of their own, on one payment.
Runs to 30 June, then ends. Start HouseholdWhat you getFree guideFamily ProHousehold
Aid estimate built from your own numbersIncludedIncludedIncluded
Real cost comparison across your college listIncludedIncludedIncluded
Matched scholarships and the 50 state aid libraryIncludedIncludedIncluded
Every deadline that applies to your studentIncludedIncludedIncluded
Award letter comparisonNot includedIncludedIncluded
Essay coaching that never writes for your studentNot includedIncludedIncluded
Students coveredOneOneEvery student at home
Why you can believe the numbers
We would rather show you the method than tell you a story.
We are new, and we are not going to dress that up with testimonials. Here is how the plan is actually put together, so you can judge it yourself.
Method
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.
Method
Estimates, labelled as estimates
An aid figure is an estimate until an award letter arrives, and we say so next to the number. We would rather be useful and honest than confident and wrong.
Architecture
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.
Terms
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.
Integrity
Coaching, never ghostwriting
The essay tools coach your student and will not write the essay for them. That is a deliberate limit, and it is the reason a counselor can recommend this.
People
Named, not anonymous
This is made by two parents going through it themselves, operating as Silk Creative Labs LLC. There is no venture backer whose interests could diverge from yours.
Things we will not do
Written down so you can hold us to it.
✕Sell or share your family's information
✕Build an advertising profile from your plan
✕Store your card or renew you automatically
✕Write your student's essay for them
✕Promise you a specific amount of money
✕Require an account to see something useful
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.
Not deciding today? Take the deadlines with you.
Leave an email and I will send the FAFSA and aid dates that actually matter this school year, starting with the printable FAFSA night handout. The 2027-28 FAFSA opens by October 1, 2026.
This is a mailing list, not an account. It holds your email and nothing else. Nothing your student enters into the guide is ever sent to us, and this address is never connected to it. One-click unsubscribe on every email, and it is never sold.