How we write
Every number in an article is computed by the same tested code that runs the calculators.
Last updated
Most coverage of a new machine is a rewrite of the manufacturer’s announcement. We are not interested in publishing another one, and search engines are not interested in ranking it. What a maker actually wants to know — what the thing costs to run, and whether it pays for itself at the hours they would use it — is not in the press release, because working it out takes a formula.
So an article here starts with a calculation, not a headline. If we cannot add a figure of our own, we do not publish a standalone page about it.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure in an article is produced by the same versioned, unit-tested code that runs the public calculators. There is no separate arithmetic for articles, because a second implementation would be a second thing to be wrong — and the wrong one would be the number people quote to a customer.
Each article states which formula version produced its figures, lists every input, and marks which of them came from the manufacturer and which are our own starting assumptions. A figure you cannot check is a figure you should not trust, including ours.
How stories are chosen
Sources are polled on a schedule and ranked by whether we can say something useful about them. Rumours, leaks and teasers are refused outright rather than scored: a site whose whole claim is that its numbers are right has no business publishing speculation.
Nothing is drafted or published without a person deciding it should be. The scan proposes; it does not write.
When a language model is involved
A model may help draft the wording of an article. A model never produces a number, a price, a specification or a claim about a product. Those come from the calculator and from the source, and automated checks verify they survived any drafting pass unchanged.
Where a model helped write an article, the article says so on the page. If it does not say so, none was used.
Corrections and freshness
Machine prices, marketplace fees and material costs move. Every article carries a date to be looked at again — weeks for anything fee-related, months for a machine costing — and figures are recomputed rather than eyeballed when it comes round.
If a number here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say what changed. We would rather be corrected than be quoted incorrectly.
Commercial relationships
This site carries advertising and affiliate links, which are labelled wherever they appear. No calculation, ranking, recommendation or conclusion on this site is influenced by a commercial relationship, and we do not accept payment for coverage or for a favourable figure. The formulas are public precisely so that this is checkable rather than merely promised.