A roost is where a bird comes home to settle. This is where your money and home questions come to get answered — quietly, and with the math shown.
Try googling "mortgage calculator." The top results want your phone number before showing the answer, hide a lead form behind a fake "Calculate" button, or bury the math under four pop-ups and an autoplay video. The calculator itself — the thing you came for — is an afterthought.
We got tired of it. RoostCalc is the calculator site we wanted to find: the tool loads instantly, the math is explained in plain English, and nothing on the page is trying to funnel you into a sales call.
RoostCalc is built by a small United States–based team with hands-on experience in the mortgage and real-estate-settlement industry — the people who deal with loan payments, closing costs, escrow, and property taxes as a day job. We started RoostCalc on the side because we kept watching friends and clients get tripped up by numbers that aren't actually that complicated once someone shows the work.
To be clear about what we are and aren't: RoostCalc is an independent, ad-supported education site. It is not a lender or broker, it doesn't sell your information, and it doesn't refer you to any particular company — including ours. If you want personal advice, the disclaimer explains why you should take it to a licensed professional who can see your whole picture. Reach us any time at hello@roostcalc.com.
Every calculator uses the same standard formulas that lenders, insurers, and contractors use — amortization by the monthly-payment formula, property tax as assessed value times the local rate, insurance coverage by replacement cost rather than sale price, and so on. Before a tool goes live, we test it against worked examples and known results, so a $400,000 loan at 6.5% over 30 years returns the payment it should, to the dollar.
Where a calculation depends on real-world data — federal tax brackets, typical state property-tax rates, standard closing-cost ranges — we base the defaults on official and widely-published sources (for example, IRS figures for the paycheck tool) and label the year they're from. Every calculator page spells out its assumptions right under the tool, including the corners we cut and which direction they lean, so you're never trusting a black box.
Accuracy comes first. If we can't figure a number honestly, we don't publish the tool. Estimates are labeled as estimates — we never dress an approximation up as a quote. We keep things current: when tax rules, rate environments, or program limits change, we update the affected pages. We fix errors fast: if a reader emails us a mistake, correcting it jumps to the top of the list. And we'd rather have fewer, genuinely useful pages than a pile of thin ones — every calculator and guide here is meant to actually help you decide something.
No signup, ever. Every calculator works the moment the page loads. No spam — we don't run email lists. No fake buttons — "Calculate" calculates; it doesn't secretly "connect you with an advisor." No lead selling — your numbers are processed in your browser and never reach us, let alone a salesperson. The site is supported by clearly-marked ads, and that is the entire business model. When we say the tools are free, we mean it costs you nothing and reveals nothing.
Estimates here are for education, not financial advice: for big decisions, verify numbers with your lender, agent, insurer, or county. Found an error, or want a calculator we don't have yet? Tell us at hello@roostcalc.com — we read everything, and reader requests are how a lot of these tools got built.
🤝 No signup. No spam. No fake buttons.