Methodology & ranking transparency
Effective 24 July 2026. This page discloses the main parameters that determine how listings are ranked, as required by the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation (2019/1150), and explains exactly how the numbers are built. It is generated from the same engine the site and API run on, so it describes what the code does — not what a brochure wishes it did.
How the true total is computed
Every listing resolves to one identity, applied to each figure in its own currency and then netted:
The base price is the sticker/list figure from a feed or operator. Hidden costs are the lifecycle charges the sticker leaves out — taxes, fuel, crew, gratuities, resort and service fees, insurance, transfers, bags, provisioning, cleaning, booking fees, carbon and more — derived programmatically by the asset class's rule pack. Resale (trade-in or residual value, where it applies) is subtracted. What remains is the whole-life cost, not the sticker.
Basis matters. Travel & experiences that scale with the group — holidays, flights, cruises, activities — are computed per person and the party is scaled into the totals; whole-unit assets — a yacht charter, a villa, a property, a car, a product — are priced per party. The engine reports the base, hidden total and resale on the same basis as the true total, so the identity above always holds exactly, and it exposes a separate perPerson figure for comparison.
Confidence grades
Every figure carries one of three grades:
FACT — a fixed, checkable value (e.g. a statutory rate).
SOURCED — an observed or official figure tied to a dated source; it can go stale.
ASSUMPTION — a benchmark or estimate; disclosed as such, never faked.
The headline grade shown for a listing is the worst of its parts: if a single component is an ASSUMPTION, the whole result reads ASSUMPTION. We never let one solid number launder a shaky one.
Verifiability
Separately from grade, each result gets a verifiability score: the share of the gross amount (base + hidden) that traces to an independent, dated source. A figure counts as traceable only when it cites a real source and was not merely estimated. Benchmarks and estimates are shown and labelled — they are part of the honesty, not hidden — but they do not count toward the traceable share. The score also lists the exact figures that aren't traceable, as honest gaps rather than silence.
The TrueCost badge
The badge is an earned seal, not decoration. It renders only when the result reaches the top verified tier — and shows nothing at all otherwise (no "partial" or "illustrative" trust mark). The verified bar, exactly as enforced in certify.ts, is all of:
live — backed by a real, configured data feed, not the illustrative demo seed.
complete — the true total actually discloses hidden costs (the full amount, not just the sticker).
fresh — the underlying price observation is not stale. Listings age slowly, so the window is generous: recent within 30 days, aging by 90 days, and stale past 90 days.
100% traceable — every figure traces to a dated source (verifiablePct ≥ 100), with an overall grade of FACT or SOURCED.
Falling short on any one of these drops the tier to sourced (live, complete, ≥50% traceable), partial (live and >0% traceable), or illustrative (anything not backed by live, sourced data — including all demo data) — none of which display a badge. On today's illustrative seed data, that means the badge is deliberately absent until live feeds are wired.
How things are ranked
This is the P2B disclosure. When listings are ordered, the main parameters are:
The true total price — the whole-life cost above, not the advertised sticker. Lower, honest totals rank better.
Editorial & quality signals — our own assessment of the listing’s quality and fit.
Verified planet & person impact — measured environmental and human-impact factors, weighted by how well they’re evidenced.
The hard rule: ranking is never influenced by whether, or how much, a partner pays us. Commission changes nothing about position or prominence. Placement cannot be bought — there is no paid tier, no promoted slot, no pay-to-rank. If we ever surface an ad, it will be labelled as an ad and kept out of the ranking.
Sources
Every figure traces to a dated origin in a fixed registry of 12 citable sources. These are real institutions, methodologies and published schedules — the exact seed numbers stay labelled illustrative until live feeds are wired, but the origin each figure cites is genuine and independently checkable. The registry, grouped by kind:
The machine-readable registry lives at /api/v1/sources, and the full, resolved "show your work" trace for any listing — every figure back to its source, plus the verifiability score — lives at /api/v1/listings/{id}/provenance.
Freshness
Prices are dated, not timeless. Each figure records when it was observed, and the freshness check grades it recent, aging, or stale once it passes the window (stale past 90 days for listings). A stale price can't earn the badge, and staleness is disclosed rather than hidden — the age is shown alongside the number.
How we stay independent
TrueTotal is free to use, and some outbound links are affiliate links — at no extra cost to you. Whether a link earns us a referral or not never affects rank or the true-cost figures; see the ranking rule above. The full, plain-English disclosure is in our affiliate disclosure, and every cookie we set is on our Cookies page.
Corrections
We will get figures wrong sometimes — a fee schedule changes, a source moves, a number is transcribed badly. If you spot one, tell us and we will correct it, not defend it. Email corrections@truetotalcalculator.com with the listing and the figure, and we'll trace it back to its source and fix or re-grade it.
This describes the current method; it evolves as feeds go live and rules improve. It is a good-faith description of how TrueTotal works today, not a legal guarantee of any specific number.