Sources & Data Policy
EFFECTIVE 3 AUGUST 2026
A figure is only as good as where it came from. This page names our source categories, explains how each is graded, and states plainly the methods we refuse to use to obtain data — including the ones our competitors rely on.
Where our data comes from
| SOURCE | USED FOR | TYPICAL GRADE |
|---|---|---|
| Official & government | Tax rates, vehicle registration tax, duty, regulated fees, statutory rights, emissions ratings. | FACT |
| Regulators & standards bodies | Efficiency ratings, safety scores, consumer-protection rules. | FACT |
| Manufacturers | Specifications, list prices, service schedules, warranty terms. | FACT / SOURCED |
| Retailers & operators | Advertised prices, fees, availability, terms of sale. | SOURCED |
| Licensed affiliate feeds | Product data and imagery supplied under a partner agreement that permits its use. | SOURCED |
| Central banks | Foreign-exchange reference rates (European Central Bank). | FACT |
| Tourism boards & transport providers | City taxes, transfer costs, published fares, seasonal rules. | SOURCED |
| Public datasets | Fuel and energy prices, typical running costs, statistical baselines. | SOURCED |
| Our own calculation | True totals, per-person splits, depreciation curves, resale estimates. | Inherits the weakest input |
How each figure is graded
- FACT — taken directly from an official or primary source: a statutory rate, a central-bank reference rate, a manufacturer’s own published specification.
- SOURCED — from a named, checkable third party, such as a retailer’s advertised price or a published fare table.
- ASSUMPTION — a reasoned estimate where no reliable figure exists. Always labelled, with its basis stated. Never disguised as a fact.
A computed total inherits the weakest grade among its inputs. One assumption makes the whole true total an assumption — see Methodology.
What we refuse to do
We do not scrape sites in breach of their terms
Many partners explicitly prohibit automated extraction of their listings and imagery. We respect that, even where scraping would be technically trivial and commercially useful. Where we need a partner’s data we use an API, a licensed feed, or an agreement — or we do without.
We do not show images we lack the right to use
Product photography comes only from licensed affiliate feeds or the operator’s own permitted assets. Editorial and destination photography is properly licensed. We would rather show a data panel than a photograph of the wrong item or one we have no right to display — a stock photo standing in for a specific listing is a small lie, and we do not tell it.
We do not fabricate anything
No invented prices, no placeholder reviews, no fake badges, no synthetic ratings, no made-up counts. If we do not have a figure, the interface says so.
We do not build our dataset out of you
Our cost data comes from public and licensed sources, never from tracking readers. Any benchmark we publish is aggregate-only and cannot be traced to a person, and we never sell row-level data. See the Privacy Policy.
Attribution and freshness
Each input carries its origin and observation date, surfaced on the listing’s provenance view. Figures move through recent → ageing → stale as they age, and a stale figure is marked in the interface rather than quietly presented as current. Where a source restricts redistribution we cite it by name rather than reproducing its content.
If you own a source we use
If you are a rights-holder and believe we are using your data or imagery beyond what you permit, contact legal@truetotalcalculator.com and we will review promptly — and remove it while we do. The takedown route is in the Intellectual Property Policy. If you would like your data represented more accurately, tell us what is wrong — we would rather be corrected than cited badly.