About CalcFalcon

CalcFalcon builds free financial calculators for people who work for themselves. Whether you're a freelancer setting rates, a creator tracking platform earnings, a gig worker estimating take-home pay, or someone building a side hustle toward a financial goal, our tools help you make smarter money decisions — without a login, a paywall, or a sales call.

Who's Behind This Site

CalcFalcon is built and maintained by Ben, working independently.

It started out of my own frustration. I kept running into questions I wanted a straight answer to — what a project rate actually leaves me after self-employment tax, what a payout looks like once a platform takes its cut, whether a side project was clearing anything real once I counted the hours honestly. Every time, I'd end up doing the same thing: opening a spreadsheet and rebuilding the same math from scratch, because the calculators I found online were either oversimplified, gated behind an email form, or a thinly disguised ad for accounting software.

So I built the version I wanted to use, and then kept building. That's the whole origin story — there's no team and no outside funding behind this. Every calculator here exists because it answered a question I actually had, or one that kept coming up from people doing the same kind of work.

I'm not an accountant and I don't hold a financial license, which is exactly why the tax and finance calculators cite their sources on the page. You shouldn't have to take my word for a tax bracket — you should be able to see which IRS publication it came from and when it was last checked. That's the standard I hold this site to, and the methodology page spells out how it works in practice.

Who It's For

Traditional financial tools are built for salaried employees with predictable paychecks. That doesn't work when your income varies by month, your tax situation involves self-employment calculations, or your expenses include platform fees and business costs that most calculators ignore.

CalcFalcon is built specifically for:

• Freelancers and consultants who need to set hourly or project rates that actually cover taxes, expenses, and profit
• Content creators on YouTube, Twitch, Patreon, Substack, Etsy, and Ko-fi who want to understand their real earnings after platform fees
• Gig economy workers on DoorDash, Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and Airbnb who need to factor in vehicle costs, time, and taxes
• Side hustlers planning their path from extra income to a sustainable business

How Our Calculators Are Built and Sourced

Every calculator starts from a documented, primary-source formula — not a rough approximation. Tax calculators (self-employment tax, quarterly estimated payments, W-2 vs. 1099 comparisons, capital gains) are implemented directly from IRS publications and Revenue Procedures: federal tax brackets, standard deductions, FICA and Social Security wage base figures, the self-employment tax's 92.35% adjustment, and Net Investment Income Tax thresholds. Platform-fee calculators (YouTube AdSense, Etsy, DoorDash, Airbnb, and others) start from each platform's published fee schedule.

Every tax and finance calculator on the site displays a visible "Sources & Last Updated" block naming the specific IRS publication the figures come from and the date we last verified them. Our full build process, review cadence, and correction policy are documented on the methodology page.

Every calculator on CalcFalcon runs entirely in your browser. Your numbers never leave your device — there's no account to create, no data stored on our servers, and no tracking of your financial inputs. When you close the tab, your data is gone. Each calculator offers two modes: Quick mode for fast estimates with sensible defaults, and Advanced mode for detailed analysis when precision matters. Results can be shared via URL — the calculator state is encoded directly in the link, so the recipient sees exactly what you see without any server-side storage.

How This Site Makes Money

CalcFalcon is free to use and supported by two revenue sources: display advertising and affiliate partnerships. We think that's worth stating plainly rather than burying in a privacy policy, because transparency about incentives is part of how you should judge whether to trust a financial site.

• Display ads. We show ads (via Google AdSense) around calculator and blog content. Ad placement and content are decided independently — advertisers do not see or influence calculator results.
• Affiliate partnerships. Some calculator pages recommend specific products (like accounting software) with an affiliate link. If you click through and make a purchase, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. These recommendations are clearly labeled, and — as covered on our methodology page — affiliate relationships never change what a calculator computes. The math is identical whether or not an affiliate link is present.

We do not accept payment to change a calculator's formula, alter a tax figure, or misrepresent a result. See our full privacy policy for how we handle data, and our financial disclaimer for what our calculators are — and are not.

How We Keep Figures Current

Federal tax brackets, standard deductions, and Social Security wage bases change annually. We review our tax calculators against newly published IRS and SSA figures and update the "Sources & Last Updated" date on each calculator when we do. If you spot a figure that looks stale, email us at hello@calcfalcon.com — see our correction policy for what happens next.

What You Won't Find Here

No paywalls, no email gates, no "schedule a demo" buttons, and no account required to get a number out of this site. Just calculators that work, sources you can check, and a straight answer about who built them and why.