What OfferMettle will and will not say

Will and will not, side by side

How claims are sourced and dated

The rule is simple: a factual claim without a dated primary source next to it does not get published. Here is how that plays out across the site.

A dated primary source, adjacent to the claim

Every factual claim — a mileage rate, a statute, a vesting convention, a filing deadline — carries the source it came from and the date that source was published or last read, printed next to the claim itself, not buried in a footnote list at the bottom of the page.

Grounded search for the Offer Risk Snapshot

The one tool that talks to a server — the Offer Risk Snapshot — uses Google Search grounding so every claim it returns carries a real, dated source URL. A claim without one is rejected before it reaches you; it never appears un-sourced.

The full method

How we research, weigh conflicting sources and decide what is fact-checkable versus what is our own judgment is documented in full on the methodology page.

For the full method — how sources are weighed, what counts as primary, how conflicts between sources are resolved — read the methodology page.

Fact, estimate and judgment are never blended

Every figure on this site is visibly classified as one of three things, and a judgment or an estimate carries a separate confidence label of high, medium or low so you can see how much weight to put on it.

Fact

Directly verifiable against a dated primary source — a statutory mileage rate, a published vesting convention, a filing you uploaded. No confidence label is needed because it is not a judgment call.

Estimate

A number derived from a fact using a stated method — for example, a normalized cash-equivalent computed from your inputs using a visible formula. Carries a confidence label of high, medium or low, reflecting how much the inputs themselves are assumptions.

Judgment

A human or model assessment that cannot be independently verified the way a published rate can — for example, "this clause is unusual for this stage of company." Always carries a confidence label and is never presented with the same certainty as a fact.

This separation is most visible in the Offer Risk Snapshot, where every claim carries both a source link and its confidence label — never one number standing in for both a hard fact and a soft read on your situation.

The legal boundary

We hold to one line on every page, every tool and every Decision Brief:

• We explain compensation mechanics — what a clause does, how a formula computes, what a schedule implies.
• We flag terms worth questioning, and terms worth taking to an attorney.
• We never interpret whether a specific clause is legally enforceable. That determination is fact- and state-specific, and it is not something a tool, a guide or a Decision Brief on this site will rule on for you.

Terms worth a second look are named as questions to ask — your employer, or an attorney — never as a ruling on what your specific offer legally means.

What we guarantee — and what we do not

We guarantee delivery time: your Decision Brief within the window you were shown at checkout, or the fee is refunded by a scheduled sweep once the deadline passes unmet. We do not, and will not, guarantee an outcome — not a negotiation result, not a specific dollar increase, not that an employer moves at all.

How updates are dated

• Every content page carries a published date and a substantively-updated date, both visible in the byline at the bottom of the page.
• "Substantively updated" means a fact, a source, a number or a recommendation changed — not a typo fix or a formatting pass.
• A published claim that turns out to be wrong is corrected on the page and logged, dated, on the corrections page — never silently edited with no trace that a change happened.
• Where a byline still reads TODO(human): unassigned, that placeholder stays visible rather than being filled with an invented name — see the authors page for who is attached to what, once a real person is.

See a claim that needs a correction, or want to know who is attached to a byline? Read how corrections are filed and dated, see who writes and reviews this site's content, or read how and where AI is used in producing it.

When this answer changes

• A cited source is updated or superseded after we publish — the page is substantively updated, the byline's "Updated" date changes, and if the original claim was wrong rather than merely stale, a correction is filed.
• A figure moves from estimate to fact — for example, once a specific document has been read, a number that started as a judgment can be replaced with a fact tied to that document.
• You read something on this site that conflicts with a source you trust — the corrections page explains how to report it and what happens next.