Where the facts come from.
A score is only as trustworthy as the information underneath it. This page states what Pearto will and will not treat as a source.
Pearto's calculators are driven by your inputs and clearly-labelled assumptions. No live external data feeds (government statistics, manufacturer pricing, rate APIs) are connected in this build yet. Nothing on the site presents estimated or typical values as current published facts.
Source hierarchy
When Pearto does cite a fact, it prefers sources in this order:
- Primary official data — statistical agencies, regulators and government departments publishing the figure directly.
- Official documentation — a manufacturer, lender or provider publishing its own terms, specifications or pricing.
- Peer-reviewed or methodologically transparent research.
- Reputable secondary reporting, used only to locate the primary source, never as the endpoint.
Aggregator content, unattributed listicles and AI-generated summaries are not acceptable sources on their own.
Source families Pearto is designed to use
The source architecture is built to record, date and verify published data from authoritative bodies. The families it is designed around include:
- Central banking and monetary authorities (for rates and monetary aggregates)
- Consumer financial protection regulators (for lending rules and consumer rights)
- National tax authorities (for tax treatment and thresholds)
- National statistics offices (for prices, incomes, rents and demographics)
- Housing and urban development bodies (for housing cost and affordability data)
- Transport and vehicle safety authorities (for safety ratings and recall data)
- Education and labour statistics bodies (for earnings and outcomes data)
- Environment and energy agencies (for efficiency and emissions figures)
- Official manufacturer and provider documentation (for specifications and terms)
This list describes the policy, not a claim that every family is currently connected.
What is recorded for every source
Each source Pearto stores carries its title, publisher, URL, publication date, retrieval date, jurisdiction and a reliability classification. Every fact is traceable back to the record it came from, and every record has a review date.
Freshness and staleness
Some facts decay quickly — interest rates, prices, fee schedules. Others are stable for years — a statutory definition, for example. Pearto tracks when each source was last verified and when it is next due for review. Anything overdue is flagged internally rather than silently displayed as current.
Facts, assumptions and calculations are separate
Pearto keeps four things apart, and labels them where confusion is possible:
Sourced fact — came from a citable source. Your input — you supplied it. Calculated — derived by formula. Assumption — a typical value standing in for an unknown.
If Pearto cannot source a number, it does not dress it up as a fact.
Jurisdiction
Rules that vary by location — tax treatment, tenancy law, late-fee regulation, vehicle inspection requirements — are marked with the jurisdiction they apply to. Where no jurisdiction is known, Pearto states that rather than defaulting to one.