Support this work
I build PlanGrade alone and pay the costs myself. If it was useful, you can leave a tip. It is optional and it is not a subscription. Every grade, every state page and every source file stays free whether anyone tips or not.
Leave a tip
Pay what you think it was worth. The page is on Ko-fi, which takes card, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay. Your payment details go to them, never to me, and you do not have to create an account or join a mailing list.
What a tip pays for
My time, and what it costs to run. The work is reading what fifty-one regulators publish, each in its own format, and rebuilding the pipeline when one of them changes a file. The costs are the domain, the hosting, the storage the data sits in, and the tools that fetch and check it. No advertising, no staff, no office.
A tip does not move a grade. Grades come from public records the insurers file with state and federal regulators, scored by a published method whose weights and cutoffs apply to every company. Nobody can pay to change a letter, to be added, or to be left out.
Who I will not take money from
No health insurer, broker, marketplace, or anyone acting for one. No advertising and no sponsored placement. A tip from any of them gets refunded.
Readers are the only source of money here, and it arrives after the work is published. If you would rather not send any, pass the site on to someone shopping for a plan.
The practical bits
- This is a tip, not a charitable donation. PlanGrade is not a nonprofit and has no tax-exempt status, so a tip is not tax deductible.
- It goes to a person. Payments go to me, D. Mishra, as ordinary income, not to a company or a fund.
- Receipts come from Ko-fi and PayPal. If you tipped by mistake or changed your mind, tell me and I will refund it, no questions.
- Nothing is stored here. This site has no payment code and no card data ever reaches it.
Questions about any of this, including how the grades are built, go through the contact form. The method is written out in full at how I score.