Editorial Team & AI Disclosure

Editorial Team & AI Disclosure

Calculator-401K.com is operated by a small independent team focused on retirement-planning education. This page exists for full transparency about who is behind the site, how our editorial content is produced, and what role artificial intelligence plays in what you read here.

Editorial Standards

Every article published on Calculator-401K.com is required to meet the following standards before going live:

  • Factual grounding. Articles cite IRS publication numbers (590-A, 590-B, 560), Department of Labor guidance, or peer-reviewed financial research wherever a specific rule, limit, or claim is made.
  • Current data only. Contribution limits, RMD ages, and tax thresholds are pulled from a centralized reference table updated whenever the IRS publishes a new notice. Inflation references use live FRED CPI data.
  • No product recommendations. Our articles will never recommend a specific broker, fund family, fund ticker, robo-advisor, or 401(k) plan provider. We have no affiliate relationships and accept no payments for placement.
  • Educational, not advisory. Content explains how rules work and how outcomes are computed. It does not tell any individual reader what to do with their specific money.
  • Mandatory disclaimer. Every article carries a YMYL (“Your Money Your Life”) footer disclaimer reminding readers that the content is educational and to consult a licensed advisor before acting.

The Role of AI in Our Content

We are transparent that the long-form educational articles on this site are drafted by an AI editorial system that we built and operate ourselves. Specifically:

  • The model. We use Qwen 3.6, a state-of-the-art open-weights large language model. It runs on private inference servers we operate (we do not route content through third-party API providers like OpenAI or Anthropic).
  • The constraint layer. Every article generation request is wrapped in a system-level prompt that locks down the output: it injects current IRS limits, the latest CPI inflation reading from FRED, and a list of editorial constraints (no product recs, mandatory disclaimer, IRS publication citations where applicable, no first-person advice).
  • The post-processing layer. After the model returns a draft, an automated layer strips chat control tokens, removes self-dialogue artifacts, validates that the disclaimer is present, converts Markdown to clean HTML, and only then publishes.
  • What the model cannot do. It cannot recommend specific funds. It cannot generate personalized advice. It cannot reference a contribution limit it has not been given via the constraint layer. It cannot publish without the disclaimer.

Why we do this: AI lets us cover retirement-planning topics with a depth and freshness that would otherwise require a full-time staff of writers. The constraint layer is what makes the output safe to publish on a topic as sensitive as retirement.

If you ever read something on this site that contradicts current IRS rules, contradicts itself, or recommends a specific product, that is a bug — please tell us and we will correct it within 24 hours.

The Calculators

Our calculator suite — the retirement projector, early-withdrawal cost tool, employer-match optimizer, Real Purchasing Power scenario, Monte Carlo simulator, Fee X-Ray, Life-Event timeline, and Action Plan generator — is built and maintained by our engineering team. The formulas are documented in full on our methodology page.

Corrections Policy

If you find a factual error in any published article or any calculator output, send a note via the contact page with the URL and the issue. We treat corrections as priority. Where appropriate we add a visible “Updated:” line at the top of the corrected article.

What We Are Not

  • We are not a registered investment advisor (RIA).
  • We are not a broker-dealer.
  • We are not a fiduciary to any individual reader.
  • We are not affiliated with the IRS, the Department of Labor, the SEC, or any 401(k) plan provider.

For investment advice tailored to your full personal financial picture, work with a fee-only fiduciary advisor. The CFP Board’s Let’s Make a Plan directory and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) are good starting points to find one.

Contact

Editorial questions, corrections, partnership inquiries: contact page. We read every message.