The short answer: I earn money from paid products in the Shop, a small Etsy shop and some affiliate links, and every affiliate link is disclosed. The site will also carry display ads. Nobody pays to appear on this site, and money never changes a ranking. The calculators, city pages and open datasets are free, need no signup, and stay free.
What I sell
- City reports. $29 each, sold through Kit.
- The First-Property Bundle. Pay what you want, with a $5 minimum, also sold through Kit. It is in the Shop.
- An Etsy shop. Spreadsheet templates (Excel and Google Sheets) for landlords and house hackers.
All of these are optional. Buying one does not unlock a free tool, because the free tools are never locked.
Affiliate links
Some pages carry affiliate links, for example to Baselane, a landlord banking service, and to DealCheck, a rental-property analysis app. If you sign up through one, I may earn a commission. Your price is the same either way.
Every affiliate link is disclosed on the page where it appears and on the disclosure page, which lists the current partners. I may add other programs later. They will be disclosed the same way.
What I do not do
- No sponsored posts.
- No paid placements.
- No paid rankings.
- No ad network yet. When display ads start, the disclosure page will name the network, and ads never decide what a page says or how a metro ranks.
- No charge to AI crawlers that read the site.
The press features in MoneyLion, Morning Brew, Newsmax and OnlineU were not paid.
Money does not move a ranking
The Foothold Index ranks metros by a published screen. A program or product is never placed higher because it pays. The data behind the index is on the open data page, so you can check the order yourself.
What stays free
The calculators, city pages and open datasets are free, with no account and no email address required. That is the free-forever pledge. If you never buy anything, every tool still works in full.
Questions
If something here is unclear, or you think a page reads like it was shaped by money, tell me. You can read more about me and why I built this on the about page.
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Want the deeper toolkit? The guides and spreadsheets are in the shop, from $5, and the free tools stay free either way.