Actual Car Cost Calculator

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 08/03/2026

Actual Car Cost Calculator ("the extension") is built to keep as little data as possible, and to keep almost everything it does need entirely on your own device. This page explains exactly what the extension stores, what (if anything) leaves your device, and why.

What the extension reads from a listing page

When you click the extension on a supported car listing page (CarGurus, CarMax, AutoTrader, or Cars.com), it reads that page's vehicle details — year, make, model, trim, price, and mileage — to fill in the calculator. This only happens when you actively click the extension icon; it never reads pages in the background or without you asking it to. This data stays on your device and is never sent anywhere.

What's stored on your device

The extension saves the following locally, using Chrome's built-in extension storage (not a server, not a database we run):

• Your saved defaults (ZIP code, typical annual mileage, gas price, credit tier, loan term, and similar preferences), so you don't have to re-enter them every time.
• Your calculation history — the vehicles you've looked up and their cost breakdowns — so you can revisit or compare them later.
• Whether you've purchased a 30-Day Car Shopping Pass, and when it expires.
• A random, anonymous ID for your installation (not tied to your name, email, or any account) — see "Payments" below for what it's used for.

None of this is an account. There's no sign-up, no login, and nothing here identifies you personally. Uninstalling the extension deletes all of it.

What actually leaves your device

Almost nothing does. The three exceptions:

• Vehicle fuel-economy lookups. To estimate fuel costs accurately, the extension asks the U.S. government's public fueleconomy.gov and NHTSA APIs for a given year/make/model's official MPG rating. Only the vehicle's year/make/model is sent — nothing about you.
• Payment verification. If you buy a 30-Day Car Shopping Pass, checkout happens entirely on Stripe's own secure payment page — the extension never sees or stores your card details. After checkout, the extension's anonymous installation ID (mentioned above) is sent to our small verification server (hosted on Cloudflare) to confirm the purchase and unlock the pass. That's the only thing that ID is ever used for.
• Stripe itself, as the payment processor, collects what it needs to process your payment (such as your email, for a receipt). That's governed by Stripe's own privacy policy — we don't receive or store your payment details ourselves.

We don't run analytics, we don't use tracking cookies or pixels, and we don't sell or share data with advertisers — there's no data of that kind to sell in the first place.

Permissions the extension requests, and why

• Read the current tab, only when you click the extension: to pull the vehicle details off a listing page you're already viewing.
• Storage: to save your preferences and calculation history locally, as described above.
• Alarms: used for internal timing (like the free-tier usage window) — doesn't send or receive anything.
• Access to specific listing sites (CarGurus, CarMax, AutoTrader, Cars.com), fueleconomy.gov, and vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov: the minimum needed to read listing pages and look up MPG data, as described above.

The extension does not request access to browse or read any site beyond this list.

Changes to this policy

If what the extension collects or does ever changes, this page will be updated and the extension's Chrome Web Store listing will reflect the current version.

Contact

Questions about this policy or the extension: jtshine17@gmail.com

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