Privacy policy

Last updated: May 26, 2026

The short version

marginvsmarkup.com is a free site supported by advertising. To run advertising and understand site usage, we use three third-party services: Google Analytics, Google Ads, and Adsterra Ads. We do not collect your name, email, payment info, or any calculator values you enter. Calculator inputs stay on your device.

What we collect directly

We collect nothing on our own servers. The site is statically hosted, has no user accounts, and no contact forms. The values you type into the calculator are processed entirely in your browser and never transmitted to us.

Your preferences (currency, decimal places, comparison product list, break-even inputs, dark/light theme) are stored in your browser's localStorage — that's on your device, not on our server. Clear your browser data and it's gone.

What third-party services collect

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand aggregate site usage — which pages are popular, how people arrived, what device and browser they're using, and roughly where in the world they are. Google Analytics uses cookies and may collect:

• Pages you visit on this site and time spent on each
• Referrer (where you came from)
• Device type, browser, operating system, screen resolution
• Approximate location (city / country level, derived from IP)
• Anonymized IP address (Google truncates IPs)

We never see individual users' personally identifiable information through Google Analytics. We see aggregate reports. Google's own privacy policy covers their handling of this data: policies.google.com/privacy.

Google Ads

We use Google Ads, which may display ads on this site and may also use cookies to:

• Show you ads relevant to your interests (interest-based advertising)
• Measure ad performance for advertisers
• Show you marginvsmarkup.com ads on other sites (remarketing)

You can opt out of personalized advertising by Google at adssettings.google.com or industry-wide at aboutads.info/choices (US) and youronlinechoices.eu (EU).

Adsterra Ads

Adsterra is a second ad network we use for display advertising. Adsterra and its partner advertisers may set cookies and use similar tracking technologies for:

• Ad delivery and frequency capping
• Click and conversion measurement
• Anti-fraud and bot detection

Adsterra's privacy policy: adsterra.com/privacy-policy.

Cookies and your choice

The cookies on this site come from the three services above. We do not set any first-party tracking cookies.

If you're visiting from the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, a consent banner appears on your first visit asking whether you want to allow analytics and advertising cookies. Until you choose, Google Consent Mode v2 prevents these services from setting cookies or sending identifiable data. Your choice is remembered for 365 days; you can change it any time using the Cookie settings link in the footer.

Outside the EEA, advertising and analytics are enabled by default (CCPA-compliant via the same Cookie settings link and our honoring of the browser-level Global Privacy Control signal). To opt out, click Cookie settings and choose Reject all, or enable GPC in your browser.

You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings; the calculator will still work, but ad personalization and analytics measurement will be reduced or disabled.

Your rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you have rights regarding personal data:

• GDPR (EU/EEA/UK): right to access, rectify, erase, restrict, or object to processing of your personal data. Contact contactus@marginvsmarkup.com for requests.
• CCPA (California): right to know what's collected, right to delete, right to opt out of "sale" of personal information. We do not sell data; opt out of personalized advertising via the Cookie settings link in the footer or the opt-out links in the Google Ads and Adsterra sections above.
• Global Privacy Control (GPC): we honor the GPC browser signal. If your browser sends GPC, we treat that as an automatic Reject All — no banner shown, no analytics or ads loaded.

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our tools or third-party services change. Material changes will be reflected in the "Last updated" date above.

Contact

Privacy questions or requests: contactus@marginvsmarkup.com.