I built RateCompas because loan offers are designed to be confusing — and I got tired of doing the math by hand every time I shopped for one.
My name is Ryan Patella. I'm a software engineer based in Chicago, with more than a decade of experience building and integrating technical platforms for enterprise SaaS companies. My day job is the intersection of engineering and client strategy — translating technical systems into outcomes that non-technical people can actually use.
That's the same problem I'm trying to solve with RateCompas. Lenders have systems; borrowers have confusion. I'm not a loan officer or a financial advisor. I'm an engineer who builds tools.
Every time I've shopped for a loan — car, personal, mortgage, refinance — I ran into the same problem. The math is straightforward. The presentation is not.
APRs get quoted without origination fees factored in. Amortization schedules get hidden behind "monthly payment" summaries. Term extensions get sold as "lower payments" without mentioning the thousands in extra interest. Lenders disclose everything they're legally required to — and almost nothing in a form a normal person can actually use to compare two offers side by side.
Every online loan calculator I tried was either a thinly veiled application funnel, a marketing tool for a specific lender, or a bare-bones payment estimator that didn't tell you anything useful about whether a loan was a good deal for your credit profile.
So I built what I wanted. Enter a loan. See what it really costs, broken down into principal, interest, and fees. Get an analysis that tells you if the rate is fair for your credit tier, what the red flags are, and what a better offer would look like. No account, no email capture, no dark patterns.
The tool is free because it should be. I pay for hosting and API costs myself. When a reader clicks through to a lender and qualifies for a loan, the lender may pay a commission — that's how the site keeps the lights on. But the math in the calculator never changes based on who's paying, because the math is the math.
Every calculator on RateCompas uses the standard amortization formulas that lenders, loan officers, and financial software have used for decades. There's no proprietary algorithm. The numbers you see are derived entirely from the numbers you enter, using the same math a printed amortization table uses.
For mortgages, I pull live 30-year fixed-rate averages from Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey. For APR ranges by credit tier, I use published ranges from major lenders, updated as market rates shift. The full methodology for each calculator is documented on the methodology page.
When you run a calculation, the tool sends your loan inputs to a large language model (specifically Anthropic's Claude) along with the computed results. The model returns an analysis that reads your specific numbers and tells you what stands out — an APR that's high for your credit tier, origination fees that outweigh a rate improvement, a term that stretches the loan farther than it should.
The AI doesn't see your personal information. It doesn't know who you are. It's analyzing the math of the loan you entered, not making recommendations about your financial life. Think of it as the second opinion you'd get from a friend who works in finance — helpful context, not professional advice. For the full technical detail on how the calculators compute their numbers, where rate data comes from, and what the AI is and isn't doing, see the methodology page.
Lender matches are generated based on the credit tier you select. The criteria are: (1) does the lender serve borrowers in your credit range, (2) are their advertised rates competitive for that range, and (3) do they offer terms appropriate to the loan you're analyzing. Affiliate compensation doesn't factor into the ranking. A lender that pays more doesn't move up; a lender that pays less doesn't move down.
When a lender match includes an affiliate link, it's disclosed on the page and in the site-wide advertiser disclosure.
Not a lender. RateCompas doesn't originate loans, fund loans, or have access to your credit report. The site is a calculator and analysis tool.
Not financial advice. The AI analysis and lender recommendations are educational. They're based on the numbers you enter and published market data — not your full financial picture. Before signing any loan, verify the terms directly with the lender. For larger decisions, talk to a licensed financial advisor who knows your specific situation.
Not affiliated with any single lender. RateCompas is an independent site. I have no equity in, employment with, or advisory relationship with any lender mentioned on the site. Affiliate relationships, where they exist, are disclosed.
Questions, corrections, feedback, or tool requests — all welcome. The best way to reach me is contact@ratecompas.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn.
If you've spotted a calculation error, an outdated rate range, or a lender recommendation that seems off, I want to hear about it. The site gets better when people point things out.