Comparison
Worthune vs Dinkytown
Dinkytown licenses a large catalog of calculators for a one-time fee per site, which is the cheaper answer if you want many calculators on one website and nothing more. Worthune serves fewer models through an API and an embed, and ships a published specification, downloadable test cases, and an audit record with every calculation. Breadth against evidence.
Every claim below about Dinkytown carries the page it was read from and the date. Oldest check on this page: .
Worthune
Financial planning models delivered as a REST API, an MCP server, and embeddable calculators, each with a published spec and a per-run audit record.
Developers and product teams at fintech, wealthtech, banking, and AI companies.
Dinkytown
A large catalog of financial calculators licensed for use on a customer's site.
Banks, credit unions, and advisor websites.
Side by side
Sourced facts only. Where a cell says a vendor does not publish something, that means we looked at the page named in the sources below on the date shown and it was not there — not that the answer is no.
| Worthune | Dinkytown | |
|---|---|---|
| How it is delivered | REST API, MCP server, and a one-script-tag embed | Calculators licensed for hosting on the customer's own site |
| Pricing model | Subscription; three models free with attribution, no per-run metering | One-time license fee per calculator count for a single site, plus annual maintenance at 20% of the license fee |
| Entry price | Free for three models; $199/month for the full catalog | $169.95 one-time for a single calculator on one site |
| Programmatic API | Yes — REST and MCP, no key required for the three sample models | Not verified(not checked yet) |
| Published specification per calculator | Yes — three in full publicly, the rest with a subscription; every input contract public | Not verified(not checked yet) |
| Published test cases | Yes — 250 cases per model, downloadable as JSONL | Not verified(not checked yet) |
| Per-run audit record | Yes — SHA-256 over model, spec version, inputs and outputs, returned with every run | Not verified(not checked yet) |
| Free tier | Three models, no signup and no key, attribution required | Calculators are free to use on dinkytown.net; licensing is what costs |
Where Dinkytown is stronger
Breadth, and a price you can read without a sales call
Hundreds of calculators covering nearly every consumer money question, at a published one-time fee. If the job is putting a lot of calculators on one site this year, that is a straightforward answer and we do not have a catalog that size. Publishing the full price list is also more than most vendors in this category do, ours included until recently.
When Worthune is the wrong choice
If you want fifty calculators on a marketing site by Friday
We have fewer models, and we sell a subscription rather than a one-time license, so a site that just needs wide coverage and no ongoing relationship will pay us more for less. Pick us when someone is going to ask where a number came from — not when the goal is page count.
Our case
Where we think the difference actually matters
This section is our opinion rather than sourced fact, and it is marked that way on purpose — the table above is what a source URL can settle, and this is what it cannot.
The maintenance is the product
A calculator is a week to write and a decade to keep right. Limits move every January, brackets shift, and a wrong projection is the kind of bug users find before your tests do. A one-time license transfers the code; it does not transfer the job of keeping it correct.
Something to hand a reviewer
When a compliance reviewer asks what a calculator computes, a versioned written specification, 250 downloadable test cases, and the constants with their primary sources is a different conversation from a screenshot of the output.
Programmatic, not just embedded
The same models answer over REST and over MCP, so a product feature, an internal tool, and an AI assistant can all call the arithmetic rather than each reimplementing it.
A number you can prove later
Every run returns a SHA-256 record over the model, spec version, inputs, and outputs. Store it and recompute it months later; it either matches or it does not.
Questions
Common questions
- Is Dinkytown cheaper than Worthune?
- For many calculators on a single site, very likely yes — the license is a published one-time fee with annual maintenance, and ours is a monthly subscription. The comparison changes when you need an API rather than an embed, or when someone has to demonstrate that a number is correct, because those are not things a calculator license includes.
- Can I try Worthune before deciding?
- Yes, and without talking to anyone. Three models answer over the API, the MCP server, and the embed script with no signup and no key. They are the same specs and the same testing as the paid catalog, so what you evaluate is what you would buy.
- What does Worthune give me that a licensed calculator does not?
- A written specification per model stating the formulas and what is deliberately left out; the exact test cases the verification harness runs, downloadable; government constants with their primary sources and the date each was last checked; a public changelog with no silent behavior changes; and a SHA-256 record with every run.
- How many models does Worthune have?
- Fewer than a large calculator catalog, and deliberately so — every model carries a specification, an independent second implementation, and a published case set, which is not work you do 400 times. The current catalog is listed at worthune.com/models.
Sources
Every claim above, and where it came from
- Dinkytown · How it is delivered — www.dinkytown.net/money/order.html, checked
- Dinkytown · Free tier — www.dinkytown.net/, checked
- Worthune · Free tier — worthune.com/pricing, checked
- Worthune · Programmatic API — worthune.com/docs, checked
- Worthune · Per-run audit record — worthune.com/proof, checked
Product names and trademarks belong to their owners and are used here only to identify the products compared. Nothing on this page implies endorsement or affiliation. Found something out of date? Tell us at support@worthune.com and we will re-check it.