HOW WE CALCULATE
How the comparisons work
Here's how we compare costs, keep them up to date and protect the people who share them.
How do you compare different bills?
We turn weekly, quarterly and annual bills into monthly amounts when you submit them. Your costs always keep the currency you paid in. We only combine contributions in the same currency and show cities using other currencies separately. One official figure is converted for display: average spending, published in US dollars, uses the World Bank's exchange rate for the same year. You'll see the year beside it. Base and total rent, different energy types, and estimated payments and final bills each get separate comparisons.
When can I see a local comparison?
Every figure, price range and breakdown needs recent, comparable contributions from at least five different people. All of those contributions must be approved first. This helps keep individual households from being identified.
Who checks the contributions?
A person reviews each new or edited contribution and decides whether to publish it. Until then, it doesn't affect any public figure.
How long does a submission stay current?
Rent contributions count for twelve months after payment; energy contributions for six. Older costs automatically leave the public comparisons.
Do you check bills or receipts?
We check whether contributions look plausible, but we don't collect bills or receipts. That's why reviewed contributions are still marked as unverified.
Who owns the map boundaries?
Country and regional outlines come from Natural Earth, which is public domain, and from geoBoundaries, where each area keeps the licence its own source reported. City districts come from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, published under the Open Database License. That licence is share-alike, so the boundary data DimeTrace publishes in turn — the outlines this site downloads to draw the map — is available under the Open Database License, and you may reuse it on those terms. It covers the outlines only. The amounts people contribute and the statistics computed from them are not part of that data.