How every number on this site is made.

METHODOLOGY & SOURCES · DATA VINTAGE 2026-07 · VERIFIED 2026-08-31

The one-sentence version: everything is an editorial estimate, computed in your browser from class-level anchors compiled from the public record. Never a live quote, never data about you.

1. Estimate policy

Every figure this site computes is labeled EST and shown as a range, not a point. Private aviation prices genuinely vary this much; a single number would be a lie of precision.
A figure somebody else published is not an estimate, and is not labeled as one. Where we print a number that a named organisation published, such as the jet card category averages, it appears without the EST chip and with its source instead. The chip means "we modeled this". The absence of it means "they published this, and here is where".
Anchors are reviewed quarterly and published as a dated edition of the cost index, so the review is a document you can check rather than a claim you have to trust.
Vintage and verification are two different dates, and both are printed in the footer of every page. Vintage is when the underlying data was published; verified is when we last re-read every source. If the vintage is more than two quarters old, distrust the site and tell us.
No anchor without a source. Every figure below traces to a named source with the date we read it, listed in section 8. A figure that cannot be re-read at refresh time is dropped rather than aged.
No figure is ever adjusted because of a commercial relationship. Referral introductions (see disclosure) have no write access to this page, and our partner standard says so before any partner exists.

2. Charter

annual_charter = hours × class_base_rate × 1.18 class_base_rate: spot-market $/hr range (pre-tax), compiled from published 2026 market guides (sources §7). 1.18 models US FET (7.5%), segment fees and common surcharges.

Trip-level estimates in the Route Estimator additionally use: great-circle distance × 1.06 routing factor; block time = distance ÷ high-speed cruise + 0.42 h (taxi, climb, descent); a 2.0-hour billing minimum; +0.75 h where a fuel stop is required (distance beyond ~95% of the class exemplar's range); international trips use a 1.12 tax/fee factor instead of 1.18 because FET does not apply.

3. Jet cards

annual_card = hours × class_card_rate × [0.93 … 1.07] class_card_rate: Q2 2026 category averages from the Private Jet Card Comparisons quarterly rate report (turboprop $6,271 / VLJ $7,688 / light $8,456 / midsize $9,557 / super-mid $12,526 / large $15,236 / ULR $19,202 per hour, all-in).

Those averages include base rate, fuel surcharges and 7.5% federal excise tax, which is why they are not directly comparable with the pre-tax charter rate cards sellers publish. The quarter-on-quarter movement in each category is tabulated in the current index edition.

We do not model the opportunity cost of the prepaid deposit, peak-day surcharges, or CPI escalators, all of which make cards more expensive than shown. Treat our card figures as a favorable floor.

4. Fractional shares

units = hours ÷ 50, floor 1 # 1/16 share = 50 hrs/yr, # sized PRO-RATA to your hours annual_frac = mgmt_fee × 12 × units + occupied_rate × hours + share_price × units × 0.13 0.13 = capital carrying: ~10%/yr straight-line depreciation toward a typical 5-year residual + 3% foregone return on the outlay.

Share capital is sized pro-rata to your hours rather than rounded up to the next whole sixteenth: programs sell shares in 1/16 steps and bridge intermediate needs with larger or smaller shares and supplemental hours, so charging a 60-hour flyer for a full 100-hour entitlement would overstate the pathway. Share prices, management fees, and occupied rates are modeled from provider disclosures and industry reporting (sources §8); programs differ meaningfully, so treat the output as the shape of the deal, not any provider's sticker.

The exit. Entry cost is modeled everywhere in this industry and exit cost almost nowhere, so we model it too:

committed = share_price × units residual_5yr = committed × 0.50 # ~10%/yr straight line returned = residual_5yr × [0.90 … 0.95] # less 5-10% remarketing fee

The gap between committed and returned is the real cost of the capital over five years, and it appears in no hourly rate. The remarketing fee band reflects what these contracts commonly charge on exit; the valuation method that sets fair market value is contract-specific, which is why the fine print decoder tells you to ask who determines it before signing.

5. Whole ownership

annual_own = fixed_costs # ±10% band + hours × variable_rate # fuel, mx, engine programs + acquisition × [0.09 … 0.13] # depreciation + opportunity fixed_costs split (Ownership Desk): crew 49% · hangar 14% · insurance 9% · management 12% · subscriptions/misc 16%

The capital line is the one most owners under-model. Business jets typically shed 5–10% of value per year; on large-cabin aircraft depreciation exceeds every operating line item. We use 9–13% total carrying (depreciation + opportunity cost) on the acquisition price.

6. Mission Matcher ranking

The Matcher ranks by fit first, cost second, because that is how the decision actually works: cheapest almost never means best-suited in this market, and a tool that pretended otherwise would recommend spot charter to everyone forever. Fit is a published, deterministic score; annual cost is always displayed for every pathway and breaks ties.

usage-band fit (hrs/yr): +2 inside core, +1 in shoulder, 0 outside charter core 0–50 shoulder 51–100 jet card core 25–100 shoulders 15–24, 101–150 fractional core 50–300 shoulders 30–49, 301–350 ownership core 250+ shoulder 150–249 profile toggles (each ±1, each shown as a reason or caution): fixed schedule → card +1, fractional +1, charter −1 flexible schedule → charter +1 frequent peak → fractional +1, card −1 preserve capital → charter +1, fractional −1, ownership −1 rank = viability, then fit, then lower mid-range annual cost

These are the same usage bands published on the front page and in our answers to the questions people search; the Matcher applies them as rules rather than leaving them as prose. Viability gates stand: below 15 hrs/yr, ownership and fractional are marked non-viable; below ~200 hrs/yr ownership carries a flight-department caution; above 350 hrs/yr, share-capital-stacking cautions appear. The charter figure always carries the reminder that it models flying hours only, before positioning.

There is no hidden scoring, no machine learning, and no per-user tuning. Every point in the fit score corresponds to a visible reason or caution, and two people with the same inputs see the same answer.

7. The Quote Audit

The Quote Audit introduces no new model. It runs the mission through the same equations as the Route Estimator in section 2, multiplies by two for a round trip, and compares your quoted total against the resulting band:

band = route model (§2), × 2 legs if round trip peak dates = band × [1.20 … 1.40] # the +20 to +40% this site # publishes for peak periods verdict = below band | inside band (lower/middle/upper third) | above band, with distance from the nearer edge

The verdict is a position, not a judgement. A quote can sit outside the band for entirely legitimate reasons: short notice, a specific tail number, an unusually new aircraft, one-way positioning, international handling. The tool says so, and it never describes a quote as good or bad. The list of unanswered questions it produces is generated from the boxes you leave unticked, and four of those questions are disclosures a US charter broker owes you under federal rule rather than as a courtesy.

A quote more than 25% below the bottom of the band additionally surfaces a caution, because that pattern has three common explanations and one of them is a flight being sold without the certificate that makes selling it legal. Ruling it out is free: see operator verification.

8. Sources

Every source below was fetched and read on the date shown. Sources are labeled by what they are, because a regulator, a maintained database and a company publishing its own prices are three different kinds of evidence.

Aircraft specifications (range, speed, cabin dimensions) are manufacturer-published figures rounded for readability; typical charter configurations may differ from certified maximums. Fractional share prices, management fees and occupied rates are modeled from provider disclosures and industry reporting; ownership fixed and variable splits come from published operating-cost references.

The full seller rate-card comparison, with each source's own category labels and the spread between them, is published quarterly in the cost index.

9. What we deliberately don't do

No live quoting. We are not a booking system and won't pretend to be one.
No fabricated listings. The empty-legs section explains the market instead of faking inventory.
No personalization. Nothing you enter leaves your browser unless you email an RFP yourself.
No operator database. Certificate status changes, and a quarterly site asserting who is certificated would eventually be wrong about a safety question. We send you to the primary record instead.

QUESTIONS OR CORRECTIONS → hello@plainforge.com · WE PUBLISH FIXES, NOT EXCUSES