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Methodology

Every counter on this site is built the same way, from one annual figure and one division. This page sets out that calculation, what the annual figure is for each kind of page, the rules a figure has to pass before a page is published for search, and — at the bottom — the source behind every such page, with the date an editor last read it.

The calculation

The per-second rate is the annual figure divided by 31,536,000, the number of seconds in a 365-day year (365 × 24 × 60 × 60). Leap years are not treated separately: in a 366-day year the true rate is about 0.27% lower than the one shown, which is well inside the rounding of any figure used here.

The large number on each page is that rate multiplied by the seconds elapsed since midnight on 1 January in your own time zone, so two visitors in different countries see slightly different totals at the same moment. The smaller counter starts at zero when you open the page. Neither tracks money as it moves: both spread one annual total evenly across the year.

What the annual figure is

For companies it is total revenue for the most recent reported fiscal year, taken from the income statement in the annual report, Form 10-K or full-year results release — revenue, not profit, cash flow or market value. Fiscal years do not all end in December, so NVIDIA's twelve months are not Apple's. For government pages it is the budget line or SIPRI's calendar-year estimate that the page names; for the United States that is the amount authorised by the enacted National Defense Authorization Act, which is not the same as what is appropriated or spent.

For people it is a published estimate of pre-tax earnings for a stated twelve-month window, currently Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes: salary, prize money, endorsements and business income, before taxes and agent fees. Wealth, which rises and falls with share prices, is a different quantity and is not used as earnings. Global pages use named statistical series, such as the World Bank's world GDP in current US dollars.

Reported figures and estimates

Each source is recorded as either reported — a number the subject itself publishes in its accounts or an enacted law — or estimated, where a third party such as Forbes or SIPRI builds the figure from partial information. Company revenue is reported; athlete earnings and most military spending totals are estimates.

Estimates are allowed, but they are never presented as fact. A page that relies on one says so in its description and in the source line under the counter, and names the publication, the edition and the period, so a reader can open the same document and check the number.

Currencies

Figures are stored in US dollars. Where a source reports in another currency — LVMH in euro, Samsung in Korean won, the EU budget in euro — the page converts it at a stated rate on a stated date and says so in its methodology, and the check below compares the figure against the source in the source's own currency.

The currency switch (USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, PLN, UAH) converts the dollar figure for display using daily reference rates from an open exchange-rate feed, refreshed at most every six hours. If the feed is unavailable the site falls back to fixed rates, so a converted amount is a guide rather than a quote.

How figures are checked

Every page that is published for search carries a source record: the publisher, the specific document and edition, the figure exactly as printed, the period it covers, a link to the document, whether it is reported or estimated, and the date an editor opened it. The site's build runs a check against those records and refuses to publish if any page is missing one.

The same check fails the build if the page's figure differs from its source by more than 1%, if the text quotes a different number from the one the counter uses, if an estimate is not labelled as one, or if the source was last read more than 180 days ago. A figure therefore cannot quietly go stale: it has to be re-read and re-dated, or the site will not deploy.

Pages without a checkable source

Some counters have no current figure that can be cited to a specific document. Forbes stopped publishing its Celebrity 100 after the 2020 edition, so there is no current list for most entertainers; the billionaire pages show a change in wealth rather than earnings; and several global totals have no single named annual source.

Those pages stay on the site because people look for them, but they are kept out of search results and carry no advertising until a source is found. They are not listed below. When one gets a source that passes the checks above, it is added to this list and to the sitemap.

Corrections

Figures change: companies restate results, budgets are amended and estimates are revised. When a figure is corrected, the page's text is rewritten to match the new number rather than only the counter, and its update date changes. Several pages on this site carry a note of what they previously showed and why it was wrong.

If you find a figure that does not match its source, send the page and a link to the document through the contact page. It will be checked against that document and corrected if it holds up.

Sources behind every indexed page

35 pages are currently published for search. Each links to the document its figure comes from.

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