How YieldFinder Works
YieldFinder is built to make cash-yield comparisons easier to audit. This page explains what we track, how products are ranked, how yields are defined, how after-tax estimates work, and where the underlying data can be checked.
What YieldFinder tracks
YieldFinder compares common cash and cash-like products:
- Savings accounts and high-yield savings accounts, using APY.
- Certificates of deposit, using APY by term.
- Money-market mutual funds and money-market ETFs, using provider-reported SEC yield.
- U.S. Treasuries, using Treasury par yields by maturity.
- After-tax yield estimates, using each product's pre-tax yield and selected federal and state tax assumptions.
These products are not identical. A savings account, CD, Treasury bill, money-market fund, and Treasury ETF can differ in liquidity, insurance, market risk, tax treatment, transfer mechanics, minimums, and account-opening requirements. YieldFinder tries to show the comparison points that matter without making different products look more interchangeable than they are.
Data collection
YieldFinder tracks public rate and yield information from provider websites, public rate pages, Treasury data, fund sponsor pages, and product disclosures. Rate tables use the latest available daily row in the database for each product.
Product rows may include APY or yield, rate date, minimum deposit, minimum balance, expense ratio, FDIC, NCUA, or SIPC context, product links, and notes when those fields are available from public source data.
Some fields are easier to standardize than others. Rate, yield, and rate-date fields are usually more consistent. Operational fields, such as ACH speed, transfer limits, wire support, buckets or vaults, joint-account support, and account-opening requirements, may be less consistently disclosed across providers.
When a field is unknown, YieldFinder should treat it as unknown rather than guess. An unknown field does not necessarily mean the feature is unavailable.
Ranking rules
Savings accounts are ranked by APY.
CDs are ranked by APY within the relevant term grouping.
Money-market mutual funds and money-market ETFs are ranked by the provider-reported SEC yield stored by YieldFinder.
Treasuries are shown by maturity and par yield.
The after-tax yield calculator ranks products by estimated after-tax yield using the user's selected balance, federal marginal rate, state, and state marginal-rate assumption.
If a product has a high headline rate with special conditions, such as a required direct deposit, recurring deposit, monthly fee, or APY balance cap, those conditions should be shown where available rather than treated as equivalent to an unconditional rate.
Yield definitions
APY, or annual percentage yield, is used for savings accounts and CDs because it includes compounding and is the standard way deposit products are advertised.
SEC yield is used for money-market funds and ETFs because it is the common standardized yield measure reported by fund sponsors. For traditional money-market funds, the reported yield is generally a 7-day SEC yield. For some ETF products, especially Treasury or ultra-short bond ETFs, the reported yield may be a 30-day SEC yield. YieldFinder stores the provider-reported yield and should preserve the provider's yield label or period where available.
Treasury par yield is used for Treasury pages because it gives comparable points along the Treasury curve by maturity.
These yield measures are not identical. YieldFinder uses the standard reported measure for each product type rather than forcing every product into one artificial yield convention.
After-tax yield estimates
The after-tax calculator starts with each product's pre-tax yield and estimates how much remains after the federal and state tax assumptions shown on the page.
after-tax yield = pre-tax yield - federal tax drag - state tax drag
annual income = balance x after-tax yield
Savings accounts and CDs are modeled as ordinary taxable interest.
Direct Treasury interest is modeled as federally taxable and state-tax exempt.
Money-market fund distributions are modeled as dividends. Treasury and government money-market funds may have a state-tax-exempt portion, but that depends on fund-specific annual tax allocation data and state rules. Municipal funds may have federal exemption, state-specific treatment, and AMT exposure depending on the fund and source data.
The after-tax calculator is a simplified marginal-rate estimate. It is not tax advice. It does not calculate a user's actual tax return, filing status, deductions, AMT liability, local taxes, or account-specific tax reporting.
Sources, review, and limitations
YieldFinder prioritizes public provider pages for product rates, Treasury source data for Treasury yields, and provider or IRS documents for tax treatment and fund tax allocations.
Rates and product terms can change without notice. Users should confirm terms on the provider's website before opening an account, buying a CD, purchasing a Treasury, or investing in a money-market fund.
Some product details may be shown only when reviewed source data is available. If a field is missing or unknown, YieldFinder should not infer it from similar products, marketing language, or assumptions about the provider.
Affiliate policy
Affiliate relationships do not change YieldFinder's ranking logic.
If YieldFinder earns compensation from a link or partner, that relationship should not affect APY, SEC yield, Treasury yield, after-tax calculations, table sorting, or inclusion of competing products. Paid relationships should be separate from the product ranking logic.
Users should assume provider terms control. YieldFinder may link to third-party products or tools, but users should confirm details directly with the provider before taking action.
Machine-readable data
Public JSON feeds are available for readers, researchers, crawlers, and tools that want to inspect cleaned YieldFinder comparison data.
These feeds expose current YieldFinder table rows, rates or yields, rate dates, and selected comparison fields. They are public reference feeds, not a guaranteed API contract.
Comparison pages
Current comparison pages are internally linked and include visible freshness dates.
Latest tracked source date: May 16, 2026.