Tool · Budget range
Most budget fights aren't about the number — they're about nobody saying one. Each person enters a comfortable max and a stretch max privately. The tool finds the overlap everyone can live with, names the outlier whose ceiling the trip must respect, and recommends a budget to book against. Results stay hidden until everyone's answered, so nobody anchors to the loudest number.
Nothing here is saved. This runs entirely in your browser — no sign-in, no email, no group chat.
Add everyone's numbers above (collected one-on-one, not in the group chat). The overlap, outliers, and suggested budget stay hidden until you reveal them — so nobody anchors to the loudest answer.
How it works
Each person gives two numbers: a comfortable max (what they'd happily pay for the whole trip) and a stretch max (the absolute ceiling before it strains them).
The overlap zone is the range everyone can hit — from the lowest comfortable max up to the lowest stretch max. If those cross, the whole group fits inside one band.
The suggested budget is the lowest comfortable max: the number everyone is genuinely comfortable with, not the one the loudest person proposed.
If there's no overlap, the trip has to be designed around the lowest stretch max — or anyone above it opts out of the expensive things cleanly, with no guilt attached.
When to use it
The moment a destination is named and someone asks 'what's everyone's budget?' in the group chat — before the first person answers and anchors everyone.
When the group spans real income differences and one number would quietly strain someone.
Before the deposit, when you need a defensible per-person number to ask people to commit to.
When a previous trip ended in quiet resentment about money and the group wants to name the number up front this time.
Common mistakes
Letting the first person who answers set the ceiling. Everyone else then either agrees to strain themselves or stays quiet. Collect privately first.
Only asking for one number. A comfortable max and a stretch max are different — the gap between them is the room the group actually has.
Treating the outlier as the problem. The outlier's stretch max is the real ceiling; designing the trip to it is the kind move, not the constraint.
Revealing numbers one at a time. People anchor to whatever they heard last; reveal the full picture at once.
Related guides
Settled the math? Now find the frictions that run the rest of the trip.
A calculator fixes one fight. The Trip Test surfaces the budget, pace, drinking, and togetherness mismatches that quietly run a shared house — so you plan around them before the deposit.
No account needed — for you or your group.