VetCalc was founded by Henry and Skyla, a married Air National Guard couple. Henry, a Senior NCO with 14 years of military service (active-duty Air Force 2012-2016, Air National Guard 2016-present), builds and maintains the calculators; Skyla co-owns the site. They built VetCalc to put military pay and VA benefit math directly in front of the service members and families who need it. The site has no outside team, no investors, and no board.

How accurate are VetCalc's calculators?

All VetCalc calculations use official published rates from DFAS (Defense Finance and Accounting Service), VA.gov, and the DoD Travel Management Office. Sources are linked on every calculator page. Rates are updated within days of official publication, and an automated drift-detection script verifies that no stale figures are visible anywhere on the site before each deploy.

Is VetCalc really free?

Yes. VetCalc is 100% free with no email capture, no paywalls, and no selling of leads to VA law firms or disability claims companies. The site exists to help service members and veterans understand benefits they have already earned.

Henry and Skyla — VetCalc co-founders, both serving in the Air National Guard

About VetCalc — Henry & Skyla

Air National Guard · co-founders, both still serving

Henry (Senior NCO, 14 years in uniform) and Skyla — co-founders, both Air National Guard. We built VetCalc together.

Built by a military couple to help service members, veterans, and military families understand the pay, benefits, and decisions they navigate every day.

Henry

Senior NCO

Air National Guard · 14 yrs

Skyla

Co-Founder

Air National Guard

Background

Active-Duty USAF

Henry, 2012 – 2016

Site

Free Forever

No email capture

Why We Built VetCalc

We're Henry and Skyla — a married couple, both still serving in the Air National Guard, and the two people behind VetCalc. We built it together and we own it together: Henry writes and maintains the calculators and the math, and Skyla co-owns the business and helps steer where it goes. The personal story below is told in Henry's voice, since he's the one who has spent years doing the explaining.

I am a senior NCO in the Air National Guard. I have spent the last decade-plus explaining military pay, BAH, BAS, the GI Bill, and VA benefits to service members, prospective recruits, and the families who depend on them. I have drawn the math out on whiteboards, pulled up DFAS pay tables on my laptop, and walked people through scenarios that change the trajectory of their families.

What I kept running into is that the official numbers are buried in PDFs nobody reads, BAH varies by ZIP code in a way nobody explains clearly, and the VA combined rating formula is intentionally counterintuitive. The calculators that did exist online were either out of date, built to capture emails for a law firm, or charging for what should be free.

VetCalc started as the tools I wished I could hand to a service member's family on the spot. Then I figured every veteran navigating a VA claim, every spouse weighing a PCS, and every retiree planning a pension probably needed the same thing. So here it is.

I enlisted in the Air Force in 2012, served on active duty through 2016, and then transitioned to the Air National Guard, where I still serve today — fourteen years in uniform. Every formula on this site is one I have used on my own pay and walked others through in person.

Why Trust These Numbers

I am still in. I get paid using these tables. I file the same vouchers, watch the same BAS line item on my LES, and care about the same retirement projections you do. When DFAS or the VA publishes new figures, I usually see them on my own pay stub before I push them to the site.

That said, “I'm in the military” is not a substitute for verification. So VetCalc has guardrails:

Single source of truth — Every public-facing rate comes from a tracked JSON file backed by official DFAS/VA/DoD sources. Sources are linked on every calculator page.
Automated drift detection — A script scans every page on the site before each deploy and fails the build if a stale figure is detected. No exceptions.
Smoke tests in CI — The audit-critical paths (BAH search, 70%+50% VA Math, BAS rate by branch) are tested on every change. If accuracy breaks, deploy is blocked.
Public methodology — Read our full methodology for exactly which sources, formulas, citations, and update schedules are used.

What VetCalc Covers

Military Pay Calculator — Total monthly compensation: Base Pay + BAH (338 locations) + BAS, with 2026 rates.
Military Pay After Taxes — Net take-home with federal/state withholding, FICA, TSP, and SGLI deductions.
VA Disability Rating Calculator — Combine multiple ratings using the official 38 CFR § 4.25 formula with a step-by-step breakdown.
Military Retirement Calculator — Compare Final Pay, High-36, REDUX/CSB, and BRS with 30-year projections and TSP growth.
VA Disability + Retirement Calculator — Concurrent receipt (CRDP) rules applied correctly so you see the real combined number.
GI Bill Benefits Calculator — Post-9/11 or Montgomery, with MHA by school location and the 2026-2027 tuition cap baked in.
Special Monthly Compensation, TDIU, VA Pension, and many more — the long-tail benefits people forget exist.

Why It Is Free, And Always Will Be

VetCalc is ours. My wife Skyla and I founded it and own it together — no outside team, no investors, no board. I write and maintain the code and the math; Skyla co-owns the business and helps steer where it goes. Just the two of us, late nights after our daughter goes to bed, and a lot of coffee.

We made everything free because Henry knows what it is like to be a junior airman trying to figure out whether a duty station is affordable for your family, and the answer is buried in a 200-page PDF. The tools that did exist back then were either ancient or trying to upsell something nobody needed. Service members deserve better than that.

The People Behind VetCalc

VetCalc exists because Skyla and I built it together. She co-owns the business, keeps us grounded, and carves out the space to keep building every single day — none of this happens without her. And our daughter is the reason we stop, rethink, and come back better. They are the reason this site exists at all.

Use These Tools, But Verify

VetCalc is not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, or any government agency. The calculators provide estimates only. Official ratings, compensation amounts, and benefit determinations are made solely by the VA, DFAS, or your service finance office. For anything load-bearing — a claim, a retirement decision, a disability appeal — talk to a VA-accredited representative, a financial counselor at your installation, or your unit's finance office.

We want VetCalc to be the first stop, not the last word.

— Henry