Guides for decisions most people make once
ApplyTheGuide makes short, heavily researched guides for the decisions people tend to meet without a map. Each guide line covers one kind of decision, for one kind of reader, where they live, and ends with what to do next.
Every guide is built from checked sources, prepared for you and your ZIP code, and comes with a companion document your own AI can read, so the decision can be yours.
Pull a guide off the shelf, or use the arrow keys.
Why buy a guide
A search box is free and a chat window is patient, so a guide has to earn its place. Here is what sets one apart, biggest differences first. Each statement is true today or is a standing practice we hold ourselves to.
Made for humans, built for AI. Hyperlegible type, print-friendly layouts and plain language for the person reading, with WCAG 2.2 AA as the accessibility target. The same guide ships as a companion document structured for a model to read, so one piece of research serves both of you.
A search engine hands your AI the whole internet and lets it guess. We hand it one compact, structured document: the checked facts, your local specifics and the order a planner needs them in, arranged the way a model reads best. Better decisions come from better input, not more of it.
Our research tools connect straight to the systems where the facts live, through direct database access and Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools: state licensing registers, federal inspection data, Census geography. Some of these turn automated visitors away or never surface in a search result, so a chat window alone cannot check them. We can, and we do.
We are paid by the reader, not by anyone we write about. No commissions, no referral fees, no steering toward a place that pays. If anyone ever pays to be listed, they pay a flat, disclosed fee, never a commission, and the reader sees it.
Nothing in a guide is generic. It is prepared for one reader and one ZIP code on the day it is requested, with the providers, programs and prices that apply there, and the parts that matter most to your situation moved to the front.
Every guide starts with regulations, government data and published research, and cites them. Drafts are produced with several AI models and set against each other; where they disagree, a person settles it against the source. A claim that cannot be substantiated is cut, not softened.
If a reader finds an error that is ours, they receive a corrected copy at no charge. Reader reports are how the guides get better.
No login, no app, no subscription. A guide is a file you own: print it, hand it to the family member who just wants to understand the options, keep it in the folder with the paperwork. It works this year and next, in any tool you choose.
The guides
Most of these decisions arrive once, with no practice run. Each guide line takes one of them and does the reading ahead of time, so the facts are checked and waiting before the day you need them. Care is open now and Homes is in research; the rest are planned, and a line is published only when it meets the process above. Flip a card to see the questions it answers.
Long-term care explained for the people choosing it: in-home help, assisted living, memory care, nursing homes and hospice, with what to check where you live.
Buying, selling or renting a home when you have never done it: what the paperwork means, who pays whom, and what to check before you sign.
Buying, financing and keeping a car: what the numbers on the sheet mean, which add-ons to decline, and what a fair deal looks like in your area.
Choosing a school for a child, from kindergarten through high school: public, charter, private or home, what each really costs, and how to compare them where you live.
Choosing and paying for college or a trade program, for a student or for yourself: what the award letter means, what the degree is likely to return, and which deadlines decide it.
Finding child care you can trust: how a daycare center, a family home and a preschool differ, what a license does and does not promise, and what to check before the first drop-off.
Know a decision that deserves a guide line? Say so in the contact form under Feedback. Lines are chosen by how often people face the decision unprepared and how much good research changes the outcome.
What makes a guide ours
A search result is the same for everyone. A guide from us is prepared for one person, one place and one situation, then packaged so the assistant you already use can read it as well as you can. Nothing to install and no new account to make.
A guide is prepared for you on the day you request it and arranged for your situation: planning ahead for yourself, or choosing for someone you love, on a timeline you set. What matters most to you comes first, every time.
Rules, prices and providers change at the state line and again a few miles down the road. A Local Guide is built for your ZIP code and the area just around it, so the names, numbers and next steps are the ones you will use.
Every guide comes with a companion document written for a model to read. Drop it into whatever assistant you already use, free or paid, and ask about your own situation. The research is done, so your AI does not have to do it.
Researching a decision like this with an AI from scratch means long sessions, many searches, and answers only as good as whatever the model happened to find. The companion document changes the job: it carries the checked facts, the local specifics and the structure of your guide in a form a model reads efficiently.
Example conversation. Your assistant's wording will differ; the facts it draws on come from the guide.
Privacy policy
This page is short on purpose, because the site does very little with your information.
If you write to us, we receive the name, email address and message you enter. They go to our mailbox, are used only to reply to you, and are kept as long as the conversation needs them. Nothing from the form is added to a mailing list.
The form is protected by Cloudflare Turnstile, which tells automated senders from people without a puzzle. Turnstile runs only on this form and does not track you across sites.
This site sets no cookies. We count visits with cookieless, aggregate analytics that record which pages are viewed, not who viewed them. No advertising or tracking scripts run here.
We do not sell or trade information about you. The only parties that handle it are the services that host this site, run the human check and deliver our email, and only to do those jobs.
Each guide line, such as care.applytheguide.com, has its own privacy policy covering requests, orders and downloads on that site. This policy covers applytheguide.com only.
To see, correct or delete anything we hold about you, use the contact form, choose the topic "Other" and say it is a privacy request. We answer every request ourselves.
Contact
A question, feedback, a problem with an order, a Community Edition or another business proposal, or an idea for a guide line. We answer by email, usually within a few days.