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The thing that helped was seeing mortgage insurance drawn as its own ribbon. Every other calculator folded it into one number and I had no idea it was a quarter of what I was paying, or that it was never going to come off.
I had been told my break-even was fourteen months. Once the reset term was counted properly it was closer to four years, which changed my answer entirely. Nobody had ever put the two numbers side by side for me.
That the funding fee changes with the down payment, and again with whether it is your first use, is not obvious anywhere. Having it as its own page with the three cases laid out made it obvious in about ten seconds.
What I wanted was a comparison without its thumb on the scale. Investing the down payment on the renting side is the whole argument, and most tools just leave it out and then tell you buying wins.
The break-even was four and a half years and I already knew I was moving in three. That is a decision made in one screen instead of one meeting.
Using the full payment including taxes and insurance as debt service, rather than principal and interest, dropped my ratio by a fifth. That is the number a lender was going to use, so better to see it now.