Which ovulation calculator/calendar is best?

27 Nov Which ovulation calculator/calendar is best?

An ovulation calculator is an inexpensive way to predict when you’re fertile. If you’re having difficulty conceiving, one of these tools may just help. Try our own ovulation calculator here.

There are loads of other ovulation calculators out there. Almost all are free, but which stand out? You need reliability, but none are 100-per-cent accurate and others don’t work at all. So here’s our guide to the best ovulation calculators on the web.

The BBC ovulation calendar is well-designed, simple and easy-to-understand. Your ovulation window is based on the date of your last bleed and the length of your average cycle. So type your bleed date in the top-left-hand corner and drag the arrow to select your average cycle. Your five most fertile days then appear in diary format, with the key date flagged up as a heart (cute).

Next up, it’s the Bounty ovulation calculator. This one’s as simple as the BBC calculator but its design in based on a three-step process. You select your bleed date via a single click (this saves a few seconds). Then, in addition to the average length of your cycle, you also select the number of days in your luteal phase (the time between ovulation and your next bleed). If you know this, you may get a more accurate recommendation. If you don’t, leave it at 14 days.

The ovulation calculator and conception planner from Your IVF Journey is a nicely-designed variant on the BBC one. Your fertility windows for the next six months are displayed, making conception planning over the longer term a doddle. This calculator was designed by and for professional fertility experts, so accuracy is spot-on.

For an ovulation calculator that plans your sex life just two months in advance, try this one from NetMums. It’s a straightforward interface. Like the BBC and our calculators, menstruation date and cycle length are the only data needed. But this ovulation calendar narrows your most fertile hotspots down to three days, not five. Is that sufficient? Not sure.

Finally, there’s the ovulation caclulator from WebMD. It recognises that cycles vary in length by allowing you to input the starting dates of your three last bleeds – if you can remember them. The algorithm then works out your average cycle length and predicts when your next period might be. It may create a more accurate ovulation timeframe. But, as we said before, no ovulation calendar is foolproof.

So that’s our survey of the best online ovulation calculators. We’ve steered clear of LH urine sticks and basal-temperature kits because we’re not fans of commercial ovulation products. That said, if you have irregular cycles, monitoring your body temperature and cervical mucus may be a more accurate ovulation predictor.

For regular cycles, estimating your ovulation window is not rocket science and these ovulation calendars do their job pretty well. Once you know when in your cycle to head for the bedroom, just have sex every couple of days. Who knows, nature may just take its course.