How We Rank

The short version

PKGPilot scores products against your situation rather than ranking them in the abstract. A product that is excellent for a 200-person agency can be the wrong answer for a solo detailer, and the score reflects that.

We earn a commission on some of the products we recommend. That relationship is one small input to the score — never the deciding one — and products we have no commercial relationship with are recommended on the same terms.

The scoring model

Each product is scored on six components, weighted as follows:

• Use-case and product fit — 40%. How well the product matches your industry, business size, stage, and stated goals.
• Value — 20%. What you get relative to what it costs at your usage level, including free plans and trials.
• Reputation — 15%. Track record, longevity, support quality, and stability of the vendor.
• Feature coverage — 10%. Whether the capabilities you said you need are actually present.
• Performance for PKGPilot users — 10%. How the product performs for people we have recommended it to.
• Affiliate economics — 5%. Commission terms, where a relationship exists.

Component scores are stored with every recommendation, so the reasoning behind a result can be inspected rather than taken on trust.

What affiliate economics can and cannot do

At 5% of the total, affiliate economics can act as a tiebreaker between two products that are otherwise close. It cannot move a poorly fitting product above a well-fitting one.

In practice this means our results regularly include products that pay us nothing. If a free tool is the right answer, the right answer is the free tool.

What we will not do

• Publish invented reviews, testimonials, ratings, or user counts.
• State pricing we have not verified against the vendor's own published rates.
• Present a sponsored placement as an editorial recommendation.
• Recommend a second tool that duplicates something you already pay for, unless we are explicitly proposing a replacement.
• Claim savings calculated from prices we guessed.

Labels you will see

Editorial recommendation

Selected by the scoring model. May or may not involve a commercial relationship.

Affiliate relationship

We earn a commission if you sign up. Disclosed on the recommendation itself.

Partner

A direct commercial relationship with the vendor beyond a standard affiliate program.

Sponsored placement

Paid position. Always labeled as such and never mixed into scored results without a label.

Corrections

If a product fact on this site is wrong or out of date — pricing, features, availability — tell us at our contact page and we will correct it. Product records carry a last-reviewed date so you can see how fresh the information is.

Changes to this model

The weights above are the current defaults. If we change them materially, we will update this page and the date at the top of it.