How We Calculate the Value Score
Value Score is a single 0–100 number answering one question: is the price actually good for what you get? It's different from the Confidence Score you see on product pages, which only measures how trustworthy the star rating is — Value Score is about the price.
What goes into it
- Half comes from the Confidence Score — the rating, adjusted so a lone 5.0 from a handful of buyers can't outrank a 4.6 from thousands.
- Half comes from price percentile — where the product sits in its own category's price range. Cheaper within the category scores higher; nothing is compared across unrelated categories.
- +8 points if it's the verified cheapest real cost-per-unit in its group (only shown where we've confirmed the actual pack size ourselves — see How We Test).
- Up to +12 points if it has a real, recorded price drop in its price history — never a guessed "was" price.
What it isn't
A product needs at least 10 real ratings before it gets a Value Score at all — same bar we use before showing a star rating anywhere else on the site. It has nothing to do with commission: we don't earn more from a high-scoring product than a low-scoring one, and the formula above is the whole formula, not a simplified version of something more opaque.