WrenchStack Fit Score™ Methodology

What the WrenchStack Fit Score™ measures

Every field-service software platform in our directory carries a WrenchStack Fit Score™ on a 0-10 scale, calculated from three weighted factors. On each trade page, platforms are ordered by their fit for that trade first and by Fit Score second. The same formula applies to every platform, regardless of affiliate relationship or commercial alignment.

The WrenchStack Fit Score™ formula

The final score is the weighted sum, rounded to one decimal place. Vendors scoring 9.0+ get a dark-green badge; 8.0-8.9 light green; 7.0-7.9 orange; 6.0-6.9 light orange; below 6 gray.

Our evaluation timeline

Each vendor evaluation follows the same steps, in this order. How long it takes depends on what the vendor publishes and how readable its site is.

1. Discovery: vendor identified through editorial research or vendor self-submission. Initial fit assessment against category definition.
2. Data collection: pricing tiers verified directly from vendor pricing page with date stamp; feature and integration lists compiled from vendor documentation and product pages.
3. Reputation check: regulator actions (FTC, CFPB, SEC, state attorneys general), court records, BBB profiles and the vendor's own terms. We do not use forum or social-media sentiment, and a warning we cannot trace to a readable source is removed.
4. Scoring: for field-service software, the WrenchStack Fit Score™ is computed using published weights; reputation_flag attached if structural concerns warrant warning to readers.
5. Editorial draft: review written with structured pros and cons, FAQs and best-fit framing.
6. Publication: review goes live with verified_date stamp. Vendor profile becomes part of the directory.
7. Refresh: pricing re-verified and reputation warnings re-checked against their sources; each US entry shows the date of its latest check.

Two checks before a new listing

For products we evaluate from 6 October 2026, both checks below must pass before we list the product. A product that does not pass both is held, not listed. Listings published before that date were decided under our earlier rule, which still applies: having no independent reviews is shown as a con on the listing, not a reason to hold it. The first check asks for a sign of use, not for reviews.

• Sign of use. Someone outside the vendor uses the product. That means a trade business that is not owned by or connected to the vendor, named to us, that confirms in writing from its own business email address or domain that it uses the product. A public review that names the business that wrote it also counts. An app-store install count or a number of ratings does not count on its own, because it cannot be tied to any outside business.
• Who runs the product. The vendor's terms give the operator's full legal name, its legal form (such as LLC or Inc.) and the law that governs the terms, and a public company register shows exactly one active registration that matches. The terms do not have to state where the company was formed when the register shows it. A person trading under their own name also passes this check.

Our independence statement

We list vendors we have no affiliate arrangement with on the same terms as everyone else (Acuity Insurance, Erie Insurance and Google Local Services Ads, for example), and a reputation warning goes on a vendor whatever our commercial relationship with it. This is the editorial position the methodology requires.

What "verified" means here

On WrenchStack, verified means the claim was checked against a named primary source on a named date. For pricing, that source is the vendor's own pricing page; the date is recorded per vendor and shown on the page. For reputation flags, the source is a regulator, a live court record, or a named complaint registry, cited in the flag itself. Anything we could not verify that way is either labeled as unverified or not published at all. Routine re-checks are automated: software reads the vendor's own page, and a change is published only after a second, independent check of that same page confirms it. What is never treated as verification: a figure copied from a third-party listing, an estimate, or the vendor's own say-so without a published source. You can watch the dates move on the verification log.

How often we update

Pricing carries the date it was last checked: each tool entry carries a verified date, and prices older than 90 days show an amber freshness pill and prices older than 180 days a red one.

Third-party review scores from G2, Capterra and similar sites are not recorded or used in scoring (since v1.3). Tool pages link to those sites so readers can check current reviews there.

Methodology changelog

The WrenchStack Fit Score™ is versioned. Any material change to the formula, the weights, or the evaluation process bumps the version number and is logged here with a date; we don't silently change how scoring works.

• Version 1.0 2026-05-29

  Initial public methodology: the WrenchStack Fit Score™ (five weighted factors as of that date: vertical fit 40%, user ratings 30%, pricing transparency 10%, feature depth 10%, integration coverage 10%; feature depth was removed in v1.2 and user ratings in v1.3), the documented evaluation timeline, the independence statement, and the per-vendor affiliate ledger.

Editorial corrections

If we publish something wrong about a tool (pricing, feature claim, weakness), we correct it once the error is confirmed against a primary source. Corrections are noted on the page with a dated stamp.

If you're a vendor and spot an error about your product, email hello@wrenchstack.com with the specific page URL and what's wrong. We fix and credit corrections fairly.

The data behind rankings

Pricing tier data comes from public vendor pricing pages. Feature lists and integration data come from the vendor's own product pages and documentation.

Where a vendor publishes no price (ServiceTitan is one example), the listing says so and the tool counts as quote-only. Pricing notes carry no third-party price estimates.

How we make money

WrenchStack earns money in two ways: commissions and referral rewards from vendor programs, described here, and pricing benchmark reports sold to software vendors, described below the affiliate ledger. When you click a "Visit [Tool]" button and sign up for that tool, we may earn a commission or a referral reward, but only when the link belongs to a program we have joined. Some of those programs are affiliate programs and some are referral programs. The reward is not an input to any listing, Fit Score, rank or award. No vendor has paid for placement, ranking or inclusion in the directory, and payment is not an input to the Fit Score, a spot in a "best of" list or the tone of a review.

Affiliate status doesn't affect ranking. The WrenchStack Fit Score™ (vertical fit + pricing transparency + integration coverage) is computed the same way for every vendor, whether we have an active affiliate relationship, a pending application, or no commercial relationship at all.

Per-tool affiliate ledger (127 software tools)

Full transparency. Below is the affiliate status of every software tool in the directory. Vendors in every other category (lead-gen, insurance, payroll, marketing agencies, AI tools, payments, financing, accounting, and business banking) follow the same independence rules, with vendor-specific affiliate disclosure on each review page.

• Active: 5 tools
• Unconfirmed: 1 tool
• Approved: 1 tool
• Pending: 0 tools
• None: 120 tools

What "Active", "Unconfirmed", "Approved", "Pending", and "None" mean

• Active: we have joined the vendor's affiliate or referral program, and our "Visit" buttons for this tool use its tracked link. If you sign up through that link, we may earn a commission (affiliate program) or a referral reward (referral program); the note says when it is a referral program. This does not affect what we write about the tool, including the cons section.
• Unconfirmed: our "Visit" buttons for this tool use a tracked link from the vendor's partner program, but we have not confirmed the program's status in the vendor's partner dashboard, so we do not know whether we earn anything from it. This does not affect what we write about the tool.
• Approved: the vendor accepted us into its affiliate program, but we do not use the tracked link anywhere on the site. The "Visit" button points to the vendor's public page and we earn nothing from it. We list it because an approved account is a relationship you should know about.
• Pending: we have applied to the vendor's affiliate program and have not had a decision. The "Visit" button points to the vendor's public page directly, so we don't earn anything from clicks on this tool today.
• None: we have no affiliate relationship with this vendor. Where we have a reason on record, the note gives it: the vendor has no program open to publishers, or we applied and were not accepted. The "Visit" button points to the vendor's public page. We earn no commission or referral reward from this tool.

Pricing benchmark reports

We also sell pricing benchmark reports to software vendors, including vendors listed on this site. A report covers one trade: the published prices, price ladders, packaging and pricing terms of the platforms on that trade page, the medians for that trade, and where the buying vendor's own published price, packaging and pricing terms sit against them. It uses vendors' public pages and the data published here. Each price in it is read from the vendor's own page while the report is written, where that page can be read; where it cannot, the report says so and shows the page used and the date it was last read. Prices re-read for a report go through the same second check of the vendor's page as routine re-checks and are updated on the site for every platform in that trade, buyer or not, no later than the day the report is delivered. A report does not explain or recalculate any Fit Score and does not say how any vendor could change its position. Whether a product publishes a price is one of the three Fit Score factors (pricing transparency, 20%, above); the report describes published pricing for every platform, the buyer's included, and computes no score. We do not quote, invoice or take an order while an evaluation, correction, pricing question, dispute or reputation-flag review is open with a vendor, or within 30 days after the latest listing verdict, correction or reputation-flag email we sent it. One price applies to every vendor and every trade; it is on the vendor page, and the report terms apply.

Buying a report doesn't affect ranking. Whether a vendor bought a report is not an input to any listing, Fit Score, ranking, award or reputation flag, or to whether a product is listed. The WrenchStack Fit Score™ (vertical fit + pricing transparency + integration coverage) is computed the same way for every vendor. The ledger below shows each buyer's Fit Score, rank, award and reputation flag when it ordered and today, so anyone can check.

Report ledger

Every pricing benchmark report sold is listed here, including refunded orders. "When ordered" is the product's Fit Score and rank on that trade page, its award or honorable mention, and any reputation flag on the company's WrenchStack entries, on the day we sent the invoice; the buyer's invoice states the same figures. "Today" is computed from the current data, the same way as the affiliate ledger above. Where the two differ, the note gives each cause with its date: a methodology version in the changelog; a change on the buyer's own public page; a WrenchStack data correction, and whether it came from report work; changes to other platforms on the trade page (see the verification log); an award or reputation-flag change; or a product listed after it ordered. Until a cause is recorded, the note says so. The note also records the price re-read made for the report and any change to the buyer's own listing between invoice and delivery.

Report announcements. On dates set in advance we email a one-time announcement of the report to software vendors listed on our trade pages: vendors that contacted us first about a listing, and US-based software vendors on our trade pages that have not. A vendor is skipped if it has an evaluation, correction, pricing question, dispute or reputation-flag review open with us, or received a listing verdict, correction or reputation-flag email from us in the previous 30 days. Each vendor gets at most one announcement and no follow-up, and can opt out by replying. The email does not mention the vendor's Fit Score, rank, award or verdict, and whether a vendor received it, replied or bought is not an input to any listing. Dates and the number of vendors emailed: October 13, 2026, 10 vendors; October 27, 2026, not yet sent.

No reports sold as of October 7, 2026.

Questions about independence, including a claim that a report sale affected a listing, go to hello@wrenchstack.com with the page URL. Each one gets a written reply, and a confirmed problem is corrected on the page and noted in this ledger.

What we do not do

• Accept payment for placement in a "best of" list
• Accept payment to raise a tool's WrenchStack Fit Score™
• Accept payment to omit or soften cons in a tool review
• Hide an affiliate relationship: every tool's status is on this page
• Hide a report sale: every pricing benchmark report sold to a vendor is in the report ledger on this page
• Recommend a tool we wouldn't recommend if no commission, referral reward or report sale existed

Where pricing data comes from

Each pricing tier shows a verified date. We re-check pricing by visiting each vendor's public pricing page; where that page cannot be read, the entry keeps its earlier verified date. When a vendor publishes no prices, the page says so; we do not estimate prices from forum posts or other secondhand reports. Numbers older than 90 days get an amber freshness pill; older than 180 days, a red pill.

Vendor-supplied pricing claims that contradict published pages are ignored. If a vendor tells us their pricing has changed but the public page still shows the old number, we keep the public number until the public page changes.

Questions or corrections?

Email hello@wrenchstack.com. Include the page URL and a primary source; corrections are checked against the source you send.