About TrustRadius Scoring — FAQs

We want TrustRadius to be your trusted source for evaluating software. As part of that mission, we aim to offer maximum transparency into how our site operates and how we ensure the integrity of our data. This FAQ covers all of our methodologies behind all of our quantitative data: scores, visuals, rankings and awards.

All of these practices follow our core guiding principles, and help us ensure the information on our site is useful, reliable and worthy of your trust.

Here are the questions covered in this FAQ:

What is trScore?

trScore is an algorithm that calculates a product’s scores based on a weighted average of reviews and ratings, rather than a simple average.

The problem: Simple averages can be misleading

Most review sites use simple averages to determine a product’s score or overall star rating. At first, TrustRadius did as well, until we noticed a couple of problems with simple averages:

  1. Over time, simple averages don’t always tell the most up-to-date story. Products can change quickly, and for products that have a large review base with a significant number of older reviews, a score based on a simple average won’t reflect current customer sentiment.
  2. Simple averages allow vendors to artificially inflate their product’s score by inviting only known promoters to write a review. Happy customers are valid users and reviewers, but when they are over-represented in a product’s review base, a score based on a simple average will be biased.

The solution: A weighted average called trScore

Our trScore algorithm weights ratings and reviews differently in the following ways, to provide a more reliable score than a simple average:

  1. More recent reviews and ratings are weighted more heavily than older ones.
  2. Reviews from a random, representative sample of users are weighted more heavily than biased samples.
  3. Ratings given as part of an in-depth review are weighted more heavily than single-click star ratings, since they are more considered and include more context.

All average scores on TrustRadius are calculated using the trScore algorithm, including the overall Likelihood to Recommend score, scores for attributes like usability and support, and scores for specific features like dashboarding and reporting.

The trScore algorithm allows us to present the most accurate and objective picture of customer sentiment to buyers, as well as a level playing field for vendors.

What is Customer Verified?

Products with the Customer Verified badge have at least 10 reviews from the past 12 months. This standard was selected based on buyer feedback about how many recent reviews they usually need to get the information they need to make a more confident decision.

Customer Verified status can be earned or lost at any time. When a product is Customer Verified, that means you'll find recent, in-depth feedback from real users about the product.

What is Top Rated?

In most categories, there are plenty of options out there. Top Rated awards help distinguish products in a category that have excellent customer satisfaction ratings. TrustRadius issues Top Rated awards each year in every category on our site.

Top Rated awards are based entirely on reviews. There is no paid placement or analyst opinion.

To qualify for a Top Rated award, a product must meet the following three criteria for recency, rating and relevance at the time the awards are issued:

  • Recency: Product must have 10 or more recent reviews (from the past year)
  • Rating: Product must have a trScore of 7.5 or higher
  • Relevance: Product must earn at least .5% of the site traffic in the category

How can vendors use the Top Rated badge?

Vendors who earn the badge can use it, for free, on their own sites, in a press release, on a blog, in email, or on social media. The award allows vendors to share social proof with their audiences based on the authentic voice of their customers.

What are Buyer's Choice Awards?

TrustRadius recognizes products in which 75% of their reviewers, during a specified time period, have selected them for best capabilities, best value for price, and best customer relationship. Buyer's Choice Awards are based entirely on vetted, unbiased customer reviews.

To qualify for a Buyer's Choice Award, a product must meet the following criteria:

  • Source 10 reviews during the specified timeframe.
  • 75% of reviewers select you for best capabilities, best value for price, and best customer relationship
  • Best Relationship looks at Key Insight data in the product reviews for Would Buy Again, Implementation Expectations, and Sales and Marketing Promises
  • As needed, additional vetting via textual review analysis will be performed by the TrustRadius research team

How can vendors use the Buyer's Choice badge?

Vendors who earn the badge can use it, for free, on their own sites, in a press release, on a blog, in email, or on social media in various media forms if desired. The award allows vendors to share the social proof with their audiences based on the authentic voice of their customers.

Where do award badges appear?

Award badges appear on a product’s page on our site if you have a premium profile, and in many places where that product is displayed elsewhere on our site, such as when it’s being compared to another product. If you do not have a premium profile subscription, learn more about the benefits.

What is Trusted Seller verification?

The Trusted Seller Program verifies vendors that ethically source reviews - no cherry picking, no bias. This verification helps you:

  • Build trust. Your verification means your brand follows FTC guidelines and has a vested interest in authentic, unbiased reviews.
  • Stand out. Not every company will qualify for Trusted Seller verification, so your badge will help you stand apart. Buyers will know they can trust your reviews over the rest.
  • Expand market presence. Trusted Seller verified companies receive a badge at the top of your product listing. Badges can be used in your marketing materials, and are promoted bi-anually on our blog and via a TrustRadius press release.

Learn More

How can I qualify for the Trusted Seller Program?

Review the calendar for promotion dates and fill out this form to apply for the program. It takes about 10 minutes. To qualify, Trusted Sellers must:

  • Regularly source reviews (at least 10 per year), ensuring there’s up-to-date product feedback for buyers
  • Disclose review sourcing methodology and use of incentives
  • Provide equal opportunity for product users to safely share honest feedback
  • Read all published reviews and respond when necessary
  • Regularly update their product profile with up-to-date product information. See our profile completeness checklist.

Apply for Trusted Seller Verification.

How are products and reviews sorted?

As a website with tens of thousands of products, organized into hundreds of categories, with hundreds of thousands of ratings and reviews, how items are sorted is important.

Our guiding principles for sorting are:

  1. Our site should be as useful to you as possible
  2. Sorting logic should be objective and transparent
  3. Sorting can’t be artificially influenced by vendors

How are products sorted on Category pages?

As a website with tens of thousands of products, organized into hundreds of categories, with hundreds of thousands of ratings and reviews, how items are sorted is important.

Our guiding principles for sorting are:

  1. Our site should be as useful to you as possible
  2. Sorting logic should be objective and transparent
  3. Sorting can’t be artificially influenced by vendors

We use a proprietary algorithm to sort products within categories to surface the most helpful product pages. This algorithm takes the following factors into account:

  1. Profile completeness
  2. trScore
  3. Top Rated status
  4. Optimization to ensure quick responses to buyer inquiries

By surfacing the most complete profiles first, we help buyers self-serve with the information they need to make an informed purchase decision. With this algorithm, vendors are only able to increase their ranking by providing more of the information that buyers are looking for such as recent, unbiased reviews, pricing information, product demos, and more.

Reviews on a product page

The default sort order of reviews on a product page is called “Relevance.” It’s a simple algorithm that prioritizes reviews based on recency, attribution (whether the reviewer chose to be public or anonymous), and level of detail or quality of the review. The “Relevance” algorithm is designed to put the most helpful reviews at the top of the page, by prioritizing the factors that our readers have told us matter most.

You can also change the sort order based on your needs: date, highest overall rating, and lowest overall rating are other options.

Alternatives and suggested comparisons

Two of the main reasons buyers visit TrustRadius are to discover alternative products and to compare products. Every product page on TrustRadius offers a list of alternatives and suggested comparisons.

These products are determined based on site traffic patterns on TrustRadius and Google search patterns (e.g. searches for Product X vs. Product Y). Products that are most often compared are suggested as alternatives and comparisons on each other’s pages.