How we rate tools
What the PolyPromote Entry Score measures
The PolyPromote Entry Score measures how easy it is to start using a tool and evaluate it before paying — the inverse of its barrier to entry.
It is not a quality rating. A tool with a low Entry Score can be excellent. A high score means you can get in cheaply and see for yourself; a low score means you'll be asked for money, or for a sales call, before you learn much.
We publish the formula below so you can recompute any score yourself.
The four components
| Component | Max | How it's awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Free access | 40 | Permanent free plan: 40 · Free trial only: 15 · Neither: 0 |
| Entry price | 30 | Published monthly entry price under $15: 30 · under $35: 22 · under $75: 14 · under $150: 7 · $150+: 0 Usage-based or revenue-share pricing: 20 · Contact-sales only: 0 |
| Pricing transparency | 15 | Every tier's price published: 15 · Some tiers are custom or contact-sales: 8 · Pricing entirely by quote: 0 |
| Public evidence | 15 | Independently sourced user reviews we hold and link to — one: 6 · two: 10 · three or more: 13 Plus 2 if a published user-count figure with a named source exists |
Why prices are scored in bands
Vendors change prices. A band means a tool that moves from $49 to $61 keeps the same score — the change is real, but it doesn't change how hard the tool is to get into. A move from $49 to $150 crosses bands, and the score moves, because that genuinely changes who can afford to start.
Why free access is worth the most
Most of our readers are building something with no budget yet. Whether you have to pay before you can start is the largest single gate they face, so it carries the largest weight. This makes the distribution deliberately uneven: tools cluster into "you can try it" and "you can't."
Worked example — Publer, 93/100
| Free access | 40 | Publer publishes a permanent free plan: 3 social accounts, 10 pending scheduled posts per account |
| Entry price | 30 | Professional starts at $5/mo — under the $15 band |
| Pricing transparency | 8 | Free, Professional and Business prices are published; Enterprise is contact-sales |
| Public evidence | 15 | Three or more sourced reviews, each linked to its origin, plus a sourced user-count figure |
| Total | 93 |
Open Publer's pricing page, count the tiers, and the same four numbers should fall out.
Where our data comes from
- Prices and plan limits come from each vendor's own pricing and documentation pages. Where a vendor tells us directly that something has changed, we update the page and the figure still has to match what they publish.
- User reviews are quoted from public platforms — Capterra and Product Hunt — and every quote links back to the review it came from. We don't write them and we don't paraphrase them.
- User-count figures are used only when the vendor publishes them, and we record the source alongside the number. Where no such figure exists, the field shows a dash rather than an estimate.
What we do when we can't verify something
We leave it out, or we say plainly that it isn't published. Pricing that only appears after you create an account is marked as such. A gap on the page is a gap in the public record, not an oversight.
Corrections
If a number here is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it. Vendors are welcome to write in — several already have, and their corrections are on the site.
Affiliate links
Some links on this site earn us a commission if you sign up through them. It costs you nothing extra, and it does not affect any score, ranking, or verdict. The formula above has no input for whether we earn anything, which is the point of publishing it.
— PolyPromote Team