How Are Grades Calculated
Show off your A+ Grade and 5 Stars today! Once you're signed up, you can display your A+ grade and badge immediately for the next 90 days or 25 reviews, whichever comes first. Don't worry, though. As long as you're providing great customer service and quality products, you'll be able to maintain an awesome grade to display on your home page, landing page, or check-out page so you can make more sales!
For example, the average star rating on Google is typically 4.1 - 4.6 stars and on Facebook 4.5+ stars. As you can see from the table below, that means most businesses will typically have a TrustGrade A+ or A grade. Want more specifics? Here you go:
All customer reviews are used to determine a company's grade and number of stars, except reviews that have been automatically flagged as containing profanity or spam.
The profanity filter automatically flags ANY review (positive or negative) that contains profanity as "profane" or contains spam. These profane and spam reviews do not require a response by the business's representative and do not count against the overall grade.
To calculate a business's grade, 5 stars equates to 100 percent, 4 stars equates to 90 percent, 3 stars equates to 80 percent, 2 stars equates to 70 percent, and 1 star equates to 60 percent. The values of all of a site's eligible reviews are then averaged for an overall grade as follows:
| Average Stars | Average Value | Website Grade |
|---|---|---|
| ≥ 4.5 | ≥ 95.0% | A+ |
| ≥ 4.0 | ≥ 90.0% | A |
| ≥ 3.5 | ≥ 85.0% | B+ |
| ≥ 3.0 | ≥ 80.0% | B |
| ≥ 2.5 | ≥ 75.0% | C+ |
| ≥ 2.0 | ≥ 70.0% | C |
| ≥ 1.5 | ≥ 65.0% | D+ |
| ≥ 1.0 | > 60.0% | D |
| ≤ 1.0 | ≤ 60.0% | F |
Reviews are displayed by clicking on the stars that a review received. For example, to see all 5-Star reviews, simply click on 5 Stars (image or text). A business's representatives may elect to showcase and/or promote certain reviews by showcasing and pinning those reviews. A business's representatives also can optionally highlight words or phrases within a review. Reviews are defaulted to reviews the company has pinned and/or showcased and then to the star-ratings (highest to lowest, in chronological order).
A business representative may flag a review as "false or misleading" but the review still counts toward the overall grade. However, the business representative may provide a response as to why the review is false or misleading. This enables consumers to determine who to believe - the information provided by the customer, or the information provided by the business. Many customer review platforms only provide information provided by consumers. With TrustGrade, consumers are able to review both sides of the story so that you can make a more informed purchasing decision.
Once again, all businesses using this platform initially receive an A+ grade and 5-Star rating after registration. After 90 days or 25 customer reviews, whichever comes first, the business's star rating and grade is updated and, thereafter, the rating and grade are calculated at least once per hour, 24/7.
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