How We Rate Businesses at wannarate.com
Transparency is non-negotiable. If you're going to trust wannarate.com to help you make decisions — about where to eat, who to hire, which bank to use, or which energy supplier to switch to — you deserve to know exactly how we arrive at our ratings. Here's the full picture.
Our Two-Layer Rating System
Every business on wannarate.com is rated using a combination of two sources:
Layer 1: Community Reviews
The foundation of every wannarate.com rating is real customer reviews submitted by verified UK users. We do not invent, purchase, or editorially alter customer reviews. What people write is what gets published (subject to our community guidelines).
Community reviews contribute 70% of a business’s overall wannarate score.
Layer 2: Editorial Research
For businesses on our best-of lists and category pages, our editorial team conducts independent research to complement community reviews. This includes analysis of publicly available data, regulatory information, pricing, and — where possible — direct testing of the product or service.
Editorial research contributes 30% of a business’s wannarate score on curated list pages.
The Five Rating Dimensions
Whether it’s a restaurant, a plumber, or an energy supplier, every business is assessed across five core dimensions:
- Quality — Does the core product or service deliver what it promises?
- Value for Money — Is the price fair relative to what you get?
- Customer Service — Are problems resolved? Is communication good?
- Reliability — Does the business consistently deliver, or is experience variable?
- Transparency — Are pricing, terms, and practices clear and honest?
How We Prevent Fake Reviews
Fake reviews are the disease of the review platform industry. Here's how wannarate.com fights them:
- Account verification: All reviewers must verify their email address before submitting a review
- IP monitoring: We detect and remove clusters of reviews from the same IP address
- Velocity checks: Unusually high volumes of reviews in a short period trigger manual review
- Sentiment analysis: Reviews that don’t match the linguistic patterns of genuine customers are flagged
- Business reporting: Businesses can flag suspicious reviews for investigation (but cannot simply demand removal of negative reviews)
- User reporting: Any user can report a review they believe is fake
Our Commercial Relationships — Full Disclosure
wannarate.com is a commercial website. We are transparent about how we make money:
- Affiliate links: Some pages contain affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase or sign up, we may earn a commission. These links are always disclosed at the top of the relevant page.
- Display advertising: We display advertising from third-party networks. Advertisers have no influence over our editorial content or ratings.
- Featured listings: Businesses can pay to be featured in certain listing positions. Featured listings are always clearly labelled. Paying for a featured listing does not improve a business’s rating or editorial assessment.
Businesses cannot pay to improve their wannarate score or editorial rating. This is absolute policy.
Our Editorial Team
wannarate.com's editorial content is produced by a team of specialist writers and researchers with backgrounds in consumer journalism, finance, food writing, and home services. All editorial team members are named on the articles and pages they produce.
Corrections Policy
We take accuracy seriously. If you believe something on wannarate.com is factually incorrect, please contact us with details. We investigate all credible correction requests and update content where errors are confirmed.
Questions About Our Methodology?
We welcome scrutiny. If you have questions about how we rate businesses, get in touch. Transparency isn't just a policy at wannarate.com — it's the whole point.