The AA Rating™ Explained - FAQ

We get quite a few questions about the AA Rating, mostly about how it is calculated. Our rating takes into account the following factors:

  1. Market share and market growth
    We measure market share and market trends. Popular and expanding tools get a rating boost. We try to balance established players with rising stars.
     
  2. Functionality
    Our content editors judge a tools features. Every tool category has different criteria. Points are awarded for important functionalities, missing functionalities give tool a penalty.
     
  3. Cost
    Getting good value is important. We look at the total cost of ownership of a tool and balance this against the functionality. Free is not always better if it 'costs' you a lot of features.
     
  4. Reviews
    An important factor are user reviews. Good user reviews have a positive impact, bad ones lower the rating. Reviews by high authority reviewers have a bigger footprint.
     
  5. Usability
    The content team assesses a tools learning curve and usability performance.
     
  6. Support
    We look and award points for the support options. Especially in the enterprise segment live support and account managers are important.
     
  7. Privacy
    Data ownership is a big deal. We assess were your data is stored, whether you control your own data and who can access it.
     
  8. Maturity
    Our content editors rate a tools maturity based on a vendors size, target audience and biggest customers.

The exact weights in the AA Rating algorithm are secret, we don't want vendors to easily manipulate the ratings.

But apart from the calculation, let us look at the bigger picture. The AA Rating is designed to fulfill two needs: support investment decisions and increase market transparency.

Support investment decisions & market transparency

The AA Rating is not a definitive answer on which analytics tool is the best. What we are trying to accomplish is to enable decision makers to more easily establish short lists of high value, best in class analytics tools. For instance; instead of having to shift through 5 or 6 user feedback tools an organization can focus on the top 3.