Rankings Methodology

Our Commitment to Independent Search Results

Invest Clearly’s rankings are organic. The order in which sponsors and deals appear on the platform is determined by reviews and platform engagement signals, not by payment. Paid sponsors may appear in clearly labeled Featured and Promoted placements alongside organic results, but payment does not change a sponsor’s organic position.

For Invest Clearly’s broader commitments around reviews, ratings, and platform independence, see our Review and Rating Standards.

Search, Filters, and Organic Results

Sponsor search results, deal search results, filter results, and other ranked sponsor displays on Invest Clearly are organic. Search and filter ordering is determined by factors such as Overall Rating, review count, review recency, and relevance to the search or filter criteria applied. Payment never influences organic search or filter results.

The only exceptions are clearly marked Promoted Sponsor and Promoted Deal placements within search results, described in the Featured and Promoted Placements section below.

In addition to organic search and filter ordering, Invest Clearly surfaces sponsors and deals through two specific features described below: the Most Popular list and the Highest Rated sort option. Both are organic. Payment to Invest Clearly does not influence either.

Highest Rated Sort Option

Highest Rated rankings use a Bayesian rating method, which is the same class of algorithm used and popularized by firms like IMDb, Amazon, and Yelp to surface trusted results. It is a well-established statistical technique that produces fairer rankings when sponsors have very different review counts. A sponsor with three reviews averaging 5.0 stars and a sponsor with thirty reviews averaging 4.9 stars are not directly comparable, because three reviews are not a reliable estimate of long-term performance. The Bayesian method addresses this by adjusting low-sample-size sponsors toward the platform-wide average until they have enough reviews to stand on their own.

Most Popular in [Asset Class]

The “Most Popular” list highlights sponsors with strong and sustained reviewer engagement within a given asset class. It appears on the Invest Clearly homepage and on asset class pages. Most Popular placement is organic. Payment to Invest Clearly does not influence placement in this list.

Most Popular rankings use a Bayesian rating method, as described in Highest Rated Sort Option in Sponsor Search. It is a well-established statistical technique that produces fairer rankings when sponsors have very different review counts.

Most Popular ranking is calculated in two layers:

Recency weighting. Each review is assigned a time-based weight applied to the Overall Rating:

• Reviews submitted 0 to 12 months ago: 5× weight
• Reviews submitted 12 to 24 months ago: 2× weight
• Reviews submitted 24+ months ago: 1× weight

The recency-weighted average for a sponsor is the sum of (Overall Rating × weight) divided by the sum of weights, calculated across all of the sponsor’s reviews.

Bayesian adjustment.The recency-weighted average is then blended with the platform-wide weighted average, with the blend determined by the sponsor’s effective review count. The result is the sponsor’s Bayesian Score:

Bayesian Score = (C × m + weighted_avg × effective_reviews) / (C + effective_reviews)

Where m is the platform-wide weighted average across all published reviews, and C is a confidence constant. These values are reviewed periodically and may be updated as the platform grows. Sponsors with many reviews are ranked close to their own observed weighted average; sponsors with fewer reviews are adjusted toward the platform mean.

Eligibility. To appear in a Most Popular list, a sponsor must meet all of the following criteria:

• At least three reviews from verified investors submitted in the last twelve months
• An average Overall Rating of 3.0 stars or higher across reviews submitted in the last twelve months
• A Bayesian Score of 4.0 or higher

Eligible sponsors are ranked within each Most Popular list by their Bayesian Score, highest first. A sponsor may appear in a maximum of two asset class lists — the two in which the sponsor’s Bayesian Score is positioned highest in relation to other sponsors.

Relationship to the aggregate Overall Rating.The Bayesian Score is a ranking calculation used exclusively for ordering the Most Popular list. It does not replace, modify, or appear alongside the aggregate Overall Rating on a sponsor’s profile, which is calculated as a simple unweighted average. See our Review and Rating Standards for details on how aggregate Overall Ratings are calculated.

Popular Sponsors and Popular Deals in Global Search

The “Popular Sponsors” and “Popular Deals” lists appear in the global search dropdown that opens when a user begins typing in the Invest Clearly search bar. Popular Sponsors and Popular Deals lists are organic. Payment to Invest Clearly does not influence placement in either list.

Ranking method.Popular Sponsors and Popular Deals are ordered by the date of each sponsor’s most recently published review. The sponsor with the most recently published review appears at the top of the list, with subsequent entries ordered by their next-most-recent review date.

Eligibility. To appear in the Popular Sponsors or Popular Deals list in Global Search, a sponsor must have at least one published review and an aggregate Overall Rating of 4.0 stars or higher. No minimum review count is required beyond a single published review.

This ranking method differs from the Most Popular list described above: Popular Sponsors and Popular Deals reflect reviewer activity recency only, while Most Popular reflects a Bayesian-weighted measure of sustained engagement. The two features serve different purposes and should not be interpreted as competing measures of sponsor quality.

Featured and Promoted Placements

Paid sponsors on Invest Clearly may appear in two types of paid visibility placements across the platform:

Featured Sponsors.A Featured Sponsor placement promotes a paid sponsor’s profile on other sponsors’ profile pages, on deal profile pages, in email digests, and on investor dashboards. Featured Sponsors do not appear in search results.

Promoted Sponsors and Promoted Deals.Promoted placements appear within Invest Clearly’s search results, alongside organic results.

• Promoted Sponsors appear in Sponsor Search.
• Promoted Deals appear in Deal Search.

Every Featured and Promoted placement is clearly labeled as such and visually differentiated from organic results.

Featured or Promoted status indicates that a sponsor has paid for enhanced visibility. It does not and cannot mean:

• That Invest Clearly endorses the sponsor, the deal, or the sponsor’s investment strategy
• That the sponsor has received a higher rating than non-paid sponsors
• That the sponsor’s reviews have been moderated differently
• That the sponsor’s organic search ranking has been adjusted

Eligibility for Featured and Promoted placements is determined by asset class relevance and subscription tier. It is independent of rating, review content, and all moderation decisions.

What Payment Never Influences

Payment to Invest Clearly never influences:

• The content of any individual review
• Moderation decisions on any review
• Individual component scores or the Overall Rating given by any reviewer
• Sponsor-level aggregate Overall Ratings
• Organic search results, filter results, and ranked-list positioning (including the Most Popular list and the Highest Rated sort option)
• Review visibility on a sponsor profile
• Quarterly badge eligibility

Questions

Questions about our rankings methodology can be directed to support@investclearly.com.