How We Rank

Our ranking is driven by math and your preferences—never by how much an issuer pays us.

What inputs we use

To find the best card for you, we look at several non-sensitive data points:

Your primary goal: Travel rewards, cash back, balance transfers, or building credit.
Your fee tolerance: Whether you are willing to pay an annual fee for premium perks.
Your spending categories: Where you spend the most (e.g., dining, groceries, gas).
Dealbreakers: Features you absolutely must avoid (e.g., foreign transaction fees).
Estimated credit profile: Broad bands (Excellent, Good, Fair, Rebuilding) to ensure approval likelihood.

What we NEVER ask for

Your Social Security Number (SSN)
Your exact credit score
Your bank login credentials
Your exact income (unless required by an issuer pre-approval tool, which we link out to)

How scoring works

Every card in our database is tagged with detailed attributes: annual fee, reward rates, sign-up bonuses, and perks. When you submit your preferences, our matching engine iterates through thousands of combinations.

Baseline Filtering: We immediately drop cards that don't meet your "dealbreakers" or your estimated credit band.
Value Calculation: We estimate the first-year and ongoing value of a card based on average spending in your selected categories.
Goal Alignment: Cards that strongly align with your primary goal receive a multiplier weight.
Tradeoff Penalties: Negative factors—like high APRs on carried balances or restrictive redemption rules—reduce the card's overall score.

Tradeoffs and negative factors

No card is perfect. If a card offers massive travel rewards but charges a $695 annual fee, that fee is treated as a negative contribution to its score unless your spending profile guarantees you will offset it. Our Explainability panel (available on every result) shows exactly how these positive and negative factors were weighed to calculate your final match score.