Platform Field Guide · method
How we score platforms
Our ratings are subjective, clearly labelled opinions. This page shows the criteria and weights behind them, so you can re-weight everything for your own context.
Our scoring philosophy
Any single score hides a value judgment. Rather than pretend otherwise, we publish our criteria and weights. Each platform gets a score out of five on several dimensions, and an overall figure produced by weighting those dimensions. Because all of it is opinion, we keep the language hedged and encourage you to substitute your own priorities.
The criteria
| Criterion | What it means | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Core HR & records | Employee data, self-service, document management | 20% |
| Payroll & compliance | Pay accuracy, tax handling, compliance support | 20% |
| Workforce management | Scheduling, time and attendance across sites | 15% |
| Experience & automation | Onboarding, workflows, integrations | 20% |
| Ease of use | How quickly teams become productive | 15% |
| Scalability | Behaviour at large headcount and complexity | 10% |
Why we weight usability and experience so highly
In our experience, a platform’s depth only helps if people actually use it well. A powerful system that administrators avoid, or that employees find confusing, produces worse outcomes than a slightly simpler one that everyone adopts. That is why ease of use and the employee experience carry meaningful weight here — but you may reasonably weigh payroll depth higher, especially in highly regulated industries.
How to re-weight for your organisation
Start with our table, then adjust. An employer with complex union pay rules should raise the payroll weight. A multi-site operator with dense shift patterns should raise workforce management. A fast-growing technology company may care most about automation and integrations. Re-score each platform against your own weights; the ranking often changes, and that is the point.
What our scores are not
- Not a ranking of objective quality or a statement of fact.
- Not based on secretly measured vendor performance.
- Not a substitute for a structured evaluation and a detailed demo.
- Not static — products change, and so do our impressions.
Limitations and honesty
Our reviews rely on general, publicly described functionality and on patterns from advisory work. We do not claim to have measured every feature, and we do not accept vendor compensation for coverage. Where we are uncertain, we say so and hedge accordingly. If you need a decision-grade comparison, combine our notes with a hands-on trial and your own requirements document.
Revisiting the scores
We refresh our ratings periodically and whenever a platform changes substantially, and we change our published weights when the market shifts. Because everything here is opinion, we would rather you argue with our reasoning than accept our figures, and we include the criteria precisely so that disagreement is easy and productive.