How The Venduris Index is calculated

This page is the whole rubric. It exists so anyone can check our work, argue with a weighting, or reproduce a score from the same public evidence. Cite it, quote it, and hold us to it.

The five categories

Each category is scored 0 to 100, then combined using the weights below. Renewal and cancellation carries the heaviest weight because that is where most of the real cost to buyers sits.

Evidence basis

Evidence arrives per vendor, not per category. A vendor either shows up in our customer renewal data, or it completed the declaration in full, or it was assessed from public sources. So each vendor carries one evidence basis across all five categories, stated once in the index and once on the card, rather than a different marker on every number.

A vendor is only marked Verified when we hold consistent evidence from at least three separate customers of that vendor, across every category. Below that threshold it stays a public assessment, however confident we feel. Participation is a transparency signal, not a reward: it never moves a vendor up the table, and where the vendor's declared figure disagrees with ours, both stay published. Every card shows the month it was last reviewed, and a vendor that has not taken part is described as exactly that rather than being penalised for silence.

Vendor categories

Every vendor is filed under one software category, using the naming buyers already meet when they shop for these tools: CRM and sales, accounting and finance, HR and payroll, help desk, security and identity, and so on. Categories exist so the index can be read like for like. A help desk and a payroll platform sell on different mechanics, and comparing them only makes sense once you can see which market each one sits in. Scores themselves are never adjusted for the category: the same rubric and the same weights apply everywhere.

Tiers

When a vendor disagrees

Vendors can submit a structured declaration answering the same questions we score. Where their answer implies a score that differs from ours by more than 15 points, we publish both figures side by side on the scorecard rather than quietly picking one. Readers see the gap and can judge it themselves.

Where a vendor supplies contract language or a public policy that we had missed, we update the score and record the change in that vendor's engagement log. Corrections are dated and stay visible. We do not remove a score because a vendor asks us to.

Fair Renewal Partner

The badge records transparency and engagement. The score measures the fairness of the terms. They are deliberately different things, and a badge is never evidence of a good score.

To be clear about what it is not: the badge is not for sale, it is not awarded for a high score, and holding it does not lift a single point. A vendor in the Renewal Risk tier that engages honestly can carry it. A vendor scoring 95 that ignores us cannot.

Cadence and corrections

• Scores are reviewed quarterly, and sooner when a vendor changes pricing or terms.
• Badge holders are recertified annually. A lapsed recertification removes the badge.
• Each scorecard shows its last update date and a log of what changed.
• We publish what we can evidence. Where we cannot evidence something, the category shows an estimate and says so, rather than being left blank to imply a problem.

Limits worth stating

This index measures commercial treatment at renewal. It says nothing about whether the product is good, whether support is responsive, or whether the vendor is the right choice for a given team. A tightly priced tool with hard terms can still be the correct purchase. The score is one input into that decision, not the decision.