How we score
The /10 score on a CompareUGC review is an editorial judgment about the terms of the deal — not about the videos. We start every platform at 10 and deduct against the published list below. We do not test output, and we do not average Trustpilot, G2 or Capterra into this number.
Two different numbers appear on our pages
| Number | Whose it is | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| x/10 | Ours | The contract, the pricing page and the help center, scored against the rubric below. |
| x/5 | Trustpilot, G2, Capterra, Product Hunt | Their users’ ratings, reproduced with review counts and linked to the source. Never folded into our /10. |
What this score deliberately does not judge
Output quality. We have not paid for a hands-on test on any platform reviewed so far, so nothing here is a verdict on whether the videos are good. Every review says so in its own words. Creative quality, template libraries and ease of use are absent from the rubric because we cannot verify them from documents, and scoring them from marketing copy would be guessing.
What we deduct for
Each item is checked against the platform’s own published documents on the verification date printed on the review. A clause that costs the buyer money is a deduction; a clause that protects the buyer beyond category norm earns credit back.
- 01
Price visibility before you pay
Whether a real number is published, or the price sits behind a login, a sales call or a quote form. Advertised floors that contradict the help center count against the platform.
- 02
True all-in cost per shipped deliverable
We rebuild the cost of one usable asset including product cost, shipping, rejected takes and revision fees. A low headline price with a high all-in cost is a deduction.
- 03
Refundability
Whether money can come back, on what window, and with what penalty. Refunds paid to an internal balance rather than the card are treated as a partial refund at best.
- 04
Balance and credit expiry
Credits that expire, do not roll over, or are burned by an upgrade are money the buyer paid and cannot use.
- 05
Billing lock-in
Auto-renewal, minimum commitment periods, short cancellation windows, trials that convert silently, and pricing that punishes monthly billing.
- 06
Usage rights and ownership
What licence the buyer actually gets: scope, exclusivity, transferability, term. Full assignment with no paid upgrade earns credit; review-only rights or an exclusivity clock costs.
- 07
AI training rights over your content
Whether the platform takes a licence to train models on what you commissioned, and whether that licence is irrevocable. Explicitly refusing to do so earns credit.
- 08
Acceptance mechanics
Revision counts, review windows, auto-approval timers, whether feedback stops the clock, and who arbitrates a dispute.
- 09
Internal documentation consistency
When the contract, the pricing page and the help center disagree, the buyer carries the risk. Live contradictions are a deduction; agreement across all three earns credit.
- 10
Complaint distribution, not star averages
We read third-party reviews for shape and clustering — barbell distributions, who is complaining (buyer or creator), which failure repeats. We never fold the average into this score.
- 11
Vendor response to negative reviews
Reply rate on one- and two-star reviews, and whether support resolves or upsells. Silence is a finding.
- 12
Legal exposure
Governing jurisdiction, liability caps, arbitration terms and claim time limits — the cost of being wronged.
- 13
Account and moderation risk
Discretionary suspension, unappealable moderation, subject-withdrawal rights and category bans that can strand work in progress.
- 14
What the vendor refuses to publish
Where a platform declines to state a price, a minute count or a policy, the absence is itself the finding, and it is scored as one.
Current scores
Each links to the review that argues it. If a score looks wrong to you, the review names the clauses it was built from — check those first, then tell us what we got wrong.
What money cannot buy here
A platform can pay for a placement slot, and every paid slot is labelled “Sponsored” wherever it appears. Paying does not change a score, a ranking position, a listed con, or the link attributes on an outbound link — sponsored links carry rel="sponsored nofollow" and every other outbound platform link carries rel="nofollow". See paid placement for what a sponsorship does and does not include.
When a score changes
A score changes when the terms change — a refund policy is rewritten, an expiry clause is dropped, a price becomes public. It also changes when we get something wrong. Re-checks are stamped with a new verification date on the review. If a clause we quoted no longer matches the live document, tell us and we will re-check it.