Every product in the Welpr Product Hub has already passed the Welpr Standard, which is how we determine whether a product is something you should be bringing into your home or not.
If it's in the hub, we're comfortable recommending it.
But not all products in the hub are equal. Some perform better in real-world use. Some have stronger third-party verification. Some are just more loved by the people who use them. The Welpr Rating exists to help you compare products that have already passed our safety bar, so you can find the best option, not just a safer one.
What the rating is (and isn't)
The Welpr Rating is not a safety score.
Safety scores create a false sense of precision. "Is this a 62 or a 68?" is not a useful question. What you really want to know is "should I use this product or not?"
Safety is binary in our system: a product either meets the Welpr Standard or it doesn't.
The Welpr Rating tells you how a product stacks up against others in the same category. It reflects everything we know beyond whether a product passed our standard: how well it performs, how much third-party verification backs it up, and what real people think of it. As we expand into lab testing and other independent evaluation, those results will feed directly into this rating. The more we test, the stronger the signal gets.
If we find out a product violates the Welpr Standard in any way, we don't reduce its score, we remove it completely.
Every product in the hub is rated on a 5-star scale from 4.0 to 5.0, in increments of 0.05.
That range is intentional. We only rate products that have already cleared the hardest filter. Everything in the hub is something we'd genuinely recommend. You're not choosing between good and bad. You're choosing between good and great.
What goes into the rating
The Welpr Rating is built from multiple dimensions, each weighted differently. Not every dimension is available for every product type. When one isn't available, its weight gets redistributed across the rest.
Different product categories require different kinds of evaluation, and our testing capabilities are always expanding. A category where we have lab data, hands-on reviews, certifications, and community feedback will produce a stronger rating than one where we only have reviews and certifications. We're transparent about what data backs each rating, and we're always working to deepen it.
Hands-On Review (50%)
The biggest factor in the rating. Our team personally tests products and rates them based on real-world experience: performance, texture, scent, application, whether we'd actually reorder it. This isn't algorithmic. It's a human opinion from people who use these products and care about the same things you do.
We weight this the heaviest because no label or spec sheet can tell you how well a product actually works. Only using it can.
Not every product in the hub has been tested by our team yet. When it hasn't, this dimension is excluded and the remaining dimensions carry the full weight. We don't fill in a guess. As we test more products, the ratings get stronger.
Third-Party Certifications (25%)
Third-party certifications tell you that an independent organization has verified specific claims about a product or brand. Anyone can read a label, but a label only tells you what the company chose to disclose. Certifications go deeper.
They verify manufacturing processes, supply chains, sourcing, and claims that you'd never be able to check on your own. Not all certifications are equal, and stacking five weak ones shouldn't outweigh one rigorous one.
Here's how we handle that:
- We group certifications into categories: chemical management, animal welfare, ingredient quality, safety performance, company practices, and others.
- Within each category, only the strongest certification counts. Two chemical management certifications? We take the better one, not both.
- Across categories, certifications do stack. A product certified in three categories scores higher than one certified in just one.
- The final score is normalized within each product type, so ratings are always comparable within a category.
Community Reviews (25%)
How real people rate the product. We weight star ratings against review volume, because a product with 4.8 stars from 2,000 reviews is more meaningful than 5.0 stars from 12. Like certifications, this score is normalized within each product type.
Where this is going
Today, the rating is built from three dimensions: our hands-on review, certifications, and community reviews. That's what we have, and we're honest about it.
As add new forms of evaluation for a product type, they get factored into the rating and the existing weights adjust. The rating always reflects the best information we have, and it gets more precise over time. Either way, you can always see exactly what dimensions back each rating.