Rubric
The score is a weighted opinion, on purpose.
The four parts
- Capability40
- Ease25
- Value20
- Momentum15
Capability. How completely a fluent builder can finish the job this lane is for, including hard tasks, not the marketing demo.
Ease. Time to a useful result, and how little setup or prompt ceremony it takes.
Value. What you get before a sales call. Open-source tools that are free to run score high even when the model API is extra. Unknown dollar prices do not get a fake discount.
Momentum. Whether the product is still how builders work, not a dormant brand with a familiar logo.
A worked example
Cursor is filed as capability 96, ease 92, value 80, momentum 97. That is 96×40 + 92×25 + 80×20 + 97×15 = 9195. Divide by 100 and round: 92. 92 is S-tier.
What a tier means
- S · 90 and above. A default. Start here if you want one tool.
- A · 80 to 89. Excellent, with a real tradeoff.
- B · 70 to 79. Solid when your constraint matches the tool.
- C · under 70. On the list for a specific situation, not the default.
An empty tier is allowed. We do not drag a tool into C to fill a row, and we do not inflate a tool into S to make a lane look crowned.
Pricing
free means the software itself is free to run. The starting price is $0, and the notes say if you still pay a model provider.freemium means a usable unpaid path exists or has been offered. paid means we are not willing to claim a lasting free tier. The starting price field is check site whenever the number moves faster than this directory.
Dates
releasePrecision is day, month, or year. A year-only date means “public that year,” not 1 January. addedDate is when the file joined StackPick.
Money on the page
affiliateUrl is optional. If it is set, the main button uses it, is marked rel="sponsored", and the official URL stays visible. sponsored: true prints a Sponsored label. Neither field is an input to the formula. Both are off in the seed catalog.
What we do not do
- No aggregate star ratings. There is no review corpus behind them.
- No scraped “starting at $20” unless a human updates the file and changes the validator.
- No rank boost for affiliates.
Questions
Are StackPick scores benchmarks?
No. They are editorial judgments using a published rubric. We do not run hidden evals, and we do not invent user-review stars.
Can a sponsor buy a higher score?
No. A sponsored flag is a label on the page. It does not change the score, the tier, or the sort order. Sponsored placements are off unless a tool file sets sponsored to true.
What does “check site” mean?
We will not print a dollar price we are not willing to defend today. The plan shape (free, freemium, or paid) is filled in. The number is check site.
How often does this change?
When a tool file is edited. The seed catalog was added on 14 Oct 2026. There is no nightly crawler.