Ranking standards
How ranking works
Ranking pages are ordered in three labeled blocks: sponsored slots that were paid for, approved operations ordered strictly by score, then basic listings with no score at all. Money can buy a sponsored slot or the approval review. It cannot buy a point of score, and it cannot buy approval itself.
40%
Verified outcomes
30%
Reviews from booked trips
20%
License and standing
10%
Access confirmed
The three tiers, in order
Three slots per ranking page, no more, each marked Sponsored on the card. Sold by species and state. A sponsor must hold current license and insurance to buy one, and shows their real score or no score at all — buying the slot changes neither number.
Ordered strictly by score. The fee pays for staff time: checking the license with the issuing agency, reading the insurance certificate, and auditing up to three seasons of harvest logs. Fail a check and there is no badge and no refund. You are buying the review, not the result.
Contact details and trip information. No score, no audited outcomes, and every review on the profile carries an unverified label. An operation can stay here indefinitely at no cost, and plenty should.
Before anything is scored
License and registration
RequiredA current state guide or outfitter license, verified with the issuing agency. An expired license pulls an operation out of the rankings the day we find out, not at the end of the season.
Commercial liability insurance
RequiredA current certificate naming the operation. We hold the expiry date and re-check it every season. No certificate, no listing.
The four scored inputs
Verified outcomes
Up to three seasons of harvest or catch logs, reported per weapon and per season. A bow season and a rifle season are never blended into one flattering number, and a guide with two good seasons and one bad one shows all three.
Checked against tags, submitted photos and client reports. Logs filed more than 72 hours after a hunt are recorded but weighted down.
Reviews from booked trips
Only a review tied to a payment record on this platform counts. Imported reviews and form submissions stay visible on a profile, labeled unverified, and score nothing at all.
Where a booking exists but payment went outside the platform, a human reads the case. Coordinated submissions are removed and the count is published annually.
License and standing
Years in operation, complaint history, chargebacks, and whether documents have ever been allowed to lapse. Response time to inquiries sits inside this component — an operation that does not answer the phone is not a good operation.
Complaint and chargeback records come from our own payment data, not self-reporting.
Access confirmed on the ground
Leases and property boundaries checked against county parcel records. Where access is the selling point, someone from the platform visits the camp.
Huntable acreage is compared against deed acreage. A tract claiming 500 acres that includes 100 acres of road frontage gets corrected.
What does not count
Sponsorship. It buys position in the sponsored block and nothing else — not a point of score, not a place in the approved order.
Reviews with no payment record behind them, however glowing.
Photos and trophy shots that cannot be matched to a logged hunt.
Awards, magazine features and industry memberships.
How long an operation has been on this platform. A guide who joined last month is not penalised.
Recompute and appeals
Scores recompute every Monday. A log filed within 72 hours of a hunt makes that week’s run. Suspensions and removals can be appealed once, in writing, and an appeal is read by someone who did not make the original decision. Nine imported reviews across the platform were removed last season for coordinated submission; we publish that number every year.