How we rank

A score from 0 to 100 — calculated, versioned, dated, and explained in full on this page. It cannot be bought. Here is the exact formula, what is already live, and what is not.

What actually ranks gyms today

Three of the five components need data we do not hold yet. Until they exist no PlaceScore is shown: the rankings on this site rest on the rating-quality component alone, and that is stated wherever a rank appears. Publishing a score out of 100 with 55 of those points guessed would be the exact opposite of what this site is for.

The five components

These are the v1 weights. Any change is published in the dated log at the bottom of this page.

  1. 35 Rating quality The rating, weighted by review volume, so a 5.0 from two reviews cannot beat a 4.8 from a thousand. 194 of 243 gyms carry a rating. Live
  2. 20 Contract transparency Published price, term length, joining fee, free trial, cancellation clause. No pricing or contract data is in the database yet. Not yet
  3. 20 Verified credentials The OPC health-studio permit, affiliations, a kinesiologist on staff, liability insurance. Every gym starts at zero here and climbs by proving. A credential is never assumed. Not yet
  4. 15 Freshness and vitality Reviews from the last twelve months and their regularity — a gym rated brilliantly five years ago is not a brilliantly rated gym. The review dates the source exposes are relative, not usable as they stand. Not yet
  5. 10 Record completeness Hours, equipment, clean photos, accessibility, an editorial description. Hours: 207. Photos: 188. Equipment and accessibility: not collected yet. Partial
  6. −20 Penalties, at most These are never averaged into the score. They are detectors applied afterwards, capped at −20. A gym can be strong on all five components and still be marked down by one of these alone.

The formula behind the live component

A Bayesian mean. It pulls small samples toward the corpus average, which fixes the classic directory problem: the perfect gym with three reviews.

C = 40          # confidence constant
m = 4.5         # corpus mean rating
R = the gym's rating
v = number of reviews

weighted = (v / (v + C)) × R + (C / (v + C)) × m

A worked example, computed on this page

A gym rated 5.00 from 2 reviews 4.52 weighted rating
A gym rated 4.80 from 1,359 reviews 4.79 weighted rating

The second one wins. That is the point.

The penalties

  • −10No OPC permit found while a term membership is being sold
  • −8A pattern of billing or cancellation complaints in recent reviews
  • −8Payment demanded before services begin — prohibited, CPA s. 201
  • −6Advertised automatic renewal — prohibited, CPA reg. s. 25.10
  • −6Suspicious reviews: abnormal spikes, single-review accounts
  • −5Record marked permanently closed, or contradictory hours

The bands

  • 90–100Exceptional
  • 80–89Excellent
  • 70–79Solid
  • 60–69Fair
  • under 60Insufficient data or reservations

What we hold, in numbers

  • 243gyms on file
  • 194with a rating
  • 207with confirmed hours
  • 163with at least three readable reviews
  • 188with at least one photo
  • 0with a verified price or permit

Our guardrails

Rank is not for sale.
No gym can pay to move up. If a placement ever becomes sponsored it will be labelled and excluded from the ranking.
Three states, never a fourth.
Every fact is verified, reported, or Not confirmed. We do not interpolate and we do not round toward confidence.
You climb by proving.
Credentials start at zero. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, but it earns no points.
The score is versioned.
Recalculated weekly. Every weighting change is dated in the log.
We correct, on evidence.
A gym can dispute a fact. Corrected within five working days on proof — and no score is adjusted without it.

Log

v1 — draft
Weightings fixed and published. Only the rating-quality component is calculated; no PlaceScore is shown while the other inputs are missing.
See the gyms