Every tool is scored 1 to 10 against the same six factors. A 5 means a tool does its job.
Is it right for a small team?
Pricing for small businesses, setup without IT staff, and fit for teams of 2 to 50.
Can your team learn it quickly?
Learning curve, a clean interface, and how fast a new person gets going.
Can you reach your own data, and leave?
API access, data export, contract terms and connections. Scored from the vendor's own pages.
New factorIs it worth what you pay?
Features against cost, free tiers, and how the price climbs as you grow.
Does it play well with your other tools?
How many common tools connect, natively or through Zapier and Make.
Can you count on it when you need help?
Uptime record, support for small accounts, and the company's stability.
Each sub-score rests only on facts the vendor confirms on its own pages. If a fact is not confirmed, it scores the lower level. Openness is not the same as the Integration Ecosystem factor: that one counts how many tools connect. Openness asks whether you can reach your own data and leave.
We added Openness as a sixth factor on 25 September 2026. It measures whether you can reach your own data and leave. The weights changed to make room for it.
A tool gets the new six-factor rating once its Openness facts are checked against the vendor's own pages. Until then it keeps the five-factor rating. Each tool page shows which rubric it uses, and every factor score.
| Factor | Before | Now |
|---|---|---|
| SMB Fit | 30% | 25% |
| Ease of Use | 25% | 20% |
| OpennessNew | — | 20% |
| Value for Money | 20% | 15% |
| Integration Ecosystem | 15% | 10% |
| Reliability & Support | 10% | 10% |
The rating answers one question: how well does this tool serve a business with 2 to 50 people that runs it without a developer? Some tools are built for developers: APIs and SDKs, hosting and databases, AI-agent toolkits and code editors. Rating them on that question would say more about the question than the tool.
So these tools show “For builders” instead of a rating. Their page still explains each factor for a small team that has a developer, and their Openness facts are checked the same way as every other tool.
Five factors are researched, then scored against this rubric.
An AI researcher reads the vendor's own pages and gives each factor a score and a one-line reason with its source. A second AI check re-opens every source before anything is published. Openness is never scored by judgment: only confirmed facts count.
Openness facts come only from vendor pages.
Each one has a link and a checked-on date. We check again every 90 days.
No vendor money.
No paid placement, no sponsored listings, no vendor portal.
We don't sell software.
So we have no stake in which one you pick.
Tell us in a 15-minute chat, or write to hello@stoa.agency. We check it against the vendor's pages.
