How LocalRank ranks

A ranking is only worth reading if you can see how it was built. Every LocalRank ranking states who wrote it, who edited it, what was assessed, when each entry was last checked, and what we could not verify.

• We assess what a prospective customer can check before they commit.
• Every criterion score carries a written note explaining it.
• We publish limitations, not just strengths.
• We say when we do not know something.

There is no single LocalRank score applied across every category. A ranking of plumbers and a ranking of restaurants are assessed against different criteria with different weights, because the things that go wrong in those trades are different.

Each category carries a criterion template. Aircon servicing weights responsiveness and pricing transparency most heavily. Plumbing weights licensing most heavily, because some works legally require a licensed plumber. Interior design weights project management alongside design quality, because schedule and variations are where projects fail.

Compares consumer-facing aircon servicing companies in Singapore on what they publish. There is no complete authoritative register of this market, so eligibility is declared rather than taken from a register. BCA ME01 registration is recorded as a credential where held and is not scored.

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Compares consumer-facing electrical service providers in Singapore on what they publish. No authoritative consumer register exists: EMA licenses individual electrical workers and its ELISE directory is CAPTCHA-gated, while BCA ME05 registers public-sector construction contractors and missed two thirds of an independent consumer probe. Price level is not compared, because the four published pricing structures are not commensurable and no company publishes prices together with GST treatment.

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Home services are assessed on responsiveness, pricing transparency, credentials, warranty and reported customer experience, weighted per trade.

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Dining is assessed on food quality, consistency across a service, value against the price, service standard and accessibility.

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Education providers are assessed on verifiable inputs — teacher credentials, class size, curriculum fit, reporting and value. We publish no composite score.

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Compares consumer-facing plumbing companies in Singapore on what they publish. No complete authoritative register of this market exists. PUB licenses individual plumbers, not companies, and its public directory could not be reached during research, so every licence claim is recorded as published-but-unverified. Pricing is not compared: only two of ten companies publish any figure.

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Where every criterion in a ranking carries a weight, and those weights sum to 100%, we publish a composite score alongside the criteria.

Where the underlying evidence does not support that precision, we publish no composite at all. Tuition is the clearest example: centres advertise grade improvements, but those figures are self-reported and the students who enrol are not a random sample. A single number would imply a confidence we do not have, so we show the criteria and let you weight them yourself.

Every ranking has a review date. When it passes, the ranking is flagged for an editor and appears in our internal queue. The page always shows the date it was last reviewed, and each entry shows when its details were last checked — those are stored dates, not a timestamp generated on page load.

Material changes are recorded in a public update log on the page itself.

Businesses cannot buy an editorial ranking position. This is enforced structurally, not just by policy: sponsored placements and ranking entries are separate records with no relationship between them, and the commercial roles in our system do not hold the permission required to edit a ranking.

Paid placements appear outside the ranked list and always carry a label. Read our advertising policy.

If something here is factually wrong, tell us and we will check it. Every ranking carries a “report an error” link, and corrections that change a material fact are logged publicly on the page.

We will correct facts. We will not remove accurate information because a business would prefer it were not there, and we do not accept payment to change an editorial assessment. Report a correction.