How we score streaming services
Every service on this site carries one number out of 100. It is not a vibe, an affiliate ranking or a star rating someone typed in. It is calculated from four measurements, using the same rule for all 186 services we track.
Why we built it
Streaming reviews mostly rank whatever pays best. We wanted the opposite: a score you can argue with, because you can see exactly where every point came from.
So each of the four criteria has a written rule and a stated source. Put the same service through it twice and you get the same number. Change the price, the channel lineup or the app rating, and the score moves on its own.
The one thing we deliberately do not score: sport. Netflix is not a worse service for skipping the NFL, and marking it down for that would tell you nothing useful about Netflix or about Fubo. Where live sport matters, it shows up inside the channel count.
The four criteria
Each is scored 0 to 100 on its own, then combined. Here is what earns a 0 and what earns a 100.
Content quality
38% of the scoreThe two types of service are not measurable on the same axis, so they are measured differently.
Live TV is scored on how many of the ten most-watched US cable networks it carries: Fox News, ESPN, MSNBC, HGTV, Hallmark Channel, TNT, TBS, CNN, USA Network and Food Network. Carry all ten and you score 100.
On-demand is scored on how many titles from the AGMTW recommended list it carries. That is our own curation, built over a decade, so it measures the thing readers actually come here for: is there anything on it worth watching. The count is log-scaled, so going from 50 to 100 good films counts for more than going from 900 to 950.
Source: published channel lineups; the AGMTW catalog.
Value for money
27% of the scorePrice, measured against the cheapest service of the same kind, never against the whole market.
A $90 cable replacement and a $9 channel package are not offering the same thing, so ranking them together says nothing. Every service sits in a basket defined by its type and its price band, and is scored against the floor of that basket alone.
Source: the advertised monthly price of the plan we list.
Apps and devices
22% of the scoreHalf how good the app is, half how many screens it actually runs on.
A service can have a beautiful app nobody can install, or run everywhere and be miserable to use. Scoring both catches both. The device list is Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Samsung, LG, Vizio, Xbox, PlayStation, iPhone, Android and the web browser.
Source: live iOS App Store and Google Play ratings; the platform's own supported-devices page.
Streaming quality
13% of the scoreThe picture and sound you actually get, on the plan whose price we list.
Usually the base plan. Plenty of services advertise 4K that only exists on a tier costing twice as much, and we score the tier a reader would actually land on.
Source: the platform's published specifications.
How they add up
The overall score is a weighted average, not a flat one. What you can watch and what it costs decide most of the grade.
The baskets
Value for money only compares like with like. These are the groups, and how many services sit in each.
DIRECTV is ranked against Fubo, YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV. Frndly TV is ranked against Philo and Sling Essentials. Neither is ever ranked against the other.
What the spread looks like
If a scoring system hands out 90s to everything it is not measuring anything. Here is how all 186 services actually fall.
Where that lands today
The ten highest-scoring standalone services right now. Bundles and rent-or-buy stores are left out, the same as on the hub. The four bars under each name are content, value, apps and picture, in that order.
What we get wrong
No scoring system is neutral, and pretending otherwise would be the dishonest part. Three things worth knowing before you trust the number:
Free services score very well on value
Something free is unbeatable on price by definition, so Tubi, Kanopy and Plex rank above services people pay real money for. That is the rule working as intended, but it does mean the top of the list is not simply "the services worth paying for".
Some catalogs are our judgment, not a count
We only have title-level availability data for about twenty services. For the rest, content quality is our own read on the catalog, calibrated against the ones we can count. Every one of those is written down with a reason.
Nothing here scores contracts
A deal that requires a phone plan or home internet is scored on the same four criteria as a service you can cancel tomorrow. Check the fine print on any bundle before the score convinces you.
Go and use it
Every score is live on the hub, where you can filter by channel, price, device and any of the four criteria.
Find a streaming service →