Every weight, documented.
The Crunch Score is our editorial ranking of the directory: a weighted average of 8 criteria. The table below is read from the same rows that produce the score — change a weight and this page changes with it. There is no separate copy of the methodology to fall out of date.
Same checklist, every listing
Editors score each provider against published criteria. Change a weight on the methodology page and the ranking changes with it.
Stars from readers, score from us
The star rating is approved user reviews. The Crunch Score is editorial and never feeds those stars.
Placement is not for sale
Order follows the score. A sponsored listing is labelled and stays where the score puts it.
The weights
| Criterion | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 21% | Editorial rating of reliability, based on the provider's published success-rate figures, SLA terms and reader reports. |
| Value for money | 17% | Value for money across every published plan tier. |
| Speed | 14% | Editorial rating of speed, based on the provider's published performance figures and reader reports. |
| Trust & transparency | 14% | Sourcing transparency, logging policy, KYC friction and published audits. |
| Location targeting | 10% | Country, city and ASN targeting options, as listed in the provider's documentation. |
| Pool size | 10% | Pool size and subnet/ASN diversity, as published by the provider. |
| Support | 7% | Support channels and hours the provider offers, and how readers describe their support experience. |
| Docs & API | 7% | API and documentation quality, rated by our editors against a fixed rubric. |
A further 16 criteria are scored per proxy type, which is why a provider can hold a different score under Residential than under Datacenter. Those appear on each listing page.
What we do not do
- We do not sell rankings. Placement is a pure function of the score. 3 listings are sponsored today; each is labelled and appears in the same order it would otherwise. The sort is unit-tested to prove flipping every sponsorship flag cannot reorder a list.
- We do not count our own opinion as a review. The star rating averages approved reader reviews only — moderated, and marked verified where a moderator has checked. The editorial rating is shown separately and never feeds it.
- We do not run performance tests. Pricing, pool sizes and coverage are as each provider publishes them. The Crunch Score is an editorial rating against the criteria above, not a measurement — where it rates reliability or speed, that rating draws on published figures and reader reports.
- We do not hide affiliate links. Outbound links that earn a fee are marked, and the disclosure sits in the footer of every page.
Questions about a specific score? Ask us — we will show our working.