About · PetScored desk
An evidence-led pet product review, built by skeptics.
We built PetScored because dog food rating sites are dominated by two things: advertising in disguise, and confident-sounding opinion with no method. We thought we could do better by being honest about what a label can and can’t prove.
What we promise
Four commitments.
- 01
We publish the rubric.
Every score is reconstructible from the public methodology. If you disagree with a score, you can show your work. So can we.
- 02
We take no manufacturer money.
No paid placements, no sponsored rankings, no free product reviews. Affiliate links on retail pages are disclosed and never affect scores.
- 03
We refuse to score what we can't verify.
When the evidence is missing, contested, or partial in a way we can't resolve, the bag stays off the public scorecards. The absence is the honest answer.
- 04
We don't pretend to be your vet.
We score what the label can prove. We do not diagnose, recommend for disease, or replace clinical judgment. We say so on every page that touches medical territory.
How this is funded
Independent, today.
PetScored is currently bootstrapped. There is no manufacturer money, no investor money, and no paid tier yet. The site is built and run by its founders.
We plan to add affiliate links on retail-purchase actions for foods that have already been scored - disclosed in plain sight, never influencing the rubric or the score. We may introduce a paid tier later (premium recall alerts is the obvious candidate). If we do, we’ll publish the change on this page first.
What we will not do, ever: take money from manufacturers, accept payment to score or re-score a bag, or let any revenue source change a sub-score or a best-for ranking. The receipts are public - the rubric, the changelog, and what we refused to score all say so.
Want to support PetScored before there is a paid tier? There’s a way.
Why dog food first
The proving ground.
Dog food labels are flawed, but they exist. Nutrition panels are required. Ingredient lists are required. Recall records are public. Retail prices are traceable. That makes dog food the one category where a deterministic rubric can be built and defended without inventing data.
Dog food, cat food, supplements, and treats are live, each on its own deterministic rubric. Insurance, diagnostics, and pet tech each have their own evidence problems. PetScored will only score them when each category has its own defensible methodology. Until then they stay on the roadmap, not the rubric.
Who we are
The desk.
PetScored is a small team. We have lived with dogs, have read too many labels, and have spent enough time reading the adverse-food-reaction literature to know how little of it makes it onto a bag. We are not vets. We are not scientists. We are careful readers of public evidence.
Editorial and methodology decisions are made by the PetScored desk. If you want to argue with a score, write to us. If you want to argue with the rubric, do that too - we change the rubric in public when the argument is good.