Five criteria, five goats each

The five criteria

Deliberately independent of each other. A product can do its job beautifully and still cost more than it saves, and both of those are worth knowing on their own.

1. 01

   Built for Australia

   Was this built for Australian broking, adapted to it, or indifferent to it?

   What we look at

   • Whether the language is settlements and lenders, or closings and vendors
   • NCCP and Best Interests Duty awareness in templates, records and workflow
   • Where client data is stored, and whether that is stated or buried
   • Pricing quoted in AUD rather than converted at checkout
   • Support hours that overlap an Australian working day

   What each score means here

   1. 5/5Exceptional

      Built here or rebuilt for here. An Australian broker could hand it to a new team member without a translation.

   2. 4/5Strong

      Clearly adapted for Australia — AUD pricing, local support hours, the right vocabulary. A few screens still read as imported.

   3. 3/5Capable

      Works here. You will meet American spelling, a US date format or a compliance concept that does not apply, and you will route around them.

   4. 2/5Limited

      Usable in Australia with effort. Key parts assume another market and the workarounds are yours to maintain.

   5. 1/5Deficient

      A global product with an AU flag on the pricing page. Everything else is someone else’s market.

2. 02

   Does the job

   Does it do the one thing this category exists for, properly?

   What we look at

   • The category’s actual job — a serviceability tool’s accuracy and lender coverage, a CRM’s pipeline, a document tool’s chase and sign
   • Whether it holds up on the fourth day, not the first hour
   • What happens on the unhappy path: a failed sync, a declined file, a client who goes quiet
   • Whether the feature list and the working product are the same product

   What each score means here

   1. 5/5Exceptional

      Does the core job better than anything else we have run in the category, including on the days it goes wrong.

   2. 4/5Strong

      Does the job properly. There is a weak spot and you will find it in month two rather than week one.

   3. 3/5Capable

      Does the job. Expect to keep a manual step or a spreadsheet alongside it for one part of the workflow.

   4. 2/5Limited

      Does part of the job. The gap is large enough that a second tool has to cover it.

   5. 1/5Deficient

      Demonstrates the job rather than doing it. Falls over somewhere a broker cannot route around.

3. 03

   Fits the stack

   Does it talk to everything else, or does it become another island?

   What we look at

   • Integrations that exist, work, and are still maintained — not a logo wall
   • How much re-keying it creates between this and the aggregator
   • Whether your data comes back out in a form you can use
   • Whether a broken automation announces itself or fails silently

   What each score means here

   1. 5/5Exceptional

      Slots into a real broker stack and reduces the number of places the same fact has to be typed.

   2. 4/5Strong

      Connects to what matters and the connections hold. One or two handoffs still need a person.

   3. 3/5Capable

      Has integrations. They work, they are shallow, and you will re-key more than you expected to.

   4. 2/5Limited

      Connects to little, and what it does connect to breaks quietly rather than loudly.

   5. 1/5Deficient

      A silo. Data goes in by hand and does not come out.

4. 04

   Worth the money

   Against what it actually replaces, is this a fair price?

   What we look at

   • Total monthly cost at a realistic seat count, not the headline tier
   • Metered extras — SMS, calls, AI usage, storage — and what a normal month costs
   • Onboarding and setup fees, and what they buy
   • What it genuinely lets you cancel

   What each score means here

   1. 5/5Exceptional

      Costs less than the things it removes, and the bill in month six looks like the quote in month one.

   2. 4/5Strong

      Fairly priced for what it does, and the metered extras are visible before you commit to them.

   3. 3/5Capable

      Priced about right, with a jump waiting at the seat count or usage tier a growing brokerage will hit.

   4. 2/5Limited

      Expensive for what you get, or the real cost only appears once onboarding is behind you.

   5. 1/5Deficient

      Priced for a market that is not broking, or the true cost only lands after the seats and the metering do.

5. 05

   Still improving

   Is this getting better, and will someone answer when it breaks?

   What we look at

   • What actually shipped in the last twelve months, not what was announced
   • How long support took to answer, and whether the answer was any good
   • Whether the roadmap describes work or describes marketing
   • Whether the vendor is stable enough to still be here at your next fixed-rate roll-off

   What each score means here

   1. 5/5Exceptional

      Ships real improvements on a visible cadence and answers support like people who use the product themselves.

   2. 4/5Strong

      Shipping steadily, support answers inside a working day, and the roadmap is mostly kept.

   3. 3/5Capable

      Maintained rather than developed. Support answers eventually and the answer is usually a link.

   4. 2/5Limited

      Little has shipped and support is slow enough to change how you plan your week around it.

   5. 1/5Deficient

      Nothing meaningful has shipped in a year and support is a form that goes nowhere.

What annoyed us

Every review carries one, and it is not optional. A reviewer who spends a week inside a product and finds nothing to complain about was not paying attention, or was not being straight with you.

It applies to the product we rank first in a category, and it applies to Finance OS. That last one is the point: on a site that also builds software, the note about our own product is the only part a reader has no reason to discount.