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TopReferrals

How we rank

Every offer on TopReferrals gets a TopScore from 0 to 10, built from six weighted factors and drawn entirely from the brand's own published terms. The weights are fixed and published below, so the number is an opinion about real facts that anyone can reproduce — never a fabricated rating.

The six factors

28%

Reward value

How much the new joiner actually receives, in real money.

20%

Ease of claiming

How little you must do to qualify — fewer, smaller steps score higher.

15%

Payout speed

How quickly the bonus lands once you've qualified.

13%

Protection & trust

FSCS-protected deposits rank above safeguarded e-money or unregulated credit.

12%

Two-sided value

Whether both you and the person who referred you are rewarded.

12%

Dependability

Evergreen, stable terms and a live link — not a countdown campaign.

The weights sum to 100%. Each factor is scored 0–10, multiplied by its weight, and summed to give the TopScore — rounded to one decimal place.

What the score means

Elite8.5–10

Top-tier — claim with confidence.

Strong7.5–8.4

Excellent for most people.

Solid6.0–7.4

Worth it if it fits your needs.

Fairbelow 6.0

Situational — read the trade-offs.

How we verify the facts behind the score

A score is only as honest as the facts it rests on, so every figure we score comes from the brand's own published terms — its help centre, in-app screens, or terms page — read from the source, not a deals roundup. We then check our work on two tracks:

  • Daily:an automated check confirms each referral link still resolves. The “last checked” date on every page is the day of that check — it means last verified, not last edited.
  • Monthly:an editor re-reads each offer's terms — the reward, who gets paid, the qualifying action, the eligibility window — corrects anything that has moved, and re-scores.

Because a brand sets a single referral reward for everyone, individual codes don't pay differently. So we rank one verified offer per brand rather than listing dozens of unchecked ones. A link that fails the check is delisted the day we catch it.

What the score is not

The TopScore is our editorial assessment of an offer, computed transparently from public facts. It is not a user-review aggregate, and we never present it as star ratings or invent customer numbers. Where a reward is variable or campaign-limited, that lowers the relevant factor rather than being hidden.

See the leaderboard the method produces →