Recommendation Methodology
How we calculate your matches.
An honest look at how Match % is calculated, what factors it weighs, and what it deliberately leaves out.
What Match % measures
Match % is a personalized compatibility score, calculated from your quiz answers compared against each product's characteristics — skill-level suitability, playing-style fit, swing profile, power versus control preference, comfort needs, injury considerations, weight and handling preference, your stated goals, and brand preference when you give one.
The same criteria are applied consistently across every brand and every comparable product. No product gets a different standard because of who makes it or who sells it.
How factors are weighted
Not every factor counts equally. Comfort and safety needs — like arm, elbow, wrist, or shoulder discomfort — are weighted above stylistic preferences, which in turn matter more than secondary factors like weight and handling, your broader goals, and brand preference.
In priority order: comfort and safety needs, playing characteristics, performance priorities, weight and handling, goals, then brand preference.
Budget is evaluated separately
Budget is never blended into Match %. A product's price doesn't raise or lower how compatible it is with your game — it only determines whether that product falls within the budget you selected.
You'll see this as its own status: Within Budget or Above Budget, never as a partial percentage. We don't hide the price difference on above-budget options — we just don't let price quietly influence the compatibility score.
What Match % is, and isn't
Match % is shown as a whole number, never a decimal, and we don't show a percentage unless it comes from this same, consistent calculation. We also don't artificially cluster every recommendation above 90% — a genuinely middling fit should score like one.
Match % reflects compatibility with your stated preferences and playing needs. It is guidance, not a guarantee of performance.
Affiliate relationships never affect Match %, budget status, or recommendation order.
Curious how partners and disclosure fit into this?