Every card’s overall score is a weighted average of four component scores, each on a 0–100 scale. All four come from publicly stated product terms — earn rates, annual fees, welcome bonuses, and statement credits.

The weights depend on the card’s main type, because what matters most differs by type. For example:

Intro APR offers are scored separately (length of the 0% period, up to 24 months, with a deduction for higher balance transfer fees) and are used to rank cards on the 0% APR pages; they are not part of the composite score.

A category score is the card’s estimated net yearly value in that category: rewards on a standard year of spending in the category, valued at the same point values as the composite score, minus the part of the annual fee that the card’s usable credits don’t cover. A net return of 6% of the category spending scores 100; a card whose rewards and usable credits don’t cover its fee scores low, or 0. Credits only offset the fee — they never add to a category score beyond it.

Premium cards. Cards with an annual fee of $350 or more (and cards sold as premium with a fee of $250 or more) compete in the regular rankings on the same net-value basis. On the travel, airline, hotel, dining and grocery pages they are also ranked among themselves by estimated yearly value after the fee: rewards on a $2,000/month spending profile plus usable credits, minus the annual fee.

Welcome bonuses are converted to a cash value using the point valuations maintained in our database (see point values) — 1¢ per point for cash back, about 1.5¢ for flexible currencies such as Chase Ultimate Rewards and Amex Membership Rewards, and less for most hotel programs.

The bonus score is the bonus’s percentile among all live cards with a welcome bonus: the largest bonus scores 100, and a card in the middle of the pack scores about 50. Cards without a current welcome bonus score 0 on this component.

Annual fee. In the composite score the fee is scored on its own (no fee = 100, the highest live fee = 0). In category scores and the premium ranking the fee is subtracted from the card’s value in dollars, after usable credits.

Usable credits. We list each card’s recurring yearly credits from the issuer’s site and count each at a share of its face value: broad travel credits and anniversary points at 100%; credits tied to a common kind of spending or that must be used monthly, quarterly, or twice a year (dining, rideshare, delivery, streaming, airline fees, the card’s own airline or hotel brand) at 50%; single-merchant, lifestyle, membership, and prepaid-hotel-collection credits at 25%. Free-night and companion certificates count at a fixed, conservative value. We don’t count Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credits, lounge access, elite status, insurance and protections, discounts, credits that need a spending threshold, one-time or first-year credits, or credits that end within the year. The total is capped and then discounted by 10% for credits that go unused.

No-annual-fee cards start with an advantage on the fee, but a fee card whose rewards and usable credits more than cover the fee can still rank above them.

Source. All card terms — earn rates, annual fees, bonus amounts, intro APR periods — are sourced from issuer websites and official card terms pages. We do not use affiliate data feeds. Every product has a source URL on file.

Verification. Card data comes from our database, verified on each issuer’s site; dates shown. Cards are rechecked against their source pages on a rolling schedule, and rankings update whenever a card’s data changes. Changes to bonus offers, APR periods, and annual fees are flagged and reviewed by a human editor before being applied to scores.

Point values. Point and mile valuations are reviewed quarterly and updated when redemption values shift materially. We use a conservative blended valuation — not the maximum theoretical value — to keep scores grounded in realistic outcomes.

Score recalculation. Scores recalculate automatically whenever any input changes. There is no fixed recalculation schedule — a score is always current as of the last data update for that product.

Approval odds. Credit score requirements and issuer approval criteria are not factored into the score. A card that requires excellent credit is not penalized — we score the product, not the likelihood of getting it.

Issuer reputation. Customer service ratings, app quality, and issuer track record are not in the composite score. We note these factors in card descriptions where they’re material, but they don’t affect rankings.

Spending caps. Category earn rate caps reduce the practical value of some cards significantly. Where a card states a grocery cap, spending above the cap is valued at the card’s base rate in both the rewards and the grocery score; other category caps are not yet modeled.

Rotating categories. Cards with quarterly rotating or choose-your-own bonus categories get a small, capped addition to their rewards score for the estimated yearly value of those bonus categories, rather than being scored as if the top rate applied all year.