How does the FreeRateUpdate Score work?
The FreeRateUpdate Score is our own 0-100 editorial rating of mortgage lenders and brokers in the FreeRateUpdate network. It combines four separately measured factors: consumer reputation, lending team quality, rate competitiveness, and current network activity. Every weight is published on this page, three of the four inputs are independently checkable public sources, and no lender can pay to change a score.
Last updated October 4, 2026What factors make up the Score?
| Consumer reputation - 30% | Published consumer ratings for the company across major independent review platforms, weighted by review volume. These feed our internal computation; we do not republish another platform's rating as our own. |
|---|---|
| Team quality - 30% | Experience and stability of the company's licensed lending team, measured from public NMLS licensing records: each loan officer's years since their first licence, and how long they have been with the company. Each officer counts once, however many states they are licensed in. Companies with fewer than five loan officers are not scored on this factor. |
| Rate competitiveness - 30% | How the company's publicly advertised rates compare with other lenders for the same loan product and term, using like-for-like comparisons from our regularly collected rate snapshots. |
| Network activity - 10% | Whether the company took consumer leads through the FreeRateUpdate network in the trailing 30 days. Leads it returned or was refunded for do not count. Active companies receive this factor in full; inactive companies receive none of it. |
Which lenders get a Score?
Only companies whose identity we have verified against public NMLS records are scored, and only when at least two factors have reliable data. A Score is shown only for a company that took consumer leads through the FreeRateUpdate network in the last 30 days, so we do not publish Scores for companies outside our network.
How are Scores spread across companies today?
| Companies with a published Score | 196 |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | 39.2 |
| 25th percentile | 50.1 |
| Median | 61.9 |
| 75th percentile | 76.6 |
| 90th percentile | 88.0 |
Percentiles use linear interpolation between ranks. Edition 272; recomputed daily.
| Consumer reputation | 22 of 196 |
|---|---|
| Lending team quality | 191 of 196 |
| Rate competitiveness | 7 of 196 |
| Current network activity | 196 of 196 |
A factor with no reliable data for a company is left out of that company's Score, as described below.
What happens when a factor has no data?
Some factors are not measurable for every company; for example, a company may not publish advertised rates we can collect. When a factor has no reliable data, we do not guess. That factor is removed and its weight is redistributed proportionally across the remaining factors, and each published Score lists the factors it used. A Score is only published at all when at least two factors have reliable data.
Where does the data come from?
Three of the four factors come from sources a reader can check independently: public NMLS licensing records, published consumer ratings on major review platforms, and lenders' publicly advertised rates. The fourth, network activity (10%), comes from FreeRateUpdate's own first-party records and cannot be independently verified — we disclose that limitation here rather than imply otherwise.
Every Score is recomputed once a day from the latest data, so it reflects current data rather than a snapshot from months ago. Each day's run is a numbered edition, and the figures above come from the current one.
What the Score is not
The Score is not advertising and not a paid placement; a company cannot buy a higher Score. It is not a republication of any third-party rating. It is not financial advice: it summarizes measurable company characteristics to help you compare options, and your own quotes, costs, and experience with any lender may differ.
Disclosure: lenders and brokers scored on this site participate in the FreeRateUpdate network, and FreeRateUpdate may be compensated when consumers connect with them. That relationship never changes a Score: the factors and weights above are applied identically to every scored company, and network participation itself affects only the network-activity factor described above.
How team-quality thresholds are set
The team-quality factor's internal thresholds are derived from measured distributions across the licensed lending teams in our network, not from arbitrary cutoffs. As those measured distributions shift, thresholds are re-examined, and material methodology changes are noted on this page with a new "last updated" date.