Free, employee-driven "Best Places to Work" awards that double as a sales funnel: the badges are won on anonymous employee ratings, but Comparably's owner ZoomInfo sells the employer-branding tools to promote them.
What it's really for An employer-review site; the awards are based on anonymous employee ratings.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its culture and pay ratings and 'Best Places to Work' awards, not everything the site does.
Medium Scoring Confidence Mostly sourced, but a detail or two still needs a primary source, so the grade could shift slightly.
Employers pay: Comparably (owned by ZoomInfo since 2022) gives a free basic profile but charges for premium claimed profiles and employer-branding/recruitment-marketing products, and the awards themselves are explicitly free to win, so by its own rules paying does not buy the award itself but funds the brand-promotion ecosystem around it.
Source →- Operating since
- 2015 (11 years) · source
- What it costs you
- Free to read The reviews are free to read.
- How they make money
- Aggregates anonymous, email-verified employee culture and pay ratings into rankings and "Best Places to Work" awards, then sells employers branding, recruitment-marketing, and premium-profile products built around that data.
- What they do
- Comparably scores companies and CEOs on workplace culture and compensation from anonymous employee reviews and issues quarterly "Best Places to Work" awards based on those ratings.
- What to watch for
- The awards cost nothing to win and run on anonymous, self-reported employee reviews rather than independent vetting, while the same platform sells employers paid branding tools to amplify those badges.
- Composite score
- 2.20 / 5.00 → grade C
How the grade was reached
Does the site take money from the very entities it ranks? Pay-for-placement, vendor-funded data, and affiliate commissions all pull this down. The less the ranking can be bought, the higher the score.
What is the ranking actually built on? Hands-on testing scores highest, then verified first-hand reviews, then opinion or popularity surveys and self-reported figures, then pay-to-rank, which scores lowest.
Is the methodology published, specific, and reproducible? Can a reader see how a given rank was reached, or is it a black box?
Are commercial relationships, sponsorships, and affiliate arrangements disclosed clearly and near the rankings themselves, rather than buried?
How hard is it to game? Controls against fake reviews, solicited reviews, and vendor gaming raise this; an open box anyone can stuff lowers it.
Evidence
- Comparably's award rules state there is no formal application and no fee payable to be eligible; eligibility is determined exclusively by how many employees leave reviews and their average scores over the past 12 months, with thresholds of 75 new reviews (501+ employees) or 25 (under 500). Source: Mobrium summary of Comparably award rules →
- ZoomInfo acquired Comparably on May 2, 2022, describing it as a recruitment-marketing and employer-branding platform whose tools help companies manage their employer brand and promote culture across career sites, social, and job boards; the free basic profile is paired with premium features requiring a sales inquiry. Source: ZoomInfo IR / press coverage of Comparably acquisition →
- Comparably requires email verification for each review to confirm real people, but all ratings are anonymous and aggregated; a former employee alleged on Glassdoor that the company engineers low scores to pressure firms into engaging its paid platform, illustrating gaming and conflict concerns. Source: Comparably FAQ and Glassdoor review of Comparably →