Independent and transparent, but it measures reputation, not whether the work is any good.
What it's really for Career-research content for job seekers. The firm ranking measures prestige among peers, not client outcomes.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its prestige ranking of accounting firms, not everything the site does.
High Scoring Confidence Checked against primary sources. We are confident in the facts and the grade here.
- Operating since
- 1996 (30 years)
- What it costs you
- Free to read The reviews are free to read.
- How they make money
- Career-content subscriptions and employer profiles. Does not sell firm rank.
- What they do
- Asks accountants to rate rival firms 1-10 on prestige, then averages the scores. Transparent and not for sale.
- What to watch for
- It measures how impressive a firm looks to other accountants, which tells you nothing about whether it will serve you well as a client.
- Composite score
- 2.80 / 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
- Professionals rate firms other than their own employer on perceived prestige (1-10); Vault averages the scores. It is a reputation measure, not a quality test. Source: Vault methodology →