ThatPainter keeps two kinds of list. Apps are ranked by ThatPainter's score. Paints and tools are not scored: they are listed by what their makers publish.
The score for apps
The score is worked out every morning from the research record, and nobody types it in. It weighs five things:
- Where the research places the app (35%). The order the research found for the app in its market when it built the list.
- What the maker publishes (25%). How many distinct facts we could read and source, and how many plans carry a printed price.
- Fit for a painter on the job (15%). An app on a phone or tablet counts most; a web app next; a desktop program after that.
- Try before paying (15%). A free plan, an open-source licence or a free trial.
- Freshness (10%). Facts read in the last 30 days count in full, then less, down to a fifth after four months.
Ties go to the research order, then the name.
Paints and tools
Paints, primers, coatings and tools are not scored by us. Each list puts first the products whose makers publish the most figures — type, finish, coverage, drying and recoat times, surfaces, price — and every figure shows the maker's own words and the day we read it. Figures change: check the maker's page before you buy.
Places that are bought
Makers can buy a numbered place on an app list (#1 to #5), a place beside a rival on that rival's page, its alternatives and its comparisons, a featured slot, or a list's sponsorship. A bought place sits where it was bought, and the app at that place today moves down one. A bought place can show a score of its own. Everything else on a list is in the order the score gives it. A paid listing gives an app or a product a followed link to its maker's site; it does not change which lists it is on or where it sits on them.
Where the facts come from
Every fact, plan and figure is read from the maker's own pages (and, for some apps, the app stores), with the address and the day it was read. A maker can correct its page for free by claiming it.