How ratings work

The short version: we combine scores from several review sites, give more weight to scores based on more reviews, and show you where every number came from.

Where the information comes from

Nobody types ratings or contact details into this site by hand. A script visits public web pages, reads what they say, and saves each fact together with the page it came from and the date. The site is then rebuilt from that file. You can see every source on the sources page.

Ratings come from the review sites listed below.
Contact options (email, phone, live chat, contact forms, forums) are detected on the provider's own website. The buttons open the page where we found them.
Locations come from Wikidata, the address on the provider's own website, or their Google Maps listing. These are often offices, not factories, and we say which.
Certifications (ISO 9001, UL, IATF 16949, AS9100, ISO 13485…) are the ones the provider's own pages claim. We link to that page. We haven't seen the certificates.
Local shops come from OpenStreetMap, a map that volunteers keep up to date.

When the script can't read something (a page blocks automated readers, or a site has no score for this service) the listing says so under “What we couldn't check”. We respect each site's robots.txt file. Certifications don't change the score.

Review sites we use

Trustpilot: General consumer reviews with large samples. Businesses can invite reviewers, which tends to push scores up.; How we read it: Trustpilot's robots.txt blocks automated readers, so we take the score Google shows for the Trustpilot page (via the Serper search API).
PCBShopper: Reviews written by people who ordered PCBs. Small samples, but on topic.; How we read it: Read from the schema.org rating data on the PCBShopper review page.
SmartCustomer: General consumer reviews (formerly Sitejabber). A second opinion next to Trustpilot.; How we read it: Read from the schema.org rating data on the review page.

We never use review pages hosted by the provider itself.

The combined score

A plain average would let 3 glowing reviews beat 3,000 good ones. To avoid that, every service starts as if it had 50 reviews of 3.5 stars. Its real reviews from all sources are then added in. With only a few real reviews the score stays close to 3.5. With thousands, the real reviews decide it almost entirely.

combined = (3.5 × 50 + sum of (score × reviews) for each site) ÷ (50 + total reviews)

Next to the score, each listing says how much to trust it:

High confidence: 500 or more reviews, or 200 or more across at least two sites.
Medium confidence: 100 or more reviews.
Low confidence: fewer than 100 reviews.

If none of the review sites has a score, the listing says “No rating found”. We never fill the gap with a made-up number.

Near me, or anywhere

Most online services ship worldwide, so the work doesn't have to be done in your city. If you'd rather have it made close by, to save shipping time, avoid import fees or pick it up, add your place at the top of the directory. You can then keep only services in your country or within a distance you choose, sort by distance, and see local shops and makerspaces on a list.

Partner networks (like Craftcloud or Treatstock) send jobs to shops in many countries. We can't check which partner is near you, so you choose whether to keep them in a “near me” search.

Your privacy

There are no accounts, cookies, analytics or ads.
Your location is never saved. To find a town and the shops near it, your browser asks OpenStreetMap's public search services (Nominatim and Overpass) directly. They receive the town you typed, or your position rounded to about 1 km, and nothing else from this site. Their privacy policy (opens in a new tab) applies. If you don't add a place, nothing is sent.
The browser is told to block requests to any other site, so the page can't send your location anywhere else.
The site is a set of static files: there is no server that could store anything about you.
Your display settings are saved in your own browser only.
Links to providers and review sites open their websites, which have their own privacy rules.

What this can't tell you

Scores change. Ours are snapshots from the date shown.
A script can miss things: a contact page it couldn't read, or a score shown only as a picture.
Review sites lean towards people who had a very good or very bad experience.
Trustpilot's country sites often show different scores for the same company.
A certification shows a quality process exists, not that every order will be perfect.

Accessibility

We aim to meet WCAG 2.2 level AA. Use the Display & accessibility button at the top of every page to change text size, contrast, font (including OpenDyslexic and Lexend for dyslexic readers), text spacing, line length, animation, link underlines and layout. Your choices are saved in this browser only. Everything works with a keyboard and a screen reader.

If something gets in your way, please report it on GitHub. We treat accessibility problems as bugs.

Adding or correcting a listing

The list of services to look up is one short file in the code repository. Open an issue or pull request on GitHub to suggest a service. Wrong local shop details are best fixed on OpenStreetMap itself. We have no affiliation with any listed service and accept no paid placements.