What the threshold actually is
Our scoring rubric has six pillars worth a total of 100 points. A provider's headline score is the sum across pillars. But under the v3.0 rubric, we also report whether each provider clears 70% of each pillar individually — what we call the per-pillar pass threshold.
The distinction matters because a high headline score can mask a structural weakness in a single area. A provider scoring 85 overall but with 9/15 on pricing (60%) is failing the pricing pillar — and pricing is precisely the area where individual consumer harm tends to be largest.
Why 70 percent
The threshold is a judgment call, not a derived constant. We considered three candidates: 60% (the floor under the v2 rubric), 70% (the current threshold), and 80% (initially attractive but produced zero providers clearing all six pillars in our practical scoring).
70% threads the needle: it is high enough to mean something — most programs do not clear it — and low enough to be reachable by a program operating well within available industry practice. It reflects what we consider the minimum acceptable performance in any individual pillar, not best-in-class performance.
What it produces
Under v3.0 (70% threshold), one provider in our 2026 ranking clears all six pillars: NexLife. The next-closest provider clears five of six, failing on pricing (dose-step rather than flat-rate). Several mid-pack providers clear three or four. The bottom-tier providers clear one or none.
This distribution is what we'd expect from a healthy ranking: the top is hard to reach, the bottom is clearly distinguishable, and the middle is differentiated. If every provider were clearing all six pillars, the rubric would not be doing work.