How we rate expert networks: the methodology behind our badges

Every expert network on the Inex One marketplace is evaluated on the same terms. Not all of them carry a badge. Where we do award one - Gold, Silver, or Bronze - it reflects consistent performance in the previous calendar year, not a single good quarter.

We can publish this because of where we sit. Every expert network has a horse in the race: GLG can't credibly rate AlphaSights, and AlphaSights can't credibly rate GLG. We don't have one. We're the aggregator networks run bookings through, which means we're also the only party that can look across all of them on the same terms and say, plainly, who is actually delivering.

What we rate

This methodology covers 21 expert networks we closely work with and listed in our expert network directory.

Alongside the badge, each directory profile records the services a network offers, the regions it covers, where it is headquartered, and its size. Those are descriptive; they don't feed the badge. The badge is a read on operational performance only - the three pillars below.

Ratings currently shown reflect activity between January 2025 and December 2025, and were last updated in March 2026.

What the badge is built from

We used to benchmark networks against each other and against rough industry norms. We've moved away from that. Competitor benchmarking is too easy to argue with - every network has a reason its service should be judged differently. So we score against Best-in-Class targets instead.

These targets aren't arbitrary. They come from years spent inside this industry, working with 50+ networks across the client types we serve: private equity due diligence, corporate strategy, consulting, and market research. That's what the bar is built on - not a competitor's number, and not one client's perspective, but hands-on experience of what excellence looks like.

It comes down to three pillars.

Speed: A network at the Best-in-Class bar responds to a new request within 15 minutes, and publishes qualified experts just as quickly: within 15 minutes for unscreened experts, or within an hour when it screens the expert first. We track screened and unscreened publishing separately, because screening is real work and a network shouldn't be marked down for being thorough.
Quality: The main signal is conversion rate: of the experts a network puts forward, how many become a booked, completed call. The Best-in-Class bar is 25% or higher. We also track how often a call ends inside the 15-minute grace period - about as clean a signal of a poor expert match as we have. The Best-in-Class bar is no more than 5 grace calls.
Quantity: Experts published against client demand. We aren't looking for networks that simply clear 100% of what a client asks for. The Best-in-Class range is 120–150% - the band that gives a client real options rather than a single name to take or leave.

What Gold, Silver, and Bronze badges mean

The tier logic is deliberately simple:

Gold: meets or exceeds the Best-in-Class targets on all three pillars
Silver: meets the Best-in-Class targets on two of the three
Bronze: meets the Best-in-Class targets on one of the three

A network that meets none of the three targets does not carry a badge.

There is no hidden weighting and no rounding in a network's favour. A tier isn't about beating another network; it's about clearing a fixed bar.

What has to be true before a network is rated at all

Compliance comes first. Every partner has to pass our compliance review before working with us, and has to keep passing it to remain a partner. Compliance is separate from the badge - it never pushes a network up to Gold or down to Bronze. It decides whether a network is on the marketplace at all.

A rating also needs enough real activity behind it to mean anything. Networks below 50 bookings per month aren't rated until they surpass that threshold, which is why some partners carry no badge.

Tiers move in both directions. A network that falls below the bar at the next assessment is downgraded, the same way one that improves moves up. Underperforming networks aren't cut immediately - they get support and time to improve. Sustained underperformance can ultimately lead to removal from the marketplace, on the same footing as a failed compliance review.

What this rating does not account for

We'd rather be narrow and honest than broad and vague, so here is what the badge is not:

It is not a user review score. There's no review or star-rating system anywhere on Inex One that clients fill in about a network. This is our own assessment, built entirely from platform activity data - requests, responses, publish times, bookings, and outcomes - not opinion.
It is not for sale. No network's tier is influenced by its commercial terms with Inex One, its size, or how long it has been a partner. The marketplace runs on the same terms for everyone.
It does not reflect pricing. We track pricing and market share separately.
It does not say anything about how a specific expert performed on a specific project. It's a read on a network's operations in aggregate, not a verdict on any one project.
It measures performance on the Inex One marketplace. We can only see the work that runs through us. A network's performance with its direct clients, outside our platform, isn't part of this.

Who maintains this, and how often it changes

The rating is owned by our Partnerships and Supplier Operations team and maintained by Julia Farhat, our Partnerships Manager.

We review the framework itself - the pillars, the targets, and the compliance requirements - once a year. It was last reviewed in March 2026.

Tier assignments are reassessed annually, in combination with an overview of the network's annual performance.

If a network disagrees with its tier, or thinks we're measuring the wrong thing, we want to hear it. That feedback is part of how the framework gets reviewed each year, not a complaint that goes nowhere.

Using and citing these ratings

These ratings are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence: you may quote or reuse them, including commercially, provided you credit Inex One and link to this page.

If you're citing the ratings - in research, in the press, or in a procurement process - please attribute them to Inex One and link to this page, so readers can see how the rating was arrived at.

Suggested copy - Inex One partner ranking

This is suggested copy for you to use on social channels to celebrate your Inex One rating badge - the award celebrating the best-performing expert networks and B2B survey firms that we partner with.

Tip: Companies that got the most out of last year's badge announcements told the story behind the number: what drove the growth, and what's next.

We’re one of the best expert networks globally!

We’ve earned a [gold/silver/bronze] badge from Inex One, based on the work we do supporting more than 8,000 users globally, from Tokyo to LA.

The award considers our speed, quality, and consistency of service. Our team of [XXX] colleagues have earned this through hard work and being close to the clients.

This year, we’ve grown our company with [other company news, e.g. new office expansion, rebranding, acquisition, etc.].

See the full ranking: https://inex.one/blog/the-best-expert-networks

Suggested citation

Inex One. Expert Network Ratings. Last updated March 2026. https://inex.one/methodology/how-we-rate-expert-networks

Shareable assets

Networks rated in 2026 can download their official shareable assets here along with the rules for displaying them.

This page explains the method. For the current rankings and our view of which networks stand out this year, see The Best Expert Networks.