Openness Score

It answers a buyer's first strategic question: is there room to become the named business here, or is the job displacing someone? Dental markets we measured run 80–90 — wide open everywhere — while plumbing and roofing run in the low 60s, usually with an entrenched favourite.

The three components measure different kinds of settledness, which is why none of them works alone. Leader concentration asks how much of the answer set the single most-named business holds. Cross-assistant consensus asks how much of the shortlist all three assistants independently agree on — the strongest signal, because agreement between systems reading different evidence is hard to manufacture. Single-mention churn asks what share of named businesses appeared exactly once, which across our 30 markets averaged about 60% and indicates how much of the field is noise rather than standing.

Averaged across five metros, the ranking by trade was consistent: dental practices 84.6, law firms 68.4, HVAC companies 66.4, med spas 63.2, roofing companies 62.0, plumbing companies 60.2. The gap between trades was substantially wider than the gap between cities within a trade, which is the finding that matters strategically — the trade you are in predicts your situation better than the city you are in.

The limits are published alongside the number. It is a snapshot of one measurement date, built from 18 answers per market, and the weights are a judgment rather than a derived optimum. It describes contestability, not difficulty: an open market means no one has been anointed, not that winning is easy.

The formula, thresholds, and limits are published in full on the methodology page, and every score appears beside its raw inputs. A metric nobody can recompute is marketing; this one is meant to be checked.