The math, data, & editorial process behind every Finly credit-card rating.
We score every card on a quantitative first-year value model — built from issuer term sheets, real spending data, and live loyalty-point valuations. No marketing copy, no advertiser influence, just numbers we can defend.
120+
Cards in our database
25+
Data points scored per card
Weekly
Re-verification cadence
$0
Advertiser influence on scores
The core equation
Three numbers. Modelled with surgical precision.
We deliberately keep the equation simple — the work happens in how accurately each term is computed. Every cap, every qualifying merchant, every minimum-spend window is decoded from the issuer’s own fine print before it touches the math.
First-Year Net Value
Simple shape, surgical inputs. Each variable is grounded in issuer-published rules and your real spending — never marketing copy.
Rewards earned
Per-category earn rates × your actual spending — but every cap, accelerator, and qualifying-merchant rule is modelled exactly as the issuer wrote it. "4× on groceries up to $500/month" becomes a real piecewise function, not a rounded average.
Welcome bonus
Valued at the minimum-spend threshold and time window the issuer requires. If hitting the bonus needs $5,000 in 90 days and your profile only spends $2,000/month, we flag it instead of pretending the bonus is guaranteed.
Annual fee
Includes year-one waivers, supplementary cardholder fees, and any conditional credits that effectively offset it. We never assume the fee away.
The pipeline
How a card becomes a score — six stages, all auditable.
Every rank you see on Finly is the output of this pipeline running against the latest issuer data. We can trace any score back to the exact terms and assumptions that produced it.
Fine-print ingestion
We read the full issuer term sheet, application disclosure, and benefits guide — not the marketing page. Every fee, every footnote, every promo end-date lands in a normalized schema with a source citation.
Reward caps & limits
Tiered earn rates, monthly category caps, annual maximums, accelerators that drop after a threshold — all encoded as piecewise rules. So a $4K/month spender doesn't get an inflated number on a card that caps at $500/month.
Merchant & network reality
Which grocery chains actually qualify as "grocery" on this specific card? Where does Costco fall? Does the merchant even accept Amex? We resolve qualifying merchants by MCC and overlay Visa / Mastercard / Amex acceptance so the math reflects where you'll actually swipe.
Loyalty point valuations
Each rewards currency has its own cents-per-point value — Aeroplan, Avion, Membership Rewards, RBC Rewards, Scene+, and more. We refresh whenever transfer ratios or award charts change so points don't get over- or under-counted.
Spending-pattern alignment
All those rules collide with your real spending — uploaded from a statement, entered manually, or modelled against six reference Canadian profiles. A card's score depends on the person reading the page, not a generic average.
Human verification
Top-ranked cards are applied for, approved, and used by our team. We redeem the rewards, dispute a charge, push the issuer's support — and update the model whenever real behaviour diverges from the published terms.
What we capture
The fields that actually move a score.
We normalize every card to the same schema. That consistency is what lets us compare a no-fee cashback card to a premium rewards card without sleight of hand — and what makes the math reproducible.
Reward rules & caps
Base earn rate
Category multipliers
Monthly category caps
Annual reward maximums
Accelerator tiers & drop-offs
Promo / limited-time boosts
Point expiry rules
Welcome bonus terms
Bonus amount (in points or cash)
Minimum-spend threshold
Qualifying-spend window (days)
Eligible / excluded transactions
New-customer eligibility rules
Supplementary-card bonus, if any
Merchant & network coverage
Qualifying merchants per category
Grocery-chain identity (which stores count)
Costco / Walmart / warehouse edge cases
Gas-station chain coverage
Card network (Visa / Mastercard / Amex)
Merchant network acceptance in Canada
MCC code mapping
Fees
Annual fee
Year-one fee waivers
Supplementary cardholder fees
Conditional credits that offset fee
Balance transfer fees
Foreign transaction fees (informational)
Eligibility filters
Minimum personal / household income
Recommended credit score
Available provinces / territories
Existing-customer restrictions
Application-frequency rules
Accuracy & calibration
We sweat the details so your number stays honest.
Card terms drift constantly — promo windows close, fees creep, transfer ratios change overnight. These are the safeguards that keep Finly’s output trustworthy week over week.
Weekly term audits
Issuer terms change quietly — annual-fee bumps, category tweaks, expiring promos. We re-pull every active card weekly and diff against the previous snapshot.
~7d
max staleness for any card
Equation cross-checks
Every card runs through three independent reference spending profiles. Any score that moves more than 15% between runs without a term change triggers a manual review.
3×
redundant value computations
Editorial sign-off
Numbers from the model are reviewed by an editor before the ranking goes live. We don't ship a methodology change without two-person review.
2
human reviewers per release
Discrepancy reporting
If you spot a number that doesn't match your issuer statement, our support team can pull the exact inputs we used and correct the source data within 48 hours.
<48h
median correction turnaround
When the model and reality disagree
We trust the source data, not our own model. If an issuer publishes a new term sheet, our scores update — even if it knocks a favourite card down the rankings. Editorial conviction never overrides the equation.
Editorial independence
The algorithm answers to no one — not even us.
FinlyWealth is a Canadian fintech company. We monetize by sharing our affiliate commissions with you as cash rebates — not by selling ranking placements. Here’s how that promise is structured.
Advertiser separation
We earn commissions from some issuers when you apply through Finly. None of that revenue touches the ranking algorithm — separation enforced at the code level.
Source-document grounding
Every claim on a card page is traceable to an issuer-published document. If a fact isn't in the official terms, we don't print it.
Conflict disclosure
When we receive co-marketing or partner placements, they're labelled. Editorial reviews are never paid placements.
Methodology versioning
This document is versioned. When the equation changes, we publish a changelog and re-score the catalogue so historical and current rankings stay comparable.
As featured in
The Globe and Mail
GoBankingRates
AOL
Spot something off in a ranking?
Send us the card and the term you’re questioning. We’ll pull the exact inputs we used and correct the source data if we got it wrong.
Send us an email at admin@finlywealth.com
FAQ
Reasonable questions about how this all works.
If we missed something, our team is one Support ticket away — and we update this page whenever the answer changes.
No. We earn affiliate commissions when readers are approved for a card through our links, but commission rates are not an input to the ranking model. Rankings are produced by the first-year value equation against the latest issuer term data — full stop.
Card terms get re-pulled and diffed weekly. Scores refresh whenever an issuer changes welcome bonuses, fees, earn rates, or transfer ratios. The catalogue snapshot is timestamped on each card page.
Every cap is encoded as a piecewise rule. If a card pays 4× on groceries up to $500/month and 1× beyond, we apply the 4× rate to the first $500 and 1× to the remainder — not a blended average. This is the single biggest reason our numbers differ from issuer marketing copy on heavy spenders.
It varies — many cards exclude Costco, Walmart, and warehouse retailers from grocery-category earn rates because those merchants classify under a different MCC (merchant category code). We track the qualifying-merchant list per card so the model only applies the bonus rate where it really pays. The card detail page calls out the major exclusions.
Yes. Amex isn't accepted everywhere a Visa or Mastercard is, and we treat that as a real cost on cards where the bonus categories collide with merchants that don't accept the network. The model accounts for typical Canadian acceptance gaps rather than assuming universal coverage.
If you haven't entered your own (via the calculator, statement upload, or quiz), we default to a Canadian average spending mix — groceries, dining, transportation, recurring bills, and discretionary. Your real number can differ substantially, which is why we strongly recommend running the calculator with your own statement.
At the minimum-spend threshold and time window the issuer publishes, then converted to CAD using our live points-to-cash table. If hitting the bonus requires more spend than your profile produces in the qualifying window, we flag it rather than pretending the bonus is automatic.
We maintain an internal loyalty-program valuation table built from redemption-rate data (Aeroplan published charts, transfer-partner award charts), historical sweet-spot pricing, and a conservative cash-back floor. It's refreshed whenever transfer ratios or program structures change.
We model both Year 1 (with the waiver) and a steady-state "Year 2+" scenario (without). The headline ranking uses first-year value, but the card page explicitly shows the steady-state number so you can decide whether it still pays off after the waiver expires.
Yes — every card detail page exposes the assumed earn rates, qualifying-merchant rules, point valuations, fee, and welcome bonus that fed the calculation. If a number on your statement doesn't line up, contact support and we'll trace it back to the source document.