Your questions,
answered directly.

We reach out to every customer a business has worked with in the last year and ask one question: did you get what you paid for? We verify each person is who they say they are before counting their answer. A published statistical formula decides pass or fail. If a business passes, they get a certification — and a Standing from Bronze to Platinum based on how well they did.

No — and this distinction matters. A survey is self-administered: the business sends it, chooses who gets it, and cherry-picks the results they show. IBT contacts clients independently, without the business's involvement. We verify identities. We use a statistical standard that would hold up to scrutiny in court. The business never sees individual responses. It's closer to an audit than a survey.

Google reviews can be written by anyone, including people who were never a client, competitors, and fake accounts. There's no identity check, no statistical standard, and the business can solicit reviews from only their happiest clients. IBT contacts clients the business didn't choose, verifies who they are, and applies a published formula. You can't farm IBT results.

BBB accreditation is based on complaint history, membership fees, and self-reported business practices. BBB does not contact your clients. A 2010 ABC News investigation showed BBB ratings could be improved by paying fees — the Connecticut Attorney General called the system misleading. IBT has no membership model, no complaint monitoring, and no pay-to-play pathway. Your clients are the only input.

No. The client list is cross-checked against billing and CRM records before outreach begins. If the list is incomplete by more than 5%, the assessment pauses. IBT selects who to contact randomly — the business has no input. We verify every respondent's identity. The formula is published and deterministic. There is no mechanism for gaming any of these steps.

Your fee is calculated from three things: how many clients you had last year, your industry's impact class (Low, Medium, or High), and the typical size of your contracts. The minimum is $500. Most small service businesses land between $1,000 and $5,000. Use the pricing calculator for an instant estimate — it takes 30 seconds.

After you apply and IBT verifies your client list, the outreach window runs for 90 days. IBT contacts your clients throughout that window. Once it closes, your result is issued within 5 business days. Total time from application to result: approximately 3 to 4 months. You can track response counts in real time throughout the window.

You get a full report: your sample size, total responses, positive and negative breakdown, and exactly where you stood relative to the pass threshold. You can reapply after 90 days. A lot of businesses that come close use their results report to understand where client satisfaction is slipping — and come back the following cycle with a stronger result. Knowing you didn't pass is more useful than not knowing at all.

Your Standing (Bronze 🥉, Silver 🥈, Gold 🥇, or Platinum 🏆) reflects how strong your results were, not just whether you passed. Bronze means you cleared the threshold. Platinum means 95%+ of your verified clients confirmed satisfaction, at meaningful scale. Standings are visible in the IBT directory and on your certificate. There are also milestone awards for businesses certified over multiple consecutive years.

Certification is valid for 12 months. Renewal is a full re-assessment from scratch — there's no fast-track or legacy renewal. Your client list resets to the last 12 months before your renewal application date. This keeps the credential current and prevents a business from coasting on past results.

You can file an appeal with IBT's Impartiality Board within 30 days of your result. Valid grounds are: IBT followed incorrect procedure, an identity verification error changed a result, or an undisclosed conflict of interest existed. The mathematical outcome itself — if the procedure was followed correctly — is not subject to appeal. The Board issues a decision within 45 days.

Yes, in full. The IBT Master Specification (v1.0) covers the complete statistical model, acceptance sampling tables, governance architecture, and appeals procedure. It's available on the For Auditors page. If you want to understand exactly how the formula works before applying, it's all there.

If you pass, your Standing, client count, and satisfaction rate are listed in IBT's public directory. Individual client responses are never disclosed — not to you, not publicly. If you fail, the result is not published. Only passing businesses appear in the directory.