How we score landscaper businesses in Ontario

What this page covers

Ontario Landscaper Directory currently scores 1,236 landscaper businesses across the province, from small lawn maintenance crews to full design-build outfits. This page explains exactly how a business ends up with a score between 0 and 100, why we weight things the way we do, and where the method falls short. Nothing here is theoretical: every score on the site is generated from the rubric below, applied consistently across the database.

The five signals, heaviest first

Each business gets a composite score built from five measured signals. We list them here in order of how much they count.

• Sentiment (28%): a synthesis of what recent reviews actually say, weighing praise against recurring complaints.
• Rating (26%): the business's aggregate star rating on Google.
• Volume (20%): how many reviews the business has collected, log-scaled so that a company with 400 reviews doesn't get diluted the same way as one with 6, but a handful of reviews also can't fake the weight of hundreds.
• Recency (12%): how recently customers have actually left reviews, because a company that was great in 2019 isn't necessarily the same crew today.
• Completeness (14%): whether the listing has a working phone number, website, posted hours, and a real address on file.

Why sentiment carries the most weight

A star average by itself hides patterns. Two landscaping companies can both sit at 4.3 stars, yet one has scattered, unrelated gripes while the other has a dozen recent reviewers all describing the same problem: no-shows on scheduled cuts, a crew that damaged irrigation lines, or a quote that quietly doubled after the job started. The stars alone won't tell you that. Reading what recent reviews actually describe is the only way to catch it, which is why sentiment is weighted above the raw rating itself. We synthesize the themes in recent reviews rather than republishing them wholesale, and every listing links back to Google so you can read the original source yourself.

Why the other signals matter

Rating still counts for a lot, at 26%, because it's the broadest and most immediate signal of customer satisfaction. Volume matters because a 5.0 rating from three reviews tells you almost nothing about consistency, while a 4.6 from 300 reviews tells you a lot; log-scaling keeps a huge review count from mechanically crushing smaller, genuinely good operators. Recency matters because landscaping crews change hands, hire new staff, and shift quality over time, so a review from 2018 shouldn't carry the same weight as one from last month. Completeness matters for a practical reason: if you can't find a phone number, hours, or an address, that's a real obstacle to actually hiring someone, regardless of how good the work is.

The honest limits

This method has real boundaries and we'd rather state them than hide them. Businesses with few recent reviews produce a lower-confidence score, and we label those listings accordingly so you know to treat the number with caution. We don't inspect job sites, verify licensing or insurance ourselves, or take payment to raise a score. Where paid placement exists on the site, it is always clearly labelled and it never changes the underlying score. Any list where picks or ordering involved editorial judgment, rather than the rubric alone, discloses that directly on the page, such as our lawn care and maintenance picks.

Who publishes and maintains this

Ontario Landscaper Directory has published this resource since 2026. The problem it was built to solve is simple: when you need a lawn maintained, snow cleared, or a backyard redone, you need a contractor with an actual track record, not scattered ads and inflated marketing claims. The directory is built from published review data and public business records, scores are earned rather than bought, and the full database is refreshed monthly, with per-listing "last verified" stamps showing that each entry is actively maintained rather than left to go stale. Diego Fischer, Managing Editor, maintains the rankings and oversees how the rubric is applied across the directory. You can reach the publisher through the enquiry form on this website, or start from the home page to browse the full directory.