Find a local business you can actually check
Most “best of” lists are someone’s opinion, or an advert. We assess New Zealand businesses against public records: licence registers, company registrations and review history. We publish exactly how each score was reached.
Popular
The comparisons people look for most often, of the 37 trades and 32 towns we cover.
- Florists in Auckland 17 scored
- Hairdressers in Auckland 38 scored
- Florists in Christchurch 12 scored
- Hairdressers in Christchurch 10 scored
- Movers in Auckland 12 scored
- Dentists in Wellington 10 scored
- Plumbers in Auckland 60 scored
- Barbers in Christchurch 11 scored
- Dentists in Christchurch 10 scored
- Dentists in Auckland 49 scored
- Painters in Auckland 8 scored
- Plumbers in Christchurch 23 scored
Trades first. We’re building category by category rather than launching thin pages nationwide. Trades come first, because that’s where licensing is mandatory and the difference between a checked and unchecked business matters most.
What we cover so far
7488 businesses across 32 towns and cities and 37 categories, of which 1418 hold a licence we verified against a public register. We scored 1828 on public reviews as well as records; the rest are listed with what we could check, and nothing more claimed.
Categories
Trades
- Arborists 3 towns
- Builders 2 towns
- Drainlayers 12 towns
- Electricians 1 town
- Fencing contractors none yet
- Heat pump installers 1 town
- Landscapers 1 town
- Painters 2 towns
- Plasterers 1 town
- Plumbers 13 towns
- Roofers 1 town
- Tilers 3 towns
Automotive
- Auto electricians 9 towns
- Mechanics 6 towns
- Panelbeaters 4 towns
- Tyre shops 9 towns
- WoF and vehicle inspections 2 towns
Home & lifestyle
- Carpet cleaners 1 town
- Cleaners none yet
- Lawn and garden care 3 towns
- Locksmiths 1 town
- Movers 1 town
- Pest control 2 towns
Health & beauty
- Barbers 4 towns
- Beauty salons 3 towns
- Dentists 7 towns
- Hairdressers 5 towns
- Physiotherapists 6 towns
Professional services
- Accountants 1 town
- Bookkeepers 1 town
- Financial advisers 1 town
- Insurance brokers none yet
- Mortgage brokers 3 towns
- Web designers none yet
Hospitality & events
- Caterers 3 towns
- Florists 2 towns
- Photographers 3 towns
Main centres
- Auckland 33 comparisons
- Christchurch 19 comparisons
- Wellington 15 comparisons
- Palmerston North 2 comparisons
- Dunedin 3 comparisons
- Hamilton 10 comparisons
Everywhere else
North Island
- Cambridge 2 comparisons
- Feilding 38 scored
- Gisborne 9 scored
- Hastings 1 comparison
- Levin 14 scored
- Lower Hutt 7 comparisons
- Masterton 20 scored
- Napier 2 comparisons
- New Plymouth 3 comparisons
- Paraparaumu 31 scored
- Porirua 2 comparisons
- Pukekohe 26 scored
- Rotorua 2 comparisons
- Taupo 21 scored
- Tauranga 5 comparisons
- Upper Hutt 4 comparisons
- Whanganui 25 scored
- Whangarei 3 comparisons
South Island
- Ashburton 10 scored
- Blenheim 22 scored
- Invercargill 2 comparisons
- Nelson 1 comparison
- Oamaru 6 scored
- Queenstown 1 comparison
- Richmond 47 scored
- Timaru 16 scored
What “checked” means here
Every business we score is assessed on five things, all independently verifiable:
- Licence and registration: matched against the relevant public register, the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board or the Electrical Workers Registration Board. Where a trade has a register we do not check, the page says so and names it.
- Years operating: from the New Zealand Business Number register, not from what a business claims about itself.
- Review quality: adjusted so a handful of five-star reviews doesn’t outrank a long, consistent record.
- Review volume: on a scale that stops a national franchise burying a good local operator.
- Review recency: because a strong reputation from 2019 says little about today.
Two rules we don’t bend
Payment never affects a score
Businesses can sponsor a category. Sponsorship is labelled, appears after our editorial picks, and is structurally incapable of changing a score or a ranking, the commercial data is never joined to the scoring data. If that ever stopped being true, this site would be worthless.
Unlicensed means excluded, not ranked low
In trades where a licence is required by law, a business we can’t verify as currently licensed is not recommended at all. It isn’t given a poor score and listed anyway.
Not ready yet
We publish a category page only once we can assess enough businesses in it to make a real comparison. Until then it stays unpublished rather than going up thin. Read the full methodology, including the weightings and where each signal comes from.