Doctors don't diagnose from one symptom — they read vitals together: pulse, pressure, oxygen. A business health score does the same for a small business: it compresses the signals that predict trouble or growth — reviews, sales, competition — into one number you can track daily. Here's how it works, why it's a leading indicator when revenue is a lagging one, and how Refloat computes its version.
The definition
A business health score is a single 0–100 number that summarises how a business is performing across its most important external and internal signals — typically customer reviews, sales trends and competitive position — updated continuously so that a falling score warns the owner weeks before falling revenue does.
Why one number beats five dashboards
An owner's real question is rarely “what was my Tuesday AOV?” It's “are we okay?” Separate dashboards make you do the synthesis yourself — and synthesis is exactly what busy owners skip. A composite score does the synthesis for you, and more importantly, its movement is unambiguous: 67 and rising is a different business from 67 and falling.
What goes into Refloat's score
Reviews — 40%
The largest weight, because reviews are both a demand signal (they drive new customers via local search) and a quality signal (they reflect real experiences). Refloat scores three sub-components: review quality (your weighted average rating), velocity (how fast new reviews arrive versus a healthy baseline), and trend (which way recent sentiment is moving). Each reviewer is credibility-weighted — an established Local Guide counts more than a brand-new account.
Sales — 35%
From your POS, three windows are compared simultaneously: an acute 7-day-vs-28-day snapshot, the current month against the previous, and a chronic 90-day comparison. This matters because each window catches a different failure: a sudden drop, a soft month, a slow erosion. Slow inventory categories, average order value and repeat-customer rate complete the picture. No POS connected? The score treats sales as neutral rather than guessing.
Competition — 25%
Your 4.4★ means something different next to 4.1★ rivals than next to 4.7★ ones. Refloat AI-matches genuinely comparable nearby businesses and scores your rating against the local average — so the score reflects your position, not just your absolute numbers.
Reading the score
| Range | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 75–100 | Healthy — strong signals across the board | Protect the habits creating it |
| 40–74 | Watch zone — something is dragging | Find the weakest component, fix that first |
| 0–39 | At risk — problems are compounding | Act this week; small fixes still work here |
The trend is the product
A single reading is a snapshot; the value is the curve. A score sliding from 72 to 64 over three weeks — driven, say, by slowing review velocity and a weakening dessert category — is an early-warning system telling you exactly where to look while the fix is still cheap. That's the entire philosophy: find problems while they're small. Refloat pairs every score movement with the reason and a ranked action plan, so the number always comes with the what-to-do.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good business health score?
On Refloat’s 0–100 scale, 75+ indicates a healthy business — strong recent reviews, steady or growing revenue, and a solid competitive position. 40–75 is the watch zone, where most businesses sit. Under 40 signals compounding problems that usually show up in revenue within weeks if unaddressed.
How is a business health score different from revenue?
Revenue tells you what already happened. A health score is a leading indicator: it blends signals that move before revenue does — review sentiment, review velocity, competitive shifts and category-level sales trends — so it warns you while there is still time to act.
Can I calculate a health score myself?
You can approximate one quarterly: compare your rating and review velocity to nearby competitors, chart your revenue across 7/30/90-day windows, and list categories slowing down. The hard part is doing it continuously and objectively — which is what automated scoring is for.