How results are ordered

Search results are ordered by how well the listing answers your search and how well the operator looks after people. Never by price, and never by anything an operator pays for.

What decides the order

Every listing gets a score out of one. These are the things that go into it, with how much each one counts.

Fit 37%: How well the vehicle answers what you asked for: the right type, enough seats, at the place you named rather than elsewhere in the region, with the features you ticked. This counts for the most, because a result that does not fit is no use however good the operator is.
Reviews 26%: The operator's review average, smoothed so that one five-star review does not outrank forty at 4.8. An operator with no reviews yet sits in the middle rather than at the bottom.
Response time 21%: How long the operator usually takes to reply, measured over the last 90 days. A request they ignored counts as the full lapse window, so going quiet costs them position.
Rates freshness 11%: How recently the operator confirmed their rates are still correct. Rates nobody has confirmed for three months disappear from search entirely; this nudges "confirmed this week" above "confirmed two months ago".
Completeness 5%: Whether the operator has filled in their profile: a name, a face, a line about who they are. Small on purpose. It rewards showing up as a person and never outweighs being good at replying.

What does not

Price. Price is not in the list above and will not be added. You can filter by a rate range, but nothing sorts by price and the cheapest result is not marked or promoted. A marketplace that ranks by price pushes operators to cut corners, and the cheapest hire is rarely the one you want.
Money. No operator can pay for position, and there is no advertising, sponsorship or promoted listing anywhere on this site.
Software. The software an operator uses does not affect how they rank. Nothing an operator pays for changes their position, and there is no paid placement anywhere on this site.

The one wrinkle

There is one wrinkle worth stating plainly: ranking rewards listings that are accurate and recently confirmed. A connected booking system is one way to stay accurate. It is not the only one, and an operator who keeps their own listing current scores exactly the same.

Why you can check this

Each listing shows the reasons it ranked where it did, in plain words, on the listing itself. If a result says "replies within an hour", that is a measurement, not a label the operator chose.