How we score propane suppliers in Florida

The Florida Propane Supplier Guide currently scores 466 propane supplier businesses across the state, from small local delivery outfits to larger regional operators. Every score is generated from a fixed set of measured signals, run through the same weights for every business. Nobody at the guide hand-picks a score or nudges a number up or down. This page explains exactly how the math works and where it should and shouldn't be trusted.

The five signals, heaviest first

Each business gets a composite score from 0 to 100, built from five inputs:

• 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, log-scaled so that a business with 400 reviews doesn't automatically dwarf one with 40, but a handful of reviews still counts for much less than hundreds.
• Recency, 10%. How recently customers have actually left reviews. A supplier that hasn't been reviewed in two years tells you less than one reviewed last month.
• Completeness, 16%. Whether the basics are actually listed: phone number, website, hours, and address.

Why sentiment carries the most weight

Two propane companies can sit at the exact same 4.2-star average and mean very different things. One might have scattered, unrelated gripes. The other might have a dozen recent reviews all mentioning the same missed delivery window, or the same billing surprise after a tank refill. The star average alone hides that pattern completely. Reading what people actually wrote, and weighing recent themes rather than just tallying stars, is the only way to catch the difference. That's why sentiment is weighted above the raw rating itself. For something like propane delivery, where a missed appointment can mean a cold house or a stalled generator, that distinction matters more than a tenth of a star.

Why the other signals matter

Rating still counts for a lot, 26%, because it's the most direct summary a customer leaves. Volume matters because a 5.0 average built on three reviews isn't the same evidence as a 4.6 average built on three hundred, so we log-scale it rather than let review count alone decide the winner. Recency matters because ownership, staffing, and service quality change over time, and a supplier's reputation from 2019 doesn't tell you much about a delivery booked next week. Completeness matters in a practical way: a supplier without a listed phone number, working hours, or address is harder to actually use, whatever their reviews say.

The honest limits

This system is only as good as the data behind it. A business with very few recent reviews gets a score, but it's a low-confidence one, and we label it that way rather than pretending five reviews carry the same weight as five hundred. We synthesize themes from reviews rather than republishing them word for word, and we link out to Google so anyone can read the original source reviews themselves and judge for us.

Scores are earned, not sold

Scores come from this rubric and this data, full stop. Paid placement, on the pages where it exists, is always labelled clearly and never changes a business's score or its ranking. Any list on this site where picks or order were reviewed and adjusted by an editor discloses that plainly on the page itself, such as our residential propane delivery list. If a page doesn't carry that disclosure, the order came straight from the scoring model.

Who maintains this

Mei Larsen, Content Lead, maintains the rankings on the Florida Propane Supplier Guide. Mei oversees how the scoring rubric is applied across all 466 listed businesses and is responsible for the editorial disclosures on any list where human review affected the picks or order. You can start browsing the full directory from the home page.