How PerkPilot scores credit cards.
Every number on this site traces back to a pure calculation you can audit. Here's how the math works, where the data comes from, and how we keep it current.
Why methodology matters.
Credit card comparison sites earn trust by showing their math. PerkPilot was built so every number you see — reward rates, fee verdicts, first-year net value, "best rewards" picks — can be traced back to a pure calculation that runs on the card's published data.
No black boxes. No anonymous scoring. The same functions that compute values for you run in our unit tests, and the same data that those functions read is verified monthly against primary sources.
A worked example.
Here's how the first-year net value for a single card is computed, using real data from our live system.
Category rewards: for each spending category, the calc engine applies the card's multiplier to the portion of monthly spend that falls there, caps where the card imposes them, and sums the annual value.
Milestone bonuses: if the persona's annual spend crosses a milestone threshold the card advertises, the bonus rupee value is added.
Welcome benefit: one-time welcome benefit value (statement credit, voucher, etc.) is added to first-year value only — steady-state omits it.
Annual fee: deducted from the total unless the persona's spend meets the card's fee-waiver threshold, in which case a "waiver met" row credits the fee back. The net is what you actually pay.
Where the numbers come from.
- Official issuer websites Primary source. Fees, fee-waiver thresholds, reward multipliers, eligibility criteria. Always the tie-breaker when secondary sources disagree.
- CardExpert, PaisaBazaar, CardInsider, BankBazaar Secondary sources. Cross-referenced for expert analysis, recent changes, and interpretation of issuer legalese. Never used alone.
- Industry reports and bank announcements Tertiary. Devaluation patterns, market positioning, product discontinuations. Always verified against the issuer before shipping a change.
How often we refresh.
Monthly: every card's fee structure, reward rates, and eligibility thresholds are verified against the issuer's current product page.
Every six months: each card page is flagged for editorial review — benefit descriptions, redemption pathways, and the maximize guidance are refreshed.
Within 7–14 days: material changes — reward devaluations, new welcome benefits, fee hikes, discontinuations — ship as priority updates with the change dated in the card's recent-changes log.
Affiliate relationships.
Some links on PerkPilot are affiliate links — applying through them may earn us a small referral commission from the issuer at no cost to you. These relationships never affect score-based ordering of cards in our table, grid, or editor's picks. The same card lineup appears whether affiliate links are present or not.
The scoring function in lib/calc/ is deterministic and publicly auditable in our source code. No paid placement, no promoted cards, no ranking adjustments for partner banks.
Last verified April 2026. Sources: Official issuer websites, CardExpert, PaisaBazaar, CardInsider, BankBazaar. Next scheduled review: 6 months from last update.