Feature 02
One number from 0 to 100, and a verdict: enter or walk away.
Three checks add up. Too few providers for the population earns up to 35 points. Real search demand earns up to 35. Room for one more business earns up to 30. At 70 or more, enter. Under 35, walk away. Each check shows its own math.
Source: Computed from the same live report data.
The score is deliberately made of three separate checks rather than one blended index, because a single number that cannot be taken apart is a number you cannot argue with. Each component shows its own arithmetic on the report, and each can be traced back to a source.
Supply gap compares businesses per 100,000 residents in the search radius against a national benchmark. That benchmark is not borrowed from an industry association: we measured it ourselves from live business listings across six mid-size metros, because published industry counts and what actually appears as a local business are different populations. Where a licensing registry exists, as it does in dentistry and orthodontics, the count comes from the registry instead.
Search demand is monthly searches per thousand residents, measured at metro level because that is the only geography where local search volumes are reliable. Room for another business compares the market revenue available per existing competitor against what one healthy operator in that trade actually turns over, using published federal business statistics.
Every method has edges. These are the ones worth knowing before you lean on this.
Seventy and above is a strong entry, fifty to seventy is viable, thirty-five to fifty is marginal, and below thirty-five is a market to walk away from. Most real markets land between forty and seventy, so a spread of scores across cities is more useful than any single reading.
Usually competitive density. Two metros of the same size and income can differ twofold in how many businesses already serve a trade, and that is exactly what the supply gap component picks up.