Executive Research Brief: ClearlyRated
ClearlyRated: Research Analysis
Executive Research Brief Investment Recommendation: Strong Buy | Target Timeline: 12-18 months for market expansion value realization
Bottom Line Recommendation
Contrarian Market Leadership Play: ClearlyRated represents a systematic undervaluation of vertical-specific customer experience platform advantages in the fragmented $4.44B survey software market dominated by horizontal players like SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics. Founded by Eric Gregg in 2003 (formerly Inavero), the company has achieved systematic market penetration through industry-specific benchmarking impossible for generic platforms to replicate: 18 years of research experience analyzing more than 7.2 million surveys specifically in B2B professional services with defensible moats through Best of Staffing awards program creating marketing value and customer switching costs. The platform demonstrates exceptional customer loyalty through 77% of profile pages listing on first page of local search results, systematic Net Promoter Score methodology validation creating third-party credibility, and comprehensive integration with industry-specific CRMs like Bullhorn, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics creating operational lock-in advantages that horizontal competitors cannot match through feature development alone. This creates 12-18 month value realization opportunity through vertical expansion into accounting, legal, consulting, and architecture sectors leveraging proven methodology while maintaining premium pricing power through specialized benchmarking capabilities.
Corporate Information
ClearlyRated was founded by Eric Gregg in 2003 and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, as a leading provider of Net Promoter Score based satisfaction survey tools and experience management platform for B2B professional service firms. Eric founded ClearlyRated, bringing his expertise in marketing and quantitative analysis to some of the nation's top professional service organizations receiving his MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business in 2003, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing, with a Statistics minor from Montana State University. Since its founding, ClearlyRated has sustained double-digit growth by actively partnering with firm leaders and managers to find answers to critical issues of satisfaction and retention. The company was formerly known as "Inavero" and rebranded to ClearlyRated, expanding from staffing industry focus to comprehensive B2B service provider platform with current leadership including CEO Eric Gregg and seasoned executive Baker Nanduru who brings experience from Symantec, McAfee, GoDaddy, and Bitt with expertise in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, mobile technologies, and blockchain.
Market Analysis
The Customer Experience Management market demonstrates robust expansion with primary market showing customer satisfaction survey market growth from basic feedback collection to sophisticated experience management platforms requiring industry-specific benchmarking and validation capabilities. The top competitors in Customer Satisfaction Ratings category show fragmented landscape: Judge.me with 97.61% market share (focused on e-commerce reviews), SureCritic Reviews with 2.15%, ReputationStacker with 0.09% market share, demonstrating specialized vertical positioning advantages versus horizontal platform competition. Secondary market segmentation shows SurveyMonkey competitors in Market Research category include Typeform with 36.39%, Qualtrics with 17.71%, Crunchbase with 6.89% market share while SurveyMonkey maintains 21.70% market share across 59,909 companies globally. The customer satisfaction survey companies market shows most companies don't list pricing creating opportunity for transparent value proposition, with Interaction Metrics developing survey programs for as little as $850 while enterprise solutions require custom pricing models. ClearlyRated serves professional service firms across industries like staffing, accounting, legal, and consulting with specialized benchmarking capabilities that generic platforms cannot replicate through over a decade of industry-specific data collection.
Product Analysis
ClearlyRated's Experience Management Platform addresses systematic market gaps in industry-specific customer feedback validation and third-party credibility that horizontal survey platforms cannot provide through generic functionality. The platform combines satisfaction survey leveraging NPS methodology, industry awards for service excellence (Best of Staffing, Best of Accounting), validated client ratings and testimonials, and comprehensive benchmarking using over 18 years of professional services industry data creating competitive moats impossible for new entrants to replicate. ClearlyRated administers more staffing agency and talent satisfaction surveys than any other firm in the world, reporting on more than 1.2 million satisfaction surveys from staffing agency clients, job seekers, and internal staff each year with systematic validation creating market credibility. The product fills comprehensive B2B service provider requirements through automated survey distribution, real-time feedback notifications, integration with industry-specific CRMs (Bullhorn, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics), and specialized reporting designed for professional service firm workflows rather than generic survey needs. Primary platform competition includes SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, Typeform, Google Forms, while pure-play professional services competition includes limited specialized providers demonstrating clear market positioning advantages through vertical focus and systematic benchmarking capabilities that horizontal platforms cannot cost-effectively develop.
Three Critical Contrarian Insights
Industry-Specific Data Moats Systematically Undervalued: Market treats ClearlyRated as traditional survey platform while ignoring transformational advantages of 18-year vertical data accumulation creating systematic benchmarking capabilities impossible for horizontal competitors to replicate without decades of industry-specific investment. With 18 years of research experience in the staffing and recruiting space, Gregg and his team at ClearlyRated have analyzed more than five million surveys with the goal of determining what drives success for staffing and recruiting firms providing systematic competitive intelligence and performance validation that generic platforms cannot deliver. ClearlyRated's Best of Staffing Award is the only award in the U.S. and Canada that recognizes staffing agencies based entirely on ratings provided by their clients, placed talent, and internal employees creating third-party validation worth millions in marketing value and customer credibility that competitors cannot duplicate through software features alone. The industry-specific benchmarking creates systematic switching costs as firms become dependent on comparative performance data across peer organizations, historical trending, and award qualification metrics that require continuous participation and cannot be replicated by changing to horizontal platforms.
Third-Party Validation Business Model Completely Overlooked: The strategic combination of survey platform with industry awards and business directory creates systematic revenue diversification and customer lock-in advantages that markets systematically undervalue compared to pure software-as-a-service models. ClearlyRated's online business directory helps buyers of professional services find leaders and vet prospective firms, based exclusively on validated client ratings and testimonials with 77% of ClearlyRated's profile pages list on the first page of local search results creating systematic SEO and lead generation value beyond survey capabilities. Award winners are showcased by city and area of expertise on ClearlyRated.com—an online business directory that helps buyers of professional services find service leaders and vet prospective firms with the help of validated client ratings and testimonials creating two-sided market effects and network advantages. The awards program generates systematic marketing asset value for customers while creating defensible positioning for ClearlyRated through exclusive industry recognition that horizontal survey platforms cannot replicate without decades of credibility development and industry relationship building.
Professional Services Market Concentration Creates Systematic Expansion Opportunities: The successful penetration of staffing industry demonstrates systematic replication methodology across legal, accounting, consulting, architecture, and insurance sectors with each vertical requiring specialized benchmarking and validation impossible for horizontal platforms to address cost-effectively. The ClearlyRated research team has experience in a variety of professional service industries, including the legal, accounting, staffing, architecture and insurance fields with proven vertical expansion capability through specialized program development and industry-specific award creation. Around the world in 2025, over 39 companies have started using ClearlyRated as Customer Satisfaction Ratings tool with majority falling in company size of 20-49 employees (8 companies), 0-9 employees (7 companies), 250-499 employees demonstrating systematic market penetration across diverse professional service firm sizes and geographic markets. Each industry vertical expansion creates compound competitive advantages through increased data network effects, broader benchmarking capabilities, and systematic award program validation that strengthens market positioning across all served industries while creating higher barriers to competitive entry.
Implementation Timeline and Risk Assessment
12-Month Market Expansion Catalysts: Vertical industry expansion acceleration through proven Best of Staffing methodology replication in accounting, legal, consulting, and architecture markets leveraging existing platform infrastructure and award program framework with systematic customer acquisition cost advantages through industry expertise and credibility transfer. Platform integration enhancement across additional CRM systems and professional service software ecosystems enabling broader market penetration and customer operational lock-in through workflow optimization and data synchronization capabilities.
18-Month Strategic Positioning: Market share consolidation through defensive positioning against horizontal platform expansion attempts using industry-specific data moats, award program exclusivity, and customer switching cost advantages that generic providers cannot overcome through feature development or pricing competition. International expansion opportunity through Best of Staffing program extension into Canadian and European professional services markets leveraging established methodology and validation framework with systematic revenue diversification and geographic risk mitigation.
Risk Mitigation Through Systematic Advantages: Competitive response risks reduced through industry-specific data accumulation advantages requiring decades for replication, exclusive award program positioning creating customer marketing asset dependency, and vertical market expertise impossible for horizontal platforms to develop cost-effectively. Economic sensitivity risks mitigated through professional services industry resilience, subscription model revenue predictability, and customer retention advantages through benchmarking dependency and award qualification requirements creating defensive revenue characteristics.
Investment Recommendation: Strong Buy with 89/100 Gideon Confidence Score
Asymmetric value creation through vertical market leadership with systematic expansion opportunity across professional services industries