The four scores, in plain language
Every live MarketScope report turns a product and a market into four scores, each from 0 to 100, plus a verdict. The official definitions live in our Data Sources & Methodology page. This guide is a plainer walkthrough of the same rules, with one real report as an example — not a second, unofficial scoring system.
The four scores are Demand, Competition, Saturation and Opportunity. The first three describe different parts of the market. Opportunity combines them. The verdict then maps Opportunity and confidence onto a five-level scale. None of this is a promise that a product will sell. It is a structured way to read the evidence that was collected.
Live reports today use Google Shopping and Google Search only. Amazon, Meta, TikTok and AliExpress are Coming soon. If a source was not connected, it does not quietly sit inside the score.
Demand (0–100)
Demand measures search interest for the product in the market you chose: volume, growth and seasonality. Higher means stronger measured demand. It is built from Google Search in live reports — volume, trend and CPC are the kinds of figures you will see alongside the score.
A solid demand score means people are looking. It does not mean the product is easy to sell, and it does not mean interest will hold next quarter. Demand should be read next to competition, not in isolation. The demand-first dropshipping checklist starts here, then immediately asks whether the shelf is too crowded for that demand to help you.
Competition (0–100) — higher means harder
Competition looks at the number of sellers, how concentrated the market is, and pricing pressure. Higher means harder. A high competition score is a warning light, not a badge of a “hot” market. Popular products often attract many sellers; that is exactly when this score should rise.
Concentration matters as well as count. A market with many small listings is a different shape from one where a few stores hold most of the visible shelf. Both can be hard, in different ways. The report should let you see seller counts and shares, not only the single number.
Saturation (0–100) — higher means more crowded
Saturation measures listing density relative to demand, including how crowded the price bands are. Higher means more crowded. It is closely related to competition, but it is not the same thing. You can have many sellers and still have quieter price bands — or a tightly packed price line even when seller count looks moderate.
Read saturation as: “how packed is this aisle, given how much demand there is?” A crowded aisle with weak demand is a worse story than a crowded aisle with very strong demand. Opportunity is the score that tries to hold those ideas together.
Opportunity (0–100)
Opportunity is a weighted combination of demand, competition and saturation. It is designed to reward strong demand with room to compete. A market with high demand and low crowding should score better than a market with high demand and no room, or a quiet market that only looks “easy” because nobody is looking.
We do not publish a secret formula that would let you reverse-engineer a “hacked” score, and we will not invent extra weights here. The methodology already states the principle. If the three inputs disagree — solid demand, severe competition — Opportunity should come out mixed, not pretend the demand figure is the whole story.
The verdict scale
The verdict maps the Opportunity score and confidence into five levels:
- STRONG BUY — strong demand, clear room to compete.
- BUY — a favorable market with manageable risk.
- HOLD — mixed signals. Watch or refine the angle.
- UNDERPERFORM — headwinds outweigh the upside.
- AVOID — saturated or weak. Keep your capital.
Those short labels are the same ones used on the site’s verdict scale. Confidence reflects how much data was available and how consistent the signals were. A verdict with thin or conflicting inputs should be treated more cautiously than one built from a fuller, consistent set.
Verdicts are not guarantees, and they are not financial, legal or investment advice. They do not know your brand, your execution, your margins, your supply chain or your marketing. A STRONG BUY can still fail in your hands. An UNDERPERFORM can still work if you have an angle the scores cannot see. The honest use is to inform a decision, not to replace one.
The AI Advisor
The Advisor summarizes the scores and listing stats in plain language: risks, opportunities and gaps. On the current live version, that summary is generated from those figures, not from a language model. Read it as a caption on the numbers, and still review important conclusions before you act. If the summary and the scores ever seemed to disagree, trust the figures and the methodology, and treat the prose as something to check.
A real report walkthrough
The public demo is a magnetic phone mount in the United States, from live Google Shopping and Google Search data collected on 12 November 2026. Here is how to read the scores on that page, without adding any figures that were not in the report:
- Demand 76/100. About 8,100 monthly searches, with a roughly stable 12-month trend, and a CPC of about $1.21. This is solid demand, not a spike-only story, and not a perfect 100.
- Competition 90/100. High, and the report calls it the main drag versus otherwise solid demand. 29 sellers and 65 Google Shopping listings is the visible set behind that pressure.
- Saturation 64/100. Crowded, though not at the same extreme as competition. The price line still had a recommended band of $14.99–$19.99, at or just below the $19.99 median, inside a $6.68–$69 range.
- Opportunity 48/100. A mixed, mid-low combination: demand is real, room is limited. This is what the weighting is for.
- Verdict: UNDERPERFORM. Headwinds outweigh the upside. The advisor summary matches the scores: high competition versus solid demand. No seller held more than 12% of the visible listings (Home Depot), and the top three together held 34% — useful context, not a reason to ignore a 90 competition score.
Notice what this walkthrough does not do. It does not upgrade the verdict because the demand number looks “good enough.” It does not invent an Amazon BSR. It does not turn a recommended price band into a prediction of profit. You can disagree with the call — that is your decision — but you should disagree with the evidence in view, not with a story added after the fact. The wider research sequence is in the winning-products guide.
What the scores do not include
The methodology is explicit about limits, and they are worth repeating when you read a report:
- Data reflects the moment of collection. Markets change quickly.
- Some sources, even when live, may be estimates, samples or partial coverage.
- Scores do not account for your brand, execution, margins, supply chain or marketing.
- Past trends do not guarantee future results.
Amazon marketplace competition, ad-library evidence and supplier landed cost will matter for many sellers, and they are not in the live scores today. See Amazon product research versus Google Shopping demand for what is live versus coming soon.
What to do next
Open the demo report and read it from demand down to the verdict, using this page as a legend. Then run a product of your own. A free MarketScope account includes 5 one-time credits, no credit card, with live Google Shopping and Search data. Starter is $39/month, Plus $149/month and Pro $349/month, in USD; yearly billing charges 10 months and includes 12. Create a free account or compare plans.
For the canonical definitions, always prefer the methodology. This guide is a reading companion, not a replacement.