I Analyzed 1,434 Products to See If Price Predicts Quality. It Doesn't

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Across 5,000+ professional review scores spanning 285 categories, the price-quality correlation is r = 0.05. Here's the full breakdown.

Every shopper assumes it on some level: spend more, get better. I run a review-aggregation site, which means I had the data to actually test that assumption. It mostly falls apart.

The data and the test

I pulled every product in our database that has both a tracked price and an aggregated review score: 1,434 products, backed by more than 5,000 individual professional review scores from over 1,800 publications, spanning 285 product categories. Scores are normalized to a 5-point scale and averaged per product, so no single outlet's grading habits dominate.

The test is the simplest one possible: Pearson correlation between what a product costs and how well it reviews.

The correlation is r = 0.05.Statistically, that's noise. Knowing a product's price tells you almost nothing about how good independent...

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