How DividendMapper scores are calculated

Last updated 19 July 2026

DividendMapper gives each holding in your portfolio three scores: a Quality Score, a Risk Score, and a Trim Score. Each runs from 0 to 100 and refreshes daily. This page explains what they measure, how they work, and where they fall short.

These scores are informational tools to help you review your own holdings. They are not financial advice, not predictions of future returns, and not instructions to buy or sell. Always do your own research.

Quality Score

The Quality Score measures one thing: a company's capacity to keep growing its dividend. It is not a view on the share price, and it is not a verdict on whether the company is a good investment.

It is built from six signals, each scored and then combined into a single 0 to 100 number:

• Cash-flow cover. How comfortably free cash flow pays for the dividend. This carries the most weight of the six.
• Payout headroom. How much of earnings the dividend already consumes, and so how much room is left to raise it.
• Income gearing. How much of operating profit goes to servicing debt before anything reaches shareholders.
• Leverage. Net debt measured against earnings, judged against what is normal for the sector.
• Track record. How many consecutive years the dividend has held or risen.
• Asset-growth discipline. Whether the balance sheet is expanding faster than the business can support.

Where a signal's input is missing from our data, that signal is dropped and the remaining ones carry more weight, rather than the gap counting against the company. A holding needs at least three scoring signals before we publish a number at all.

The weights were fixed before we tested anything

The six weights were set in advance, from reasoning about what makes a dividend sustainable, and were not tuned to make the results look better afterwards. That matters: a model fitted to its own test data will always look impressive and will usually disappoint in use.

We then checked the score against company data it had never seen, covering 2024 and 2025. Sorting companies into quartiles by their score, the gap in subsequent 12-month dividend growth between the top and bottom quartile was 7.3 percentage points, and the rank correlation between score and subsequent dividend growth was 0.29 across 8,086 observations. Both were tested against thresholds written down before the data was read.

Those are real but modest numbers. The score sorts companies better than chance over a large sample. It is not a precision instrument for any single holding.

When no score is shown

Three cases produce no Quality Score, and we say which one applies:

• We score companies, not funds. Funds and ETFs have no company financials of their own, so the six signals have nothing to measure.
• Below the size we score. Very small companies have thinner, less reliable financial data, so we leave them unscored rather than publish a number we do not trust.
• We don't have enough data yet. Fewer than three of the six signals have usable inputs. This is a gap in our data, not a judgement about the company.

Risk Score

The Risk Score adds up signals that suggest a dividend may be under pressure. The signals include a recent cut, weakening cash-flow coverage, a stretched payout ratio, rising debt, falling interest cover, and insider selling. A recent cut carries the most weight and dominates the score.

A high Risk Score is the most actionable signal the tool provides. It flags a holding worth reviewing for cut danger. It does not tell you what to do.

Trim Score

The Trim Score looks at valuation signals and flags holdings that look extended or richly valued against their own history. If a position has run well ahead of its fundamentals, a high Trim Score is the prompt to take a closer look.

Honest limitations

The scores have real limits. You should know them.

They are not financial advice. A score is a data summary, not a verdict on what you should do. Always do your own research.

The Quality Score predicts dividend growth, not returns. It was built and tested against subsequent dividend growth. A company can keep raising its dividend while its share price falls, and a high Quality Score says nothing about that.

A takeover looks like a cut to this measure. When a company is acquired, its dividend stream stops, and the data cannot tell that apart from a company that stopped paying because it was struggling. Some of what the score treats as failure is really an acquisition.

A backward-looking score cannot foresee a sudden cut. By the time a cut appears in the data, the decision has often already mattered. The Risk Score is there to flag deterioration earlier, but no score removes the need for your own judgement.

Coverage has gaps. Some inputs are not available for certain markets and smaller companies. History is thin for recently listed shares. Where data is missing, that signal is dropped and the remaining signals carry more weight.

The methodology is in beta. Weights and thresholds are reviewed periodically, and any change is tested the same way.

Data and cadence

Market and fundamental data come from a third-party provider (FMP). Scores refresh once a day.

For the full disclaimer on how DividendMapper tools should be used, see the Terms of Service.