📊 How Wealth Scores Work
Understanding how your score is calculated makes it more useful — not less. This guide explains the structure behind every assessment on this platform: how questions map to domains, how domains combine into scores, and what those scores actually mean (and don't mean).
The Domain Structure
Each wealth dimension is broken down into domains — distinct sub-areas that together make up the full picture of that dimension. For example, Financial Wealth includes domains like cash flow, savings, and debt management. Each domain has its own set of questions.
This structure matters because it tells you more than a single number. A financial score of 60% could mean strong cash flow but poor debt management, or vice versa. Seeing domain-level scores helps you identify exactly where your gaps are — and what to work on first.
How Questions Are Scored
Each question within a domain has a set of possible responses, and each response has an associated point value. Point values are not arbitrary — they're calibrated to reflect the relative health of each answer based on research, clinical guidelines, and expert benchmarks.
For example, in Physical Wealth:
- Exercising 5+ days per week earns more points than 3 days, which earns more than 1 day, which earns more than none.
- Sleeping 7–9 hours consistently earns more points than 5–6 hours or 10+ hours (both below-optimal).
The goal is that the point values reflect real-world health implications, not just a linear scale of "more is better."
Domain Weighting
Within each dimension, different domains carry different weight. Domains are weighted based on their estimated impact on the dimension's overall outcome. In Retirement Wealth, for example, your current savings rate carries more weight than whether you've spoken to a financial advisor — because the savings rate directly determines your long-term trajectory in a way the advisor conversation doesn't.
Weightings are reviewed periodically as new research or updated guidelines suggest different relative importance.
What Your Score Represents
Your score is expressed as a percentage from 0–100. It represents how your current situation compares to the ideal or recommended state for each input in that dimension. A score of 75% means you're at roughly three-quarters of the ideal state across the inputs measured.
Scores are not graded on a curve against other users. A 75% means the same thing regardless of what other users have scored. This makes scores useful for tracking your personal progress over time, even as the community average changes.
What Scores Are Not
- Not a diagnosis. These are self-assessment tools for reflection and awareness, not clinical assessments.
- Not perfectly precise. Self-reported data has inherent limitations. Scores are directionally useful, not exact measurements.
- Not permanent. Scores reflect your situation at a point in time. Life changes — retake assessments as things change to keep your picture current.
- Not comparable across dimensions. A 70% in Financial Wealth and a 70% in Social Wealth don't mean the same level of absolute achievement — they both mean 70% of the ideal within their respective dimensions.
The Overall Wealth Score
Your Overall Wealth Score is the simple average of all dimension scores you've completed. If you've completed four of eight dimensions, it's the average of those four. It's not weighted by dimension — each dimension contributes equally to the overall.
This means your weakest dimension drags down your overall score as much as your strongest lifts it. This is intentional: the platform is designed to encourage attention to dimensions you might otherwise neglect, not reward specialization in dimensions where you're already strong.
Honest Answers Produce Useful Scores
The scoring system is only as useful as the honesty of your answers. It's tempting to answer optimistically — to select what you're aiming for rather than where you actually are. The most valuable use of the platform comes from answering as accurately as possible, even when that produces an uncomfortable number. An honest low score is far more useful than a dishonest high one, because it points to where real improvement is possible.