What BBB Accreditation Means for a Business
- The BBB Accreditation Standards Businesses Must Meet
- How to Apply for BBB Accreditation
- BBB Accredited vs Non Accredited Businesses
- What BBB Accreditation Does Not Mean
KNOWLEDGE BASE
Better Business Bureau
The BBB is the most misunderstood entity in reputation, and the misunderstanding is specific: people assume the letter grade and the accreditation are the same thing. They are not. One is an assessment. The other is a membership you pay for. Knowing which is which changes what it's worth to you.
Better Business Bureau Guides
Each guide is split into a four-part series.
How the BBB Rating System Works
- How BBB Letter Grades Are Calculated
- The Factors Behind a BBB Rating
- BBB Ratings for Businesses Without Accreditation
- How to Improve a BBB Rating
How BBB Complaints Work for Businesses
- How the BBB Complaint Process Works
- How to Respond to a BBB Complaint
- How BBB Complaints Get Closed
- BBB Customer Reviews vs Complaints Explained
What Is the Better Business Bureau?
The Better Business Bureau is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1912, operating through a network of independent local bureaus across the United States and Canada. It maintains business profiles, assigns letter-grade ratings, handles consumer complaints, and offers a paid accreditation program to businesses that meet its standards.
Accreditation is a membership. The rating is not.
A business pays dues to be BBB-accredited and can then display the seal. The letter grade is assigned separately, based on the BBB's own criteria — complaint history, transparency, time in business, and so on. A business can hold a high rating without paying a penny, and the distinction matters when someone tells you the grade is for sale.
That relationship has been criticized, and the criticism is part of the entity.
The BBB has faced sustained scrutiny over whether paying for accreditation influences the rating. It denies this and has revised its methodology in response. Whatever your view, the debate is what a prospect finds when they research the BBB — which means it shapes how much weight your seal actually carries.
Its real function is the complaint record, not the badge.
The durable value here is the profile: a public, searchable record of complaints against a business and how it responded. For a prospect assessing risk — in law, finance, home services — that record is what they're looking at. The seal is decoration. The complaint history is evidence.
Reference
Wikipedia: Better Business Bureau
The reference article on the Better Business Bureau — its structure, rating methodology, accreditation program, and the criticism it has attracted.
Read the full article →BBB accreditation is something you pay for. The letter grade isn't. They are routinely confused, including by the businesses displaying the seal.
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