Steam review score calculator: label, buffer and the next label

Enter a game's positive and negative Steam reviews to see its review label, how many negative reviews in a row it can take before the label drops, and how many positive reviews in a row reach the next label. The calculation uses whole reviews, not rounded percentages, and the community-documented thresholds, which Valve has not published.

Last reviewed · SteamStats team

Current label

Very Positive, 87.66% positive of 470

Buffer
45 negative reviews
before Mostly Positive
Next label
690 positive reviews
in a row to Overwhelmingly Positive
Reviews so far
470
30 more until Overwhelmingly Positive can apply

Counts are the reviews Steam uses for the store score: Steam purchases, without off-topic review bombs. The thresholds are community-documented; Valve has not published them.

Worked example: Pebblewick's reviews

The calculator opens with illustrative inputs for Pebblewick, the fictional demo game by Hollow Fern Games: 412 positive and 58 negative reviews, 87.66% positive. The label is Very Positive. It can absorb 45 negative reviews in a row before it becomes Mostly Positive, and needs 690 positive reviews in a row to reach Overwhelmingly Positive.

Method and formula

  1. A label with a positive-share line of p percent holds while positives × (100 − p) ≥ p × negatives. Working in whole reviews avoids a rounded percentage deciding the edge.
  2. Buffer = (positives × (100 − p) − p × negatives) ÷ p, rounded down, with p the current label's line. The label shown after the buffer is the one Steam gives at one more negative review.
  3. Reviews to the next label = the fewest positive reviews in a row that reach any higher label, counting both its share line and its minimum number of reviews. With 50 or more reviews, the label above Mostly Positive is Very Positive, not Positive.
  4. Under 10 reviews there is no label; the calculator shows the reviews left until 10.

Assumptions and sources

Review label thresholds as documented by the community (not published by Valve)
LabelPositive shareReviews
Overwhelmingly Positive95.00% or more500 or more
Very Positive80.00% or more50 or more
Positive80.00% or more10 to 49
Mostly Positive70.00% to under 80.00%10 or more
Mixed40.00% to under 70.00%10 or more
Mostly Negative20.00% to under 40.00%10 or more
Negative, Very Negative, Overwhelmingly NegativeUnder 20.00%10 to 49, 50 to 499, 500 or more
  • Thresholds: Steam Page Analyzer: Steam review score calculator, checked 1 November 2026. Valve describes the score only as a categorization by the share of positive reviews.
  • Which reviews count: only accounts that bought the game on Steam; key activations, free weekends and Family Sharing do not count, and off-topic review bombs are left out (Steamworks: User reviews, checked 1 November 2026).
  • Language scores: since August 2025, a game with more than 2,000 public reviews can show a separate score for a language with at least 200 (Steam News: Updates to user review scores based on language (18 August 2025), checked 1 November 2026).

Limits

  • Valve can change how labels are assigned without notice; the thresholds here are observations, checked on the date shown.
  • Enter the counts the store page uses. Totals across all purchase types, or from a tracker that includes excluded reviews, give a different label.
  • Shoppers who see a language-specific score see that language's label, which this calculator works out only if that language's counts are entered.
  • The buffer assumes no positive reviews arrive in between. In practice both kinds arrive together, so the real margin is usually wider.

With your own reviews

The SteamStats User reviews view runs this calculation on the game's store reviews as they arrive, every 45 min on Indie and every 10 min on Studio and Publisher once the game is released, and shows the buffer next to the label, the score across all reviews and the SteamDB rating. Alerts can send a message when the label changes.

Sources