How do designer star ratings work?

**We are currently making some updates to the way Star Rating is calculated to make these more accurate, for the benefit of designers. This FAQ will be updated to reflect the new guidelines shortly.**

As a designer, your average star rating represents the quality of your work as perceived by the customer. During a contest, customers are asked to rate the quality of each design submission received from 1 to 5 stars. With a 1 star rating indicating poor quality up to the highest rating of 5 stars.

Please note it goes against our Code of Conduct to pressure customers into giving a high star rating or removing a low star rating.

DesignCrowd tracks your star rating for each project type to give you an average quality score for a project type or category (e.g., logo design). The new benchmark is 2.5 average star rating for any project type. If your submission does not receive a rating, it's not counted towards your score.

If your average star rating for logo design falls below 2.5 stars at the time of submission, we will temporarily hold back your submission from the customer's view. This only applies to projects that have recently launched.

A low star rating also means you'll be ineligible to submit to mini contests, which are restricted to five designers with star ratings of 2.75 or higher and a positive feedback score of at least 75%.

Why is my submission 'on hold'?

Designers with star rating lower than 2.5 stars may have submitted designs placed "on hold", which means their uploaded designs are not shared with the customer for up to 24 hours after the design is submitted. This ensures the customers initial designs are of high quality and allows DesignCrowd the option to review these designs before a customer sees them and reject any designs that do not meet our quality standards. To avoid this, designers must lift their star rating. Designers with higher star ratings have no delays on submissions - a benefit for designers of maintaining a higher rating.

The delay period applies only to the start of the project and varies from 2 hours up to 24 hours depending on the duration of the project.

There are no delays on revisions submitted at the request of the customer.

What happens if your submission does not receive a rating?

If your submission does not receive a rating, it's not counted towards your score.

What happens if your account is not verified or approval has been revoked?

Your submissions will be manually reviewed by our quality team and approved or rejected within 48 hours. Whilst your account awaits verification, your approved submission will be delayed if the project has just launched. If the initial launch period has ended, your design will be automatically be submitted as long as the project remains open. Approved designs are visible to the customer and we track the customer star ratings, if provided, for this design.

As you submit to design projects, you'll accumulate star ratings from customers. If your average star rating remains above 2.5 stars you will be unaffected by the delay.

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