About Pawgraded

Pawgraded exists because the two biggest decisions in dog ownership — which breed, and whether to insure it — are usually made on anecdotes instead of numbers. We think prospective owners deserve better: a breed database where every trait is scored, every health condition is documented, and every insurance figure carries a named source.

What we do

• Breed profiles. Each of the 175 breeds is graded across seven ownership traits and mapped to its documented health conditions, lifespan and size — with each condition rated for severity.
• Insurance data. We publish the industry's actual average premiums from NAPHIA, a 51-jurisdiction premium index computed from NAPHIA's published state shares, and a comparison of reimbursement terms, deductibles, limits and waiting periods across eleven carriers.
• Tools. A dog age calculator, a food portion calculator, a premium-factor tool that reports your breed's risk tier and your state's index, and a budget worksheet that runs on your own numbers.

What we do not do

We do not publish breed-level or breed-by-state premium estimates. No public dataset contains them — insurers file rates at ZIP code level against an individual dog's age and history — so any such figure would be invented. Earlier versions of this site published exactly those numbers, along with 432 generated pages built on them. We removed all of it. Our methodology page states what we publish, what we refuse to publish, and why.

How we make money

Pawgraded is reader-supported. Some links to pet insurers are affiliate links that pay us a commission when you purchase, at no additional cost to you. Our ratings are produced independently of these relationships, and price is not an input into any rating we publish — see our affiliate disclosure and methodology for the full picture.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or data tips: get in touch.