The Best Painters in NYC, Getting The Most From Yelp’s Ratings

The Best Painters in NYC? How to Really Read Yelp’s Rankings

If you've ever tried to find the best painter in New York City, chances are you ended up scrolling through pages and pages of Yelp listings. And if you felt a little confused by what you saw — you're not alone!

At Hoboken Painter Inc., we know that Yelp can be a fantastic tool for finding great painting services. But it’s important to understand how Yelp's sorting options actually work if you want to get the best results — not just the most popular ones.

Here’s what we discovered when we dug into Yelp’s rankings for NYC painters, and what it means for you if you're on the hunt for a professional painter.

Not All Yelp Lists Are Created Equal

When you search for a service on Yelp, you’re given a few different ways to sort the results — "Recommended," "Highest Rated," and "Most Reviewed."
At first glance, you might think all three would show the same top businesses — but that's not the case at all!

• Recommended: Yelp’s default setting. It’s based on an algorithm that factors in review quality, recency, and user activity. It's not just about who has the most reviews or the highest star rating.

• Highest Rated: This sorts businesses by their star average, but it doesn’t always account for how many reviews they have.

• Most Reviewed: Simply shows you the companies with the most total reviews, regardless of rating.

Each sorting method paints a different picture (pun intended!). So depending on which one you look at, you'll get a very different list of "the best."

Who Actually Stands Out Across the Board?

When we looked closely, only a handful of NYC painters consistently ranked highly across all three categories.
These are the true standouts — companies that deliver great quality, excellent customer service, and have earned lots of loyal fans over time.

Here are four companies we found that kept popping up no matter how we sorted:

• Elfralie Home Improvement & Interior Painting

• Jonathan Barsness – Interior Painting

• KD Cares Painting

• Green City Painters

These businesses didn’t just have high star ratings — they had plenty of reviews and were consistently recommended. That combination suggests they’re providing both great work and a great experience for their customers.

But Be Careful: Yelp Isn’t Perfect

As helpful as Yelp is, it's not a flawless system.
We noticed some quirks, like businesses with only a few reviews outranking much more established companies. That can happen because Yelp’s algorithm sometimes boosts newer reviews or filters out reviews it thinks might be suspicious or biased.

There’s also the risk of fake reviews, which unfortunately can still pop up from time to time — either boosting a business unfairly or dragging a good company down.

That’s why we always recommend you read beyond the star rating:

• Check how many reviews a business has — 200 positive reviews usually tells you more than 5 glowing ones.

• Look at the recency — Are the good reviews from last month, or three years ago?

• Scan the text — Detailed, authentic-sounding reviews mean a lot more than vague, generic praise.

A little extra digging can go a long way toward finding a painter you’ll truly be happy with.

So, How Should You Use Yelp to Find the Best Painter?

Here's our simple, friendly advice:

• Don’t just sort by "Highest Rated" — also check "Most Reviewed" and "Recommended."

• Look for painters that score well across multiple categories.

• Read a few reviews — not just the good ones — and look for patterns in customer experiences.

• And when in doubt, trust your instincts! If a company seems responsive, professional, and friendly when you reach out, that’s a very good sign.

Finding the right painter in a big city like New York can feel overwhelming, but by using Yelp thoughtfully (and not just looking at the first name you see), you’ll be much more likely to find someone who truly cares about doing a great job.

If you’re in Hoboken, Jersey City, or anywhere nearby, and you want painters who care about quality, professionalism, and making you happy, you know where to find us!

👉 Get a free quote from Hoboken Painter Inc.

More detailed version

If you’re a consumer looking for the best-rated painting services in NYC, you’re presented with Yelp ratings in Google search. On Yelp, you’ll find an initial list of businesses (some of which don’t seem to belong), but it’s not the only best-list Yelp has to offer. To get the most from these Yelp recommendations, you’ll want to compare and contrast all their data. We did just that and we found some interesting results. The issue is, Yelp’s default rankings had us confused as there are some businesses with only a handful of reviews ranking ahead of dozens of worthy companies (Lexington Painting with only 17 reviews, being one example). After some digging, we discovered three different sort options, each producing different results. They are: Recommended, Highest Rated, and Most Reviewed.

Is one better than the other? We can’t say for sure, but we dove into the results to determine what makes Yelp push some NYC painters higher than others. We also teased out what painting businesses were found on all 3 lists (spoiler alert: there were four of them). We also found some factors that businesses use to enhance their rankings that you should know about. As a bonus, you’ll learn how Yelp really works and how you can better use it for other recommendations. 

As far as the three filtering categories go, here are your top painting companies:

Accurate as of 16 Oct 2020: 3:00 pm (All results, excluding sponsored posts)

Review Category	No.	Business Name	Remarks	Total Reviews
Recommended	1	212 Painter	Unprofessional, not responsive	83
	2	KD Cares Painting	Fast, reasonably priced, professional, quality work	119
	3	Jonathan Barsness - Interior Painting	Honest, punctual, fantastic work	84
	4	Elfralie Home Improvement & Interior Painting	Punctual, clean, very professional	90
	5	Mr. Painter	Professional, knowledgeable, reasonably priced, efficient	32
	6	Green City Painters	Dedicated, good communication, very neat	45
	7	Lexington Painting	Quality work, neat	17
	8	Paintzen - New York	Too expensive, felt like a scam	175
	9	Jordan Painting	Punctual, quality work	41
	10	Jerry's Painting Service	Professional, quality work, friendly	12
Highest Rated	1	Elfralie Home Improvement & Interior Painting	High quality, punctual, professional	90
	2	KD Cares Painting	Fast, reasonably priced, professional, quality work	119
	3	Jonathan Barsness - Interior Painting	Honest, punctual, fantastic work	84
	4	Mr. Handy NYC	2-day job became 15 days, sloppy job	106
	5	Jordan Painting	Punctual, quality work	41
	6	Touch Of The Brush Painting	Quality job, friendly	65
	7	212-Painter	Unprofessional, not responsive	83
	8	Spaces by Steve G	Professional, punctual	33
	9	Wow NYC Handy Men	Good communication, reasonably priced, informative	47
	10	Green City Painters	Dedicated, good communication, very neat	45
Most Reviewed	1	Paintzen - New York	Too expensive, felt like a scam	175
	2	KD Cares Painting	Fast, reasonably priced, professional, quality work	119
	3	Mr. Handy NYC	2-day job became 15 days, sloppy job	106
	4	Elfralie Home Improvement & Interior Panting	High quality, punctual, professional	90
	5	Jonathan Barsness - Interior Painting	Honest, punctual, fantastic work	84
	6	212-Painter	Unpressional, not responsive	83
	7	Touch Of The Brush Painting	Quality job, friendly	65
	8	Wow NYC Handy Men	Good communication, reasonably priced, informative	47
	9	Green City Painters	Dedicated, good communication, very neat	45
	10	Paintworks & Decorating	Fast, reasonably priced, professional	44

A total of 15 companies filled the top 10 spots of these categories. Only four ranked in all three categories, in yellow. Green indicates a positive review, while red denotes a negative one. Interestingly, neither one of these companies have the highest number of reviews or the most recent reviews. The painting businesses include:

• Elfralie Home Improvement & Interior Painting

• Jonathan Barsness – Interior Painting

• KD Cares Painting

• Green City Painters

According to Yelp’s support center, they prioritize the results based on usefulness and relevance, hence the three categories. When someone searches a keyword, either advertisements or sponsored results will show up first. These businesses pay Yelp for the top spots of a page. The full results will be towards the bottom and numbered accordingly. 

Yelp provides more than three sorting filters to users. They also define each category to maximize listings for customers. Here’s what each of them means:

“Recommended”: Based on the user’s search terms, distance, ratings, user engagement data, and relevant reviews of businesses according to what the user searches for. Yelp also considers exclusive data in the form of appointments, reservations, or quotation requests and filters each business’s availability.

“Highest rated”: The reordering of results prioritizes the overall star rating of businesses relevant to what the user is searching for.

“Most reviewed”: This filter sorts the results available based on the number of reviews a business has. The business with the most number of reviews will be listed at the top.

User-specific filters include:

“For you”: This filter option is based on the preference you set in the past. You can personalize your preference with these steps for iOS and Android. 

“Distance”: Yelp sorts results of the user’s query based on the physical proximity of businesses. 

How Trustworthy Is Yelp?

These filter options help keep ranking and reviews transparent for users. Based on experience and statistics, we feel Yelp is one of the best platforms to get a good selection of service providers, here’s why:

1. Yelp Has Established Global Presence

The crowd-sourced review platform has 205 million reviews and counting. Yelp.com is the 44th most visited website in the US, according to Alexa. People from 35 different countries (apart from the US) use the Yelp app for reviews. Apart from restaurants, which is the #1 reviewed business on Yelp, while home/local services come in at a close second.    

2. Yelp Does Not Offer Credibility Businesses Can Buy

Ever seen one of those “People Love Us On Yelp” stickers? Well, businesses have to earn them. A seemingly small sticker carries a big responsibility and honor. Yelp gives these stickers to deserving business owners only twice a year. It’s important to note that while businesses can apply for the stickers, it does not mean they will automatically qualify. Yelp only chooses businesses that:

• Demonstrate excellent customer service

• Earn many good reviews and high ratings from customers

• Respond quickly to both positive and negative comments

• Follow Yelp’s best business practices

3. Yelp Offers Businesses Support In Case Of Foul Play

Some competitors do not play fair and plant fake reviews. Yelp encourages businesses to report such fake reviews to keep the platform as accurate as it can be. If Yelp has not removed it, and business owners have obtained final adjudication from a competent court of jurisdiction, business owners can contact their support team for further action. 

Reasons to be Cautious About Yelp’s Rating 

1. Controversial Acts Of Hiding Bad Reviews

Yelp has had its string of questionable acts in the past. Some records were from Entrepreneur.com where it details Yelp offering to push bad reviews to the bottom if retail establishments in San Francisco would pay for advertising. Yelp has denied the allegations, but no one knows for sure, but it’s damaging for their branding nevertheless. 

2. Businesses Can Buy Reviews

According to inbound marketing software, Hubspot, it is possible to create a fake account and publish false reviews. Businesses can even outsource to a third-party group, like Mechanical Turk to get reviews written for them or a false one for a competitor for a small sum. It’s always a good idea to talk to someone who has experienced the product or service in question.

3. Some 1-Star and 5-Star Reviews Can be Fake

In 2006, there were 5% of fake reviews on Yelp, which has risen to 20% in 2013, as reported by Business Insider. It goes on to say that the reviewer’s language is another good indicator for spotting a fake review. Research by Quantified Communications states that Yelp reviews have deceptive language and have little to no indication about the story of what happened. Read the full research here. 

Conclusion

From this analysis, we hope you better understand how Yelp chooses and displays results for the best painters in NYC. Apart from filtering categories, we believe the keywords typed in matters too for search and location accuracy. For example, if you prioritize engaging a business in the industry the longest with the most experience, filter it by “most reviewed”. If you prefer to make your decision based on top reviews by other customers, regardless of how long the business has been in existence, then “highest rated” works best.

As painters ourselves, we understand how each business on Yelp strives to deliver their best for customers each time. Putting your home, office, or apartment in someone else’s hands is not easy, and it requires trust (that’s built up from the first point of contact).  

After all, engaging in a painting business is about much more than just a complete job, but a satisfying experience. Whether it's fixing a ceiling or repairing walls, or painting, people trust businesses that are caring and devoted to making things better than before. Yes, we’re painters, but we’re customers too.