How It Works

The Tampa’s Best Awards, are not like any other in Florida. We go to great lengths to ensure we deliver the most accurate and fair results possible.

There are three stages of the Tampa’s Best Awards that span several months.

There is no cost for candidates to enter our awards program. It’s free to participate!
Local residents can nominate an eligible candidate for any Tampa’s Best category.
Candidates are encouraged to nominate themselves.
For our 2026 awards, the nomination deadline is June 19, 2026.
A candidate only needs to be nominated once to make it on our radar.
Nominations are subject to approval by Inbound Systems to ensure the category is relevant to the candidate.
Nominees are first selected based on their most applicable category. If there are not enough nominees in a category, a candidate’s secondary categories may qualify them as a nominee.
Primarily based on reviews over the previous year, we will announce up to 10 candidates per category. Only these candidates will advance to Stage 2 as nominees.
IMPORTANT: Once you have been named as an official nominee, be sure to claim your listing! Candidates that do so are the first to receive important notifications and may be given preference in the final results (i.e. tie breakers).

For our 2026 awards, the voting period is July 21–Aug 6, 2026.
To obtain the most reliable results, residents are restricted to one vote per category. Residents may vote for the same candidate more than once IF it’s in a different category. If a resident votes in the same category more than once, only the most recent vote will count.
To obtain votes, nominees may share the voting page via email, social media, radio ads, etc. Nominees may not incentivize or pay for votes.
The top three nominees with the highest score in each category (averaged, if multiple locations) move onto Stage 3.

This is where the Tampa’s Best Awards shine! First, we reference data from the Better Business Bureau to ensure finalists do not have a grade worse than “B-” (no grade is okay). Lack of BBB accreditation does not influence results.
Rather than just a popularity contest of votes, we also count online reviews. Specifically, we’ll capture the previous 12 calendar months of online reviews leading up to August 6, 2025.
Google reviews are included in the scoring equation based on a finalist’s overall rating and number of 5-star reviews. If a finalist has multiple eligible locations, those review signals may be averaged.
The 5-star review count is scored on a logarithmic, diminishing-returns scale, meaning each additional review can help, but each one has less impact as the total number of reviews grows. For example, going from 1 to 10 5-star reviews has a greater scoring impact than going from 100 to 110, which has a greater impact than going from 200 to 210. This helps ensure the scoring reflects quality, not just popularity.
Finalists will be announced on our website as soon as we are able to verify the results.

Recognition will be given to each of the top three finalists.
We will first announce the winners at our Tampa’s Best Awards Ceremony, scheduled for the evening of September 9, 2026 in the Tampa area.
If you’re a finalist, be sure to get your tickets as soon as they become available! We expect to sell out very quickly. At the ceremony, expect to be entertained while you enjoy drinks and the revealing of winners live and on stage. It really is a great time!
For those who are not able to attend the event, we will also announce the winners here on our website within a few business days.

NOTE: We reserve the right to update and/or clarify these guidelines at our own discretion and without notice. Check back for updates.