# The marketplace

> Where to search services rather than people, what each sort actually orders by, and why a listing with no rating is not being hidden from you.

Source: https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentorship/the-marketplace
Last verified: 2026-09-05

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**If you know what you need but not who you want**, start at [the marketplace](https://www.revquix.com/marketplace).

## Marketplace or Mentors - they answer different questions

|         | Marketplace                    | Mentors                                       |
| ------- | ------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------- |
| Lists   | **Services**                   | **People**                                    |
| Answers | "I need a Java mock interview" | "Who is this person, and what do they offer?" |

Same inventory, different unit. If you are comparing prices and formats, the marketplace is the
right page. If somebody recommended a name, go to [finding a mentor](https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentorship/finding-a-mentor) instead.

Neither is where fixed-scope work lives - that is [services and offers](https://www.revquix.com/docs/services/what-an-offer-is), which is delivered
by the Revquix team rather than by a mentor you choose.

## Narrowing it down

You can filter by service type, skills, price, session duration, rating, availability and a specific
mentor. Every filter is written into the address bar, so a filtered marketplace is a link you can
send someone and they will see exactly what you saw.

> **Note** - The rating filter snaps to two levels
>
> It offers 4.0+ and 4.5+ and nothing in between. Those are the two thresholds the result counts are
> built on, so a hand-typed `?rating=4.2` in the URL is rounded down to 4.0 rather than producing a
> count that no facet can explain.

## What each sort actually does

Seven options, and three of them behave in ways worth knowing.

| Sort                                     | Orders by                                             |
| ---------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- |
| **Relevance** (default)                  | How well the listing matches your words, then rating. |
| **Price: low to high** / **high to low** | Price.                                                |
| **Highest rated**                        | Rating, then how many ratings are behind it.          |
| **Most booked**                          | Number of orders, then completed ones.                |
| **Newest**                               | When the service was published.                       |
| **Soonest available**                    | The next free slot.                                   |

> **Note** - Highest rated is never rating alone
>
> One five-star review does not outrank forty at 4.8. The count of ratings is a deliberate second
> sort, because otherwise the top of that list would be whoever has been rated once.

> **Warning** - Soonest available puts unknown availability last, not first
>
> A listing whose next free slot has not been worked out yet sorts to the bottom of that view. It is
> not unavailable and it is not being penalised - we just do not know yet, and putting an unknown at
> the top of the one sort about readiness would be actively misleading.
>
> If a mentor you want is missing from that view, look for them on [Mentors](https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentorship/finding-a-mentor).

## With no search term

Relevance has nothing to rank against, so browsing an unfiltered marketplace falls back to quality
and recency. That is why the front page looks stable between visits and reorders once you type.

## "Showing close matches"

If an exact search finds too little, the marketplace retries with a looser, spelling-tolerant
search and tells you it has done so. It is a hint that the results are approximate - usually a typo
or a very specific phrase. Shorter and more general is the fix.

If nothing matches at all, you get suggested rails rather than an empty page. Those are suggestions,
not results for your query.

## The prices on the cards

Card prices are the mentor's listed price with a common comparison basis, so the list is consistent
to scan. The price in your own currency appears when you open the service.

Why the difference is covered in [how you pay](https://www.revquix.com/docs/payments/how-you-pay).

- [Finding a mentor](https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentorship/finding-a-mentor) - Searching people instead of services.

- [Booking a session](https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentorship/booking-a-session) - Once you have picked one.

- [Services and offers](https://www.revquix.com/docs/services/what-an-offer-is) - Fixed-scope work, no call.