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A home changes hands with more unanswered questions about how it actually performs than almost any other major purchase. Two rating systems exist to close that gap: the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Home Energy Score and Pearl SCORE™. They're easy to mix up, but they measure different things.
Home Energy Score rates a home's energy use on a scale of 1 to 10. Pearl SCORE rates a home's overall performance across five pillars: Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience, and Energy. Both look at energy use. In Pearl SCORE, most of what Home Energy Score covers, like heating, cooling, insulation, and air sealing, sits in the Operations pillar.
| Home Energy Score | Pearl SCORE | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Buyers who want an energy-cost estimate for a specific home | Buyers who want a full picture of a home's performance before making an offer |
| Administered by | U.S. Department of Energy | Pearl |
| Scale | 1 to 10 | 1 to 1,000 |
| Scope | Energy efficiency only | Five pillars: Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience, Energy |
| Data source | In-person assessor walk-through (about 50 data inputs) | Public records and homeowner-supplied data, via the free Pearl app |
| Requires a home visit? | Yes | No, Pearl SCORE is available by address lookup |
| Typical cost | Roughly $150 to $400. DOE doesn't set a fixed national price, so the exact cost depends on the local assessor market. | Free to look up and explore in the app. Pearl SCORE Report is available for buyers who want to go deeper on a home for sale. |
| Where to get it | Find a certified assessor through DOE's Home Energy Score program | Enter an address at pearlscore.com or in the free Pearl app |
| Coverage | About 290K homes assessed as of January 2026 | 97+ million U.S. single-family homes, effectively every single-family home in the country |
| Relationship to the other | A single-dimension input; one of five pillars Pearl SCORE evaluates | A whole-home rating that includes energy but doesn't stop there |
Note: The Home Energy Score figure reflects completed individual assessments to date. The Pearl figure reflects nationwide SCORE profile coverage, a different kind of count, not a directly comparable number.
Home Energy Score focuses on energy use. Pearl SCORE covers that ground in its Operations pillar and adds Safety, Comfort, Resilience, and Energy.
Home Energy Score comes from the U.S. Department of Energy. An assessor visits the home in person and evaluates roughly 50 data inputs, including the building envelope, HVAC systems, water heating, and foundation type, then produces a score from 1 to 10, where 10 represents the most energy-efficient homes.1 A typical assessment runs roughly $150 to $400 and is scheduled through a DOE-trained assessor; DOE doesn't set a fixed national price, so cost depends on the local assessor market.1 Think of it as a miles-per-gallon rating for a house: it focuses on energy use, by design. Outside a few local programs, you'll rarely see one in a home's listing documents.
Pearl SCORE rates a home in this order: Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience, and Energy, drawing on public records and homeowner-provided data.2 Look up any address at pearlscore.com or in the free Pearl app to see a free Pearl SCORE, no in-home visit required. Energy is one pillar among five here, not the whole picture, which is exactly the context a single energy number can't provide on its own.
Safety: Documents whether protections like carbon monoxide detectors, smoke alarms, and radon mitigation systems are present.2
Comfort: Covers temperature consistency, humidity control, drafts, and outdoor noise, documenting the features that influence comfort rather than a live read of how the home feels day to day.2
Operations: Reflects HVAC equipment, insulation, air sealing, ductwork, and water-efficient appliances, including documented age and efficiency upgrades.2
Resilience: Documents readiness features for storms, wildfires, flooding, or outages, including backup systems like generators or outage-protection battery storage.2
Energy: Tracks solar panels, EV charging readiness, smart energy management, and battery storage used for solar pairing.2
The two aren't competing for the same job. Home Energy Score speaks to energy use. Pearl SCORE speaks to the whole home. Few homes for sale have a Home Energy Score, while nearly every single-family home has a Pearl SCORE.
| If you need to... | Check... |
|---|---|
| Estimate what a specific home will cost to heat and cool | Home Energy Score: purpose-built for this exact question. Pearl SCORE: the Operations pillar documents the HVAC, insulation, and appliance data that drive those costs, as part of the whole-home picture. |
| Understand how a home performs on Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience, and Energy before making an offer | Pearl SCORE: the only one of the two that rates the whole home, not just its energy use |
| See a rating on a home before scheduling any in-person assessment | Pearl SCORE: available by address lookup with no visit required; a completed Home Energy Score is rare outside a few local programs, but it's worth asking whether one was done before scheduling anything new |
| Get cost-effective efficiency recommendations with projected savings | Home Energy Score: the report covers whole-home assets like the building envelope and major equipment, not a room-by-room plan |
| Avoid assuming a home has been fully vetted just because it has one of the two scores | Both: neither one replaces an inspection. Check the Pearl SCORE, and ask whether a Home Energy Score was ever done. |
Home Energy Score answers a specific, useful question: what will this home cost to heat and cool? Pearl SCORE answers a broader one: how does this home perform across everything that shapes day-to-day living in it, energy included?
The two numbers work together rather than as substitutes. A strong Home Energy Score tells you about a home's energy use. Pearl SCORE adds how comfortable the home is, what it costs to run, and how well it holds up.
See a home's Pearl SCORE inside the Pearl app to check where it stands across all five pillars.
1. U.S. Department of Energy, Better Buildings Solution Center, Home Energy Score program page and live assessment counter (289,422 as of Jan. 11, 2026): https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/home-energy-score
2. Pearl, five-pillar description and national coverage claim: https://pearlscore.com/pearl-score and https://pearlscore.com
