Peak does not name any Peak Brain Score as “good.” The yardsticks it offers are relative: your percentile against other Peak users, and how you compare with an age group’s average, which for your own age group is also the bar Peak uses to move you up its game ranks. Your PBS is a score out of 1,000 that averages your game scores, and it measures how well you play Peak’s games, not your IQ or brain health.
What is the Peak Brain Score?
Peak describes the Peak Brain Score, or PBS, as a score out of 1,000 that reflects your overall performance across Peak games. Under it sit six skill categories: Memory, Problem Solving, Mental Agility, Focus, Language, and Emotion. Each category score, Peak says, is based on how your performance compares with other Peak users.
How Peak calculates your PBS
Your PBS is not the average of your category scores. Peak says it is the average of all your individual game scores, while each category score is the average of the games in that category.
The reason is that many games count toward more than one category. Perilous Path is a Memory game that also feeds Mental Agility, and Puzzle Blox counts toward Problem Solving, Focus, and Mental Agility. Averaging the categories would count those games more than once.
Peak’s help center lists 47 games with their categories, but it does not explain how each game score is worked out, or whether it reflects your best result or your recent ones. Its game table also tags a few games, such as Flame Dodge and Jump Control, with a Coordination category that the main PBS article does not list.
Where to see your scores in the app
Open the Brain subsection of the Performance menu. Peak says a larger colored area there means stronger performance, shown alongside your scores. Its Google Play listing describes a Brain Map that shows how you compare with others and where you excel.
Select Compare and choose an age group, and Peak shows your performance against that group’s average. The App Store listing also mentions comparisons by profession. Peak calls your percentile the clearest read: a Language score in the 56th percentile means you outperform 56% of Peak users.
Free users get basic statistics and Pro adds advanced ones, though Peak does not say which views sit on which side.
What is a good Peak Brain Score?
Peak publishes no target number on its 1,000-point scale. It offers relative yardsticks instead.
Your percentile. Going by Peak’s example, a category score above the 50th percentile means you outperform more than half of Peak users in it.
Your age group. The Compare view shows whether you sit above or below the average for an age group. That is also Peak’s bar for ranks: you move up a game’s seven ranks, from Beginner to Legend, after consistently scoring above your age group’s average in that game, clearing it twice in a row. On iOS, you also need to unlock the achievements shown on the pre-game screen.
Remember that you are compared with other Peak players, not the population at large, so a percentile here is not a test norm like an IQ score.
Why your Peak Brain Score goes up and down
A new game joins the score. Peak says a new game’s scores do not count during a calibration phase. Once it is added, your PBS covers more games, and you may see a temporary dip that affects all players equally and settles as you keep playing.
It is an average. Each game counts once, so a game you find hard weighs on your PBS as much as a favorite does.
Ranks work differently. Peak says ranks never decrease, so a dip will not cost you a rank you have earned.
A reset starts you at zero. “Reset my progress” in the Me menu (on iOS, tap the cog icon first) sets your game scores and PBS to zero, and Peak says it cannot be undone.
How to raise your Peak Brain Score
The score rises as you get better at Peak’s games.
Train regularly. Peak’s Google Play listing says its personalized daily workouts take 10 minutes a day. Free games can be played once a day; Pro adds a personalized six-game workout you can replay, plus every game at any time. Our Peak cost guide covers the price.
Aim at weaker categories. The smaller areas in your Brain section show where you have room to grow. The App Store listing names workouts such as Weakest Link and Low Rank, and Peak’s website says Coach shows “where and how you can improve.” Peak lists contextual workouts as a Pro feature, so check what your plan includes.
Swap games. You can swap one game per category in your daily workout before you start it: swipe left on iOS, or tap and hold on Android.
Take the Bonus Cards. These optional mini-challenges appear in some games, and Peak says they earn extra points if you complete them correctly, though it does not say how those points feed into your PBS.
What your PBS does not tell you
Peak says the app is designed for education and entertainment and is not a medical product. The score is not an IQ test, a measure of brain health, or a diagnosis. Peak even says its Emotion category does not measure emotional ability.
A higher score also does not show that gains reach daily life. A major 2016 review found extensive evidence that brain training improves the trained tasks, but little that it improves everyday cognitive performance. Our guide on whether brain training apps work covers the research. If you are noticing memory changes, talk to a doctor rather than reading anything into an app score.
Common questions
Is 500 a good Peak Brain Score? Peak does not say. With no official benchmark for the overall number, your category percentiles and the age-group comparison are the better check.
Why did my Peak Brain Score drop? The one reason Peak spells out is a new game joining the scoring system, which can cause a temporary dip for everyone. Because the PBS is an average, weaker results in some games can also pull it down.
Is the Peak Brain Score an IQ score? No. It averages your scores in Peak’s own games and compares you with other Peak users, not with the general population.
Zenelia is a brain training app made by Mindkindly’s owner, so we don’t rank or score it here. It costs $6.99 a month or $44.99 a year, has a 7-day free trial, and is iPhone only for now; read more about Zenelia or see it on the App Store.
The bottom line
Read your Peak Brain Score as a comparison, not a grade. For the full picture, see our Peak review, where Peak scores 8.0 out of 10 on our five-criterion framework from hands-on use, or our Peak vs Elevate comparison.
Sources
- What is the Peak Brain Score (PBS)? (Peak Help Center)
- How is my PBS calculated? (Peak Help Center)
- How do I interpret my statistics compared to other players? (Peak Help Center)
- How do ranks work? (Peak Help Center)
- “New” games (Peak Help Center)
- How do I reset my progress? (Peak Help Center)
- Free vs Pro (Peak Help Center)
- What is Peak Pro? (Peak Help Center)
- How can I swap a game in my daily workout? (Peak Help Center)
- How do bonus cards work? (Peak Help Center)
- What is the science behind the Emotion games? (Peak Help Center)
- What is Peak? (Peak Help Center)
- Peak homepage, Coach (Peak)
- Peak: Brain Training (Apple App Store)
- Peak: Brain Training Games (Google Play)
- Do “brain-training” programs work? (Simons et al., Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2016)