PSL Tier Reference

PSL score chart

RealSmile Research Team · Facial Analysis Specialists
Updated May 16, 2026
Based on 5 peer-reviewed sources
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Every PSL tier from sub5 to gigachad, the structural markers behind each, and how PSL maps to our 17-metric composite.

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The forum dialect, decoded

If you came to this page from a looksmax.org thread, the looksmaxxingwiki, or a Reddit rate-me post, you already speak the dialect: sub5, LTN, MTN, HTN, Chadlite, Chad, Gigachad. The vocabulary descends from PUAhate, SlutHate, and Lookism, the three early-2010s forums whose initials gave PSL its name. Those forums are mostly gone — PUAhate was shuttered, SlutHate moved, Lookism splintered — but the rating dialect persists across looksmax.org, /r/Vindicta, /r/truerateme, and a long tail of Discord servers and Twitter accounts that still post rate-me content using the same band names.

The dialect is intentionally harsh and structurally pessimistic. Within the forums, "sub5" gets thrown at anyone the poster is feeling uncharitable about, "MTN" is the default sneer for normal-looking people, and the upper bands (Chadlite, Chad, Gigachad) are reserved for what would unambiguously read as model-tier in a casting room. That compression is editorial, not measurement — a real-world 6.5 on a casual 1-to-10 scale gets called MTN in PSL because PSL anchors its ceiling harder. This chart maps the bands to fixed percentiles so the labels line up with measured structure instead of forum mood.

What the chart is for: translating a numerical 0-to-100 composite from the 17-metric engine into the band name the community is going to use anyway. Sub5 sits at 0-39, LTN at 40-54, MTN at 55-69, HTN at 70-79, Chadlite at 80-87, Chad at 88-94, Gigachad at 95-100. The cutoffs are stable; the labels are forum vocabulary. Use the band name to speak the local dialect; trust the underlying number for the actual measurement.

The PSL tier chart

Sub5

PSL 1 to 40 to 39 (1 to 3 out of 10)Below 30th percentile

Structural markers: Multiple structural metrics flagged below the 25th percentile. Often: poor jawline ratio, soft midface, asymmetry visible at conversational distance, skin texture, recessed chin. The composite is held down by three or more drag metrics simultaneously.

Practical notes: The community uses this tier most aggressively and least usefully. The largest available structural gains live here, but they are almost always soft-tissue: body composition (lower visceral fat reveals jawline), skin, posture, and grooming. Twelve weeks of consistent work moves most sub5 users into the LTN band.

LTN

PSL 4 to 540 to 54 (4 to 5 out of 10)30th to 55th percentile

Structural markers: Below-average baseline. One or two drag metrics (commonly skin, posture, expression default, or jawline definition) hold the composite below average. Structural metrics are largely in baseline range.

Practical notes: LTN stands for low-tier-normie. This is the band with the highest practical ROI on lever work. Targeting the specific drag metric typically moves users into the MTN band within 4 to 6 months.

MTN

PSL 5 to 655 to 69 (5 to 6 out of 10)55th to 75th percentile

Structural markers: Mid-tier-normie. No metrics strongly flagged in either direction, or one or two metrics in the 75th percentile range with the rest at baseline. The face reads positively in good lighting.

Practical notes: Moving from MTN to HTN typically requires removing one specific drag metric and amplifying one specific strong metric simultaneously. The paid report identifies both. Without targeted work, most users plateau here.

HTN

PSL 6 to 770 to 79 (7 out of 10)75th to 90th percentile

Structural markers: High-tier-normie. Multiple structural metrics in the 75th to 90th percentile range, often including a positive canthal tilt, strong jawline ratio, balanced facial thirds, and clear skin. The face reads positively across lighting and angles.

Practical notes: HTN is the practical ceiling of soft-tissue and lever work. Moving from HTN to Chadlite typically requires structural assets that are largely set by the late twenties. Body composition, expression refinement, and photo competence carry the remaining gains.

Chadlite

PSL 7 to 7.580 to 87 (8 out of 10)90th to 95th percentile

Structural markers: Multiple metrics in the 90th percentile or higher. Strong structural baseline (gonial angle, FWHR, midface volume, canthal tilt all favorable), excellent soft-tissue, and habitual photo competence. The face reads as distinctly above average at first glance.

Practical notes: This is largely a maintenance band. Sleep, skin, body composition, and recovery sustain it. Drift downward is more likely from neglect than upward from effort.

Chad

PSL 7.5 to 8.588 to 94 (8 to 9 out of 10)95th to 99th percentile

Structural markers: Structural assets across the board, consistent across multiple photos and lighting conditions, plus expression and presentation that compound the baseline. Rare in the general population, more common in modeling and casting filters.

Practical notes: No improvement plan in the looksmaxxing sense. Maintenance protocols carry the entire upside in this band. Structural intervention is almost always a net negative.

Gigachad

PSL 8.5 to 1095 to 100 (9 to 10 out of 10)Top 1st percentile

Structural markers: Exceptional structural baseline plus exceptional soft-tissue presentation. Less than 1 in 100 men sit here against the composite. Often appears in high-fashion casting and elite professional modeling.

Practical notes: The community uses gigachad more as a meme than a measurement. Real top-percentile faces are rare and the structural baseline is largely genetic. The score is descriptive, not aspirational.

Reading your PSL band without forum-poisoning

  1. Stop using rate-me threads as a measurement source. The aggregate rating you get on /r/truerateme or a looksmax.org rate-me thread is a function of the time of day, the rater's own band insecurity, the photo quality you posted, and your username — not a measurement of your face. Run the structural composite first, then compare.
  2. Run the looksmaxxing test on a photo that would qualify as "rate-me-eligible" by forum standards: neutral expression, eye-level angle, even lighting, hair pulled off the forehead, no filter, no makeup if relevant. The forums will tear you apart for posting a non-rate-me-grade photo; the score does the same thing automatically, marking it as low-confidence if framing is poor.
  3. Translate the composite into the band using the chart cutoffs. Sub5 to LTN territory is where the forum vocabulary is most cruel and most unreliable. If your structural composite reads MTN but the forums called you sub5, the forums are wrong and you are doing what most rate-me posters do: posting bad photos and absorbing the discount.
  4. When forum users argue your tier, ignore the loudest two voices. Forum-band consensus moves with whoever posts the longest reply; the structural composite does not. If a thread says "Chadlite at best" but the composite reads Chad (88+), the thread is wrong. If the thread says "Chad easily" but the composite reads HTN, the thread is being polite or trolling.
  5. Track the composite number across 4-week cycles, not the band label. Forum-fluent posters obsess over crossing a named threshold (LTN → MTN → HTN). The composite is the actual measurement. A 6-point composite gain that does not change your band name is still a real improvement, even if no rate-me thread will reflect it.

Why PSL specifically can be misleading

PSL score chart FAQ

Where did PSL come from and what do the letters stand for?+
PSL is community shorthand built around three forums that shaped the modern looksmaxxing vocabulary: PUAhate (the original incel-adjacent forum, mid-2010s), SlutHate (its renamed successor), and Lookism (the parallel attractiveness forum). The "PSL" acronym referenced the cluster of those communities and the rating dialect they shared. The forums themselves are largely defunct or moved, but the rating vocabulary persists on looksmax.org and the looksmaxxingwiki, where the canonical "sub5 / LTN / MTN / HTN / Chadlite / Chad / Gigachad" ladder still gets used in tier-list threads and rate-me posts.
Why does the forum vocabulary use words like "subhuman" and "Chadlite"?+
Self-deprecation is the dominant register in the original PSL forums. The vocabulary is intentionally bleak. "Sub5" or "subhuman" was used to describe anyone the poster judged below a 5/10; "MTN" (mid-tier-normie) was the default insult for "average"; "HTN" (high-tier-normie) was reluctantly conceded to genuinely good-looking non-models; "Chad" was reserved for the top few percent; "Gigachad" was a meme escalation. The chart on this page uses the same vocabulary as the translation layer, but flatly rejects the framing — the percentile distribution is real, the names are community editorial, and "sub5" is a label, not a verdict.
What is the difference between a PSL score and a normie 1-to-10 score?+
A normie 1-to-10 rating typically anchors at 5 = "average" with a wide tolerance band; most people you know on the street get rated 5 to 7 by a casual observer. The PSL ladder anchors much harder. PSL-fluent posters routinely call a real-world 6.5 "MTN" and a real-world 7.5 "HTN at most" — the forum dialect compresses the upper bands. The chart on this page maps PSL to the same percentile distribution our 17-metric composite uses, so a PSL HTN here is consistently around the 75th to 90th percentile rather than a vibes-based forum verdict.
Is the "looksmaxxingwiki" or looksmax.org tier list compatible with this chart?+
Roughly. The community wikis use slightly different cutoffs and some include extra tiers ("HTB" for high-tier-becoming, "Chadpreet" / "Chad Stacy" gendered variations, etc.). The cutoffs on this chart use a fixed-percentile mapping so the bands stay numerically stable. If you saw a different cutoff on the wiki, the discrepancy is naming convention rather than measurement. Use the composite number, not the band label, when comparing across tools.
Why do you need a different scoring tool if PSL is just "looks rating"?+
Because vibes-based PSL rating is unreliable. Forum-given ratings are influenced by what the rater is trying to prove that day (downbidding a poster they dislike, upbidding a face that looks like their own), by photo quality, and by the rater's own band insecurity. A 17-metric structural composite is reproducible across photos of the same person in similar lighting. The chart gives you the band label the community uses; the underlying number is the part to track.
What metrics actually drive the PSL band?+
The high-signal structural metrics on the male-coded composite — gonial angle, bizygomatic-to-bigonial ratio, midface height, canthal tilt, philtrum length, and FWHR — dominate which PSL tier a face lands in. Soft-tissue and presentation metrics (skin texture, expression, posture) move you within a tier but rarely jump you across a tier on their own. This is why the community correctly notes that "soft maxxing" alone moves you sub5 → LTN reliably, LTN → MTN often, and MTN → HTN with effort, but HTN → Chadlite typically requires structural assets that were settled by the late twenties.
Is the PSL ladder racist or culturally biased?+
The original forums were openly bigoted; the vocabulary carries that history. The structural geometry underneath the chart on this page is not — the 17-metric engine uses 68-landmark detection that works on any face and compares to cross-population anthropometry datasets where they exist. The composite tells you where a face sits on measured proportions, not what it "should" look like in a specific cultural ideal. The PSL band is the translation layer; the underlying number is the measurement.
Is the test free?+
Yes. The 0 to 100 composite plus your PSL band is free. The $14.99 Looksmax Report unlocks all 17 metric percentiles, identifies which two metrics are dragging you below the next band, and writes a 12-week protocol prioritized for your specific weak metrics. The detection runs entirely in your browser; the photo never uploads.

Free score is the headline. Full report is the plan.

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