| weight | Linguistic scale for the importance |
| 1 | Two factors are equally important |
| 3 | Compare one factor with the other, one is weakly important than the other |
| 5 | Compare one factor with the other, one is obviously important than the other |
| 7 | Compare one-factor t with the other, one is strongly important than the other |
| 9 | Compare one factor with the other, one is extremely important than the other |
| 2, 4, 6, 8 | Median value between neighboring factors |
| reciprocal | aji refers to the importance ratio between j and i, aji = 1/aij |