The power of STR testing in cats is comparable to that in humans. In the event of a match, each genetic marker successfully amplified increases the discrimination power by a factor of 10.

The chart below illustrates the power of STR profiling. The four lines show theoretical match probabilities for fictional cats of four different breeds having the most common allele at each locus. The match probability is calculated with the simple product rule and uses no correction factor for population substructure. With the standard 9-marker panel used in forensic cases, the Match Probability exceeds 1 in one million for all cat breeds studied thus far.

In forensic cases it is more correct to express these statistics as likelihood ratios. A likelihood ratio is a measure of how much more likely it is that the reference animal is the source of the evidence than some other random animal. In most forensic casework, that can be considered the "prosecution's hypothesis". In the calculation, the actual allele frequencies found in the case are used as well as an adjustment for the population substructure found in cat breeds and further adjustments for missing information. A common scale of interpretation is that a likelihood ratio from 10 -100 "supports" the prosecution's hypothesis, from 100 -1000 "strongly supports" it while a ratio exceeding 1000 "very strongly supports" it. In the case of a match, each marker that is successfully typed adds additional weight to the likelihood ratio. The feline database is currently being evaluated for population substructure to allow calculation of likelihood ratios.