NPS score

What is NPS?

NPS, or Net Promoter Score, measures how likely your customers are to recommend you. It comes from one question: “how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?”, answered on a scale of 0 to 10.

It measures the relationship rather than any single interaction, which makes it slow to move and awkward to act on directly.

How NPS is calculated

Responses split into three groups.

• Promoters, who answer 9 or 10.
• Passives, who answer 7 or 8, and who are ignored in the calculation.
• Detractors, who answer 0 to 6.

NPS = % promoters − % detractors

The result runs from -100 to +100. If 50% are promoters and 20% are detractors, your NPS is 30. The passives count toward the total response number but not toward the score, which is why a large group of 7s and 8s can leave the number unchanged while the underlying picture shifts.

What is a good NPS score?

Anything above 0 means you have more promoters than detractors. Above 50 is generally treated as strong, above 70 as exceptional. These bands are widely quoted and worth treating with caution, because NPS varies enormously by industry and by how the survey is delivered.

Your own trend across the same audience, asked the same way, is more informative than any benchmark.

What NPS does not tell you

Three things are worth knowing before a score gets put in a board deck.

It is one number covering everything. A score of 30 can mean a broadly content customer base or two segments pulling hard in opposite directions. Splitting by company size, plan or use case regularly shows a healthy average hiding a segment in trouble.

It measures intent, not behaviour. Someone answering 9 is telling you how they feel at that moment, which is not the same as an actual referral.

The score is not the useful part. The comment underneath is. A score tells you something changed and gives you nothing to do about it.

NPS vs CSAT vs CES

NPS asks about the relationship and moves slowly. CSAT asks about one interaction and moves quickly. CES asks how much effort something took and predicts churn better than either.

Use NPS when you want a stable relationship measure over time. Use CSAT when you want to know whether a specific step works. Do not run all three on the same people.

How to run NPS with Usersnap

NPS runs as a micro-survey inside the product, so it reaches people while they are using it rather than in an email they may not open. The follow-up comment arrives alongside the score, and AI-powered automations group those comments by topic and sentiment, which is what turns a number into a reason. Detractor responses can be routed by segment so a pattern in one group does not get averaged away.

NPS FAQ

How is NPS calculated?

Subtract the percentage of detractors, who answer 0 to 6, from the percentage of promoters, who answer 9 or 10. Passives on 7 and 8 are excluded. The result ranges from -100 to +100.

What is a good NPS score?

Above 0 means more promoters than detractors. Above 50 is usually considered strong. Industry variation is large enough that your own trend is the better comparison.

What is the difference between NPS and CSAT?

NPS measures the overall relationship and is slow to change. CSAT measures satisfaction with one specific interaction and responds quickly.

How often should you run NPS?

Quarterly is common. More often than that and you get survey fatigue on a metric that does not move fast enough to justify it.

Run NPS in the product and see the reason behind the score. Start free with Usersnap, first 20 feedback items included, no card needed.