Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A customer loyalty metric measured by asking "How likely are you to recommend us?" on a 0-10 scale. Scores range from -100 to +100.
Also known as: NPS
Formula
% Promoters - % Detractors
Why It Matters
NPS is one of the most widely used customer satisfaction metrics because of its simplicity and correlation with growth. Respondents are grouped into Promoters (9-10), Passives (7-8), and Detractors (0-6).
While NPS alone does not tell you why customers feel the way they do, it serves as an effective health check and benchmarking tool. Companies with high NPS tend to grow faster through word-of-mouth referrals.
How to Calculate
Subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. Passives are not included in the calculation but affect the overall percentages. The result ranges from -100 (all detractors) to +100 (all promoters).
Net Promoter Score Calculator
% Promoters - % Detractors
Industry Benchmarks
SaaS average NPS is around 30-40. Scores above 50 are considered excellent. Best-in-class companies like Slack and Zoom have achieved scores above 70. B2B typically scores higher than B2C.
How to Track in KISSmetrics
Trigger an NPS survey event in KISSmetrics when users respond. Track the score as a user property so you can segment your analytics by NPS category - for example, comparing feature usage patterns between Promoters and Detractors.
Common Mistakes
- -Surveying only active or happy users, skewing results high
- -Treating NPS as a goal rather than a diagnostic - optimizing the score instead of fixing root causes
- -Not following up with Detractors to understand specific issues
- -Surveying too frequently, causing survey fatigue
Pro Tips
- +Always include a follow-up question asking "Why did you give this score?" - the qualitative data is more valuable than the number
- +Segment NPS by customer tenure, plan tier, and use case to find patterns
- +Track NPS trends over time rather than fixating on any single measurement
Related Terms
Customer Effort Score (CES)
A metric that measures how easy it was for a customer to accomplish a specific task or resolve an issue, typically on a 1-7 scale from "Very Difficult" to "Very Easy."
Customer Health Score
A composite metric combining multiple signals like product usage, support tickets, NPS responses, and payment history to predict customer retention or churn risk.
Churn Rate
The percentage of customers or revenue lost over a given period. Customer churn measures account losses; revenue churn measures dollar losses.
Product-Market Fit Score
A survey-based metric that asks users "How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?" The percentage answering "Very disappointed" indicates product-market fit strength.
See Net Promoter Score (NPS) in action
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