What is NPS (Net Promoter Score)?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the gold standard metric for measuring customer loyalty. Developed by Fred Reichheld and Bain & Company in 2003, it answers one fundamental question: "How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?" Customers respond on a 0-10 scale, and their answers are grouped into three categories that reveal the health of your customer relationships.

NPS has become the most widely adopted loyalty metric in the world because it correlates directly with revenue growth. Bain & Company found that companies with the highest NPS in their industry grow at more than twice the rate of their competitors. The median NPS across all industries in 2025 is 42, but benchmarks vary significantly by sector.

Unlike satisfaction metrics that measure a single interaction, NPS captures something deeper: whether customers trust your brand enough to put their own reputation on the line by recommending you. That distinction is what makes NPS a leading indicator of growth rather than a lagging measure of happiness.

How to Calculate NPS (Net Promoter Score Formula)

The NPS formula is straightforward. You subtract the percentage of unhappy customers from the percentage of loyal advocates.

Here is how to calculate your Net Promoter Score step by step:

Step 1: Collect responses. Ask your customers the NPS question -- "How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?" -- on a scale of 0 to 10. Our guide to NPS question examples and best practices covers wording, follow-ups, and when to ask.

Step 2: Categorize responses. Group every response into one of three categories based on the score they gave:

• Promoters (9-10): Loyal enthusiasts who actively recommend your brand and drive growth through referrals.
• Passives (7-8): Satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offers.
• Detractors (0-6): Unhappy customers who can damage your brand through negative word-of-mouth.

Step 3: Calculate percentages. Divide the count of each group by the total number of responses and multiply by 100.

Step 4: Apply the formula. Subtract the Detractor percentage from the Promoter percentage. Passives are excluded from the formula but remain important for understanding your full customer base.

Net Promoter Score Calculation Example

Here is a worked example with 200 survey responses:

In this example, NPS = 60% - 15% = +45. This score falls in the "Good" range (30-49), meaning you have a solid base of promoters with room to grow.

The 3 Categories of NPS: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors

Understanding the three NPS categories is essential for turning your score into action. Each group requires a different engagement strategy.

Promoters (Score 9-10)

Promoters are your most valuable customers. They buy more, stay longer, and actively refer new customers. Research shows that Promoters have a customer lifetime value 3-8x higher than Detractors. They are your organic growth engine.

How to leverage Promoters: Ask them for referrals and online reviews. Feature them in case studies. Create a loyalty or ambassador program. Their enthusiasm is your most cost-effective marketing channel.

Passives (Score 7-8)

Passives are satisfied but not loyal. They will not speak negatively about you, but they will not go out of their way to recommend you either. Passives are the group most likely to switch to a competitor offering a slightly better deal or experience.

How to convert Passives: Identify what is preventing them from becoming Promoters. Often it is a single friction point or a missing feature. Small, targeted improvements can shift a meaningful portion of your Passives into the Promoter category, which directly boosts your NPS.

Detractors (Score 0-6)

Detractors are unhappy customers who pose a real risk to your business. Research from Temkin Group found that Detractors are 5x more likely to tell others about a bad experience than Promoters are to share a positive one. A single Detractor can undo the advocacy of multiple Promoters.

How to recover Detractors: Follow up personally within 24-48 hours. Listen to their specific complaints, acknowledge the issue, and share the concrete steps you are taking to resolve it. This "closed-loop" approach can recover up to 25% of Detractors into satisfied customers.

What is a Good NPS Score?

NPS scores range from -100 (every customer is a Detractor) to +100 (every customer is a Promoter). Here is how to interpret where your score falls:

Is 42 a Good Net Promoter Score?

Yes, 42 is a good NPS. It sits right at the 2025 median across all industries and falls solidly in the "Good" range (30-49). For SaaS and software companies where the average is around 40, a score of 42 is slightly above average. For industries like insurance (average 80), it would be below par. Always benchmark against your specific industry.

Is 47 a Good NPS Score?

A score of 47 is a strong NPS that places you above the global median of 42. It is firmly in the "Good" range and close to the "Excellent" threshold of 50. For most B2B companies (average NPS of 38), a score of 47 is well above average. To push into "Excellent" territory, focus on converting your Passives into Promoters by addressing the specific friction points they experience.

Is 72 a Good Net Promoter Score?

An NPS of 72 is outstanding and falls in the "World-Class" category (70+). Very few companies consistently achieve scores this high. It means the vast majority of your customers are enthusiastic advocates. At this level, focus on maintaining consistency, leveraging Promoters for referrals and case studies, and using Detractor feedback to prevent any regression.

What is a Bad Net Promoter Score?

A negative NPS (below 0) is considered bad because it means you have more Detractors than Promoters. This indicates that a majority of surveyed customers are unhappy and could be spreading negative word-of-mouth. Scores between 0 and 20 are considered marginal and signal that improvement is urgently needed. The bottom 10% of companies in 2025 had an NPS of -4 or lower. If your NPS is negative, prioritize understanding why through follow-up qualitative interviews with Detractors.

NPS Industry Benchmarks (2025)

NPS benchmarks vary significantly by sector. The table below shows average NPS by industry based on the latest available data:

Key insights from the data: Insurance consistently leads with an average NPS of 80, driven by strong personal relationships and high-touch service models. Technology and retail sectors perform well in the 60s. SaaS and software companies average around 40, which reflects the complexity of their products and the high expectations of technical users. Internet software and services scores lowest at 16, partly because of ad-driven business models that can conflict with user interests.

If your NPS is above your industry average, you are in a strong competitive position. If you are below, dig into your Detractor feedback to identify the specific pain points dragging your score down.

NPS Regional Benchmarks

NPS scores also vary by geography due to cultural differences in how people use rating scales:

European respondents tend to score lower due to cultural tendencies toward more conservative ratings, not because of worse experiences. Latin American and Asian respondents often give higher scores. Keep these regional patterns in mind when comparing NPS across global markets.

How to Calculate NPS on a 5 Point Scale

The standard NPS uses a 0-10 scale (11 points total), but some organizations adapt it for a 1-5 scale when survey space is limited or when consistency with other survey questions matters.

On a 5-point scale, the common mapping is:

• Detractors: 1-3
• Passives: 4
• Promoters: 5

Apply the same formula: NPS = % Promoters - % Detractors.

Example: Out of 100 responses on a 1-5 scale, 35 gave a 5 (Promoters), 25 gave a 4 (Passives), and 40 gave 1-3 (Detractors). NPS = 35% - 40% = -5.

How to Calculate NPS on a 10 Point Scale

The standard NPS uses a 0-10 scale, which actually contains 11 points (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). This is an important distinction because some organizations mistakenly use a 1-10 scale instead.

On the standard 0-10 scale:

• Detractors: 0-6
• Passives: 7-8
• Promoters: 9-10

Example: Out of 200 responses, 120 are Promoters (60%), 50 are Passives (25%), and 30 are Detractors (15%). NPS = 60% - 15% = +45.

If you are using a 1-10 scale (without zero), the recommended mapping is: Detractors = 1-6, Passives = 7-8, Promoters = 9-10. The formula stays the same. The only difference is that you cannot capture a "0" rating, which slightly reduces the range of negative sentiment you can measure.

How to Calculate NPS in Excel

Excel is a practical tool for NPS calculation when you have raw survey data. Here are the formulas you need:

Basic NPS Formula in Excel

Assume your survey responses are in column A (cells A2 through A201 for 200 responses on a 0-10 scale):

=(COUNTIF(A2:A201,">=9")-COUNTIF(A2:A201,"<=6"))/COUNTA(A2:A201)*100

This single formula calculates your NPS directly by counting Promoters (9-10), subtracting Detractors (0-6), dividing by total responses, and multiplying by 100.

Breaking It Down Step by Step

If you prefer to see each component separately:

Promoters:  =COUNTIF(A2:A201,">=9")
Passives:   =COUNTIFS(A2:A201,">=7",A2:A201,"<=8")
Detractors: =COUNTIF(A2:A201,"<=6")
Total:      =COUNTA(A2:A201)
NPS:        =(B2-B4)/B5*100

Categorizing Each Response

To label each response in a helper column (B2):

=IF(A2>=9,"Promoter",IF(A2>=7,"Passive","Detractor"))

Copy this formula down the column. Then use =COUNTIF(B:B,"Promoter") and =COUNTIF(B:B,"Detractor") to get your counts.

NPS Formula for a 1-5 Scale in Excel

If your data uses a 1-5 scale:

=(COUNTIF(A2:A201,"=5")-COUNTIF(A2:A201,"<=3"))/COUNTA(A2:A201)*100

NPS vs CSAT vs CES: Which Metric Should You Use?

NPS is one of three major customer experience metrics. Each serves a different purpose, and the strongest feedback programs use all three together.

When to use NPS: Quarterly or biannually to track overall loyalty trends. NPS reveals whether customers would recommend you, which correlates with long-term revenue growth.

When to use CSAT: After specific interactions like support tickets, purchases, or onboarding. CSAT tells you how a customer felt about a specific moment. Calculate your CSAT with our free CSAT calculator.

When to use CES: After task-completion events like resolving a support issue or completing checkout. Research from Gartner found that CES is 1.8x more predictive of customer loyalty than CSAT. Calculate yours with our free CES calculator.

To translate these metrics into financial impact and build a business case for CX investment, use our free CX ROI calculator.

The most effective approach is to deploy NPS on a regular cadence for relationship health, CSAT at key touchpoints for transactional feedback, and CES after high-effort interactions for friction detection. Together, they give you a complete picture of both loyalty and satisfaction.

Relational vs Transactional NPS

There are two distinct approaches to NPS surveys, and the most effective programs use both:

Relational NPS

Relational NPS measures overall customer loyalty independent of any specific interaction. It is sent at regular intervals -- typically quarterly or biannually -- to gauge the health of your customer relationships over time. Relational NPS answers the question: "How does this customer feel about our brand as a whole?"

Best practices for Relational NPS: Send at consistent intervals, avoid timing surveys around major product changes or incidents that could skew results, and track trends over multiple periods rather than reacting to individual data points.

Transactional NPS

Transactional NPS is triggered after specific interactions like a support ticket resolution, a purchase, an onboarding session, or a product milestone. It measures satisfaction with that particular touchpoint and helps you identify the moments that create or destroy loyalty.

Best practices for Transactional NPS: Send within 24 hours of the interaction, reference the specific event in the survey (e.g., "Based on your recent support experience..."), and use the data to improve specific processes rather than overall strategy.

Combining Both Approaches

Relational NPS tells you where you stand. Transactional NPS tells you why. If your Relational NPS drops from 45 to 35 over a quarter, your Transactional NPS data can pinpoint which touchpoints deteriorated. This combination turns NPS from a vanity metric into a diagnostic tool.

How to Improve Your Net Promoter Score

If your NPS is below your target, these proven strategies can move it higher:

Close the feedback loop. The single most impactful action is following up with Detractors. Reach out within 24-48 hours, acknowledge their specific concern, and explain what you are doing to address it. Teams that close the feedback loop with Detractors see NPS improvements of 10-15 points on average.

Identify your "why" with follow-up questions. Always pair the NPS question with an open-ended follow-up: "What is the primary reason for your score?" Strong open-ended survey questions surface themes you would miss with scores alone. Without this qualitative data, you are flying blind. Group the responses by theme to find the most common pain points.

Focus on converting Passives. Passives are your biggest NPS lever. They are already somewhat satisfied; it often takes just one or two improvements to push them into Promoter territory. Analyze what differentiates your Passives from your Promoters and address those gaps.

Empower frontline teams. Give customer-facing teams the authority and tools to resolve issues without escalation. Customers whose problems are resolved on the first contact give NPS scores 20-30 points higher than those who are passed between departments.

Act on patterns, not individual scores. A single low score might be an outlier. A cluster of low scores around a specific feature, touchpoint, or customer segment is a signal. Use segmentation to identify where your score is being dragged down and prioritize those areas.

Set up real-time alerts. Configure automated notifications for Detractor responses (scores 0-6) so your team can respond quickly. Speed of response is one of the strongest predictors of successful Detractor recovery.

Automate NPS Surveys with Formbricks

Manually collecting and calculating NPS is manageable at small scale, but it becomes unsustainable as your customer base grows. Formbricks is an open-source survey platform that automates the entire NPS workflow:

• Pre-built NPS survey templates that follow best practices out of the box
• In-app and email survey deployment to reach customers where they are
• Automated triggers at key touchpoints for transactional NPS
• Real-time NPS tracking dashboards with trend analysis
• Response segmentation by customer attributes, plan type, or behavior
• Integrations with Slack, Notion, webhooks, and more for instant team notifications

Being open-source, Formbricks gives you full data ownership with no vendor lock-in, making it ideal for privacy-conscious organizations that want complete control over their customer feedback data.

Frequently Asked Questions