Skip to content
Marketing Calculators

Core Business Metrics · Calculator

Net Promoter Score Calculator

Convert survey responses into the one sentiment number executives recognise — and see how the scoring actually works.

Enter your numbers

Respondents who answered 9 or 10 to the likelihood-to-recommend question.

Respondents who answered 7 or 8. They count toward the total but not the score.

Respondents who answered 6 or below — the whole bottom two-thirds of the scale.

Net Promoter Score (−100 to +100): 35.3 — Great
35.3
Net Promoter Score (−100 to +100)
Great

With your numbers

NPS = ((420 − 120) ÷ (420 + 310 + 120)) × 100 = 35.3

Work backwards from a target

Your figures stay in this browser — nothing is sent anywhere.

What is Net Promoter Score?

Net Promoter Score comes from one question — how likely are you to recommend us, 0 to 10 — and one piece of arithmetic: the percentage of promoters (9–10) minus the percentage of detractors (0–6). Passives (7–8) count in the total but contribute nothing to the score, which is why NPS is deliberately harsh. The result runs from −100 to +100, and it's a comparison tool: its value is in the trend and in like-for-like industry comparison, not in the absolute number.

Why it matters

  • It compresses customer sentiment into one figure that executives, boards, and other departments already understand, which makes it unusually portable across a company.
  • Tracked over time against a consistent audience and question, it's a reliable early indicator of churn — sentiment drops before cancellations do.
  • The follow-up "why did you give that score?" question is where the real value lives; the number just tells you which responses to read first.

The formula

NPS = ((Promoters − Detractors) ÷ (Promoters + Passives + Detractors)) × 100

Promoters
— respondents scoring 9 or 10
Passives
— respondents scoring 7 or 8 — counted in the total, not in the score
Detractors
— respondents scoring 0 to 6

How to use this calculator

  1. 01Group your survey responses into the three buckets: 9–10 promoters, 7–8 passives, 0–6 detractors.
  2. 02Enter the raw counts — the calculator handles the percentage conversion, including passives in the denominator.
  3. 03Read the result as a position on a −100 to +100 scale, then compare it to your own previous score before comparing it to anyone else's.
  4. 04Survey the same way every time. Changing channel, timing, or wording changes the score independently of how customers actually feel.

Worked example

A post-purchase survey returned 850 responses: 420 promoters, 310 passives, and 120 detractors.

  1. Total respondents = 420 + 310 + 120 = 850
  2. %Promoters = 420 ÷ 850 = 49.4%
  3. %Detractors = 120 ÷ 850 = 14.1%
  4. NPS = 49.4 − 14.1 = 35.3

An NPS in the mid-30s is a solid, unremarkable score across most industries. Note how the 310 passives quietly suppress it — they add to the denominator while contributing nothing.

Industry benchmarks

Compiled August 2026

  • Generally considered good

    Above 0, and clearly above 20

    Anything positive means promoters outnumber detractors.

  • Generally considered excellent

    50+

    Uncommon outside of strongly loved products.

  • B2B software

    30 – 40

    Buyer and user are often different people, which drags scores down.

  • Retail / ecommerce

    35 – 50

    Immediate, tangible experiences tend to score higher.

Common mistakes

  • Comparing your NPS to a headline figure from another industry — the ranges differ enough that cross-industry comparison is close to meaningless.
  • Surveying only happy customers, or only after a successful interaction, which produces a flattering number with no diagnostic value.
  • Treating a 7 as positive. On this scale 7 and 8 are neutral and 6 is a detractor, which surprises people every time.
  • Chasing the score instead of reading the comments — the number tells you something changed, the free text tells you what.

How to improve your NPS

Close the loop with every detractor

Contacting detractors individually does two things: it recovers some of them, and it produces the clearest account of what's wrong you'll ever get.

Segment the score before acting on it

A flat NPS often hides one segment improving while another collapses. Split by plan, tenure, and acquisition channel before you decide anything.

Watch NPS and churn together

Sentiment leads cancellation. A falling NPS in a segment is usually visible a quarter before the churn shows up in revenue.

Calculate your churn rate →

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a good NPS?+

Any positive score means promoters outnumber detractors. Above 20 is generally treated as good and above 50 as excellent, but industry norms vary widely — your own trend is the more useful comparison.

Why don't passives affect the score?+

By design. NPS is built to measure enthusiasm rather than satisfaction, so lukewarm respondents dilute the score by sitting in the denominator without adding to the numerator.

How many responses do I need?+

A few hundred is a reasonable floor for a stable company-level score. Below that, normal sampling variation can move the number by ten points or more between surveys with no real change underneath.

How often should I run an NPS survey?+

Quarterly for a relationship score, or triggered after key events for a transactional one. Surveying the same people too often depresses response rates and biases who bothers to reply.

Related calculators

Customer Churn RateReferral / UGC Program ROICustomer Lifetime Value

Put this calculator on your site

Free to embed, no attribution required beyond the link the widget already carries. It posts its height to the parent window as marketing-calculators:height if you want to size the frame exactly.

<iframe src="https://markcelerate.com/embed/nps-calculator" title="Net Promoter Score Calculator" width="100%" height="520" style="border:1px solid #ddd;border-radius:6px" loading="lazy"></iframe>
Preview the widget