The complete guide to measuring customer loyalty
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
What it is, how to calculate it, what a good score looks like, and when to use it.
NPS is the most widely used loyalty metric in SaaS. One question tells you whether your customers would stake their reputation on recommending you - and who is at churn risk.
Definition
What is Net Promoter Score?
NPS is a loyalty metric created by Fred Reichheld and published in the Harvard Business Review in 2003. It measures whether customers would recommend your product to others - a proxy for genuine loyalty, not just satisfaction.
Unlike CSAT which captures a single interaction, NPS reflects the cumulative experience of the entire customer relationship. A customer willing to put their name behind a recommendation has had repeated positive experiences across product, support, and outcomes.
The survey asks one question: “How likely are you to recommend [company] to a friend or colleague?” on a 0–10 scale. The score is calculated from the distribution of responses across three groups.
Type
Relational - measures the overall customer relationship
Survey question
"How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?"
Scale
0–10 (Detractors 0–6, Passives 7–8, Promoters 9–10)
Score output
% Promoters minus % Detractors (-100 to +100)
When to send
Quarterly or after key milestones
Good benchmark
+30 is good, +50 is excellent (SaaS)
The formula
How to calculate NPS
Detractors
Score 0–6
Unhappy customers who could damage your brand through negative word of mouth. Churn risk. Priority for follow-up within 48 hours.
Passives
Score 7–8
Satisfied but not enthusiastic. Not counted in the NPS calculation. Vulnerable to competitive offers - the segment most worth converting to Promoters.
Promoters
Score 9–10
Loyal enthusiasts who recommend you unprompted. Your referral engine. Study what they have in common to replicate the conditions that created them.
NPS Formula
NPS = % Promoters − % Detractors
Passives are excluded. The score ranges from −100 to +100.
Example calculation - 100 responses
NPS score ranges
+70 to +100
World-class
Exceptional. Companies like Apple and Netflix have historically scored here. Your customers are active advocates.
+50 to +69
Excellent
Well above industry average. Strong retention and referral signals. Protect this by maintaining product and support quality.
+30 to +49
Good
Above average for B2B SaaS. The typical range for healthy, growing SaaS companies. Identifiable improvement opportunities exist.
0 to +29
Needs improvement
More promoters than detractors, but the gap is narrow. Detractor follow-up and Passive conversion should be the focus.
Below 0
Critical
More detractors than promoters. Immediate action required - this level of dissatisfaction precedes significant churn.
Two types of NPS
Relational vs transactional NPS
Same question, different timing, different purpose.
Relational NPS
How healthy is the overall relationship?
Best practice: Send at the same time quarterly so you can compare scores across periods. Do not send relational NPS more than twice per year to the same customer.
Transactional NPS
How did this specific event affect loyalty?
Best practice: Use sparingly - reserve transactional NPS for 2–3 high-impact events per year. For frequent interactions like support, CSAT or CES are better fits.
Closing the loop
What to do with your NPS results
The score is the starting point. The value is in what you do next.
Detractors (0–6)
Follow up within 48 hours. A personal response from a CSM or founder can recover the relationship. Ask what went wrong - their feedback is your most honest product signal.
Passives (7–8)
Identify the gap between their experience and a Promoter’s. Often a feature they have not discovered, a use case they have not unlocked, or an onboarding gap. Targeted outreach here has the highest conversion ROI.
Promoters (9–10)
Activate them. Ask for reviews, case studies, referrals, or testimonials. Understand what drove their score - replicate those conditions for new customers. Invite them to your user advisory board.
Metric comparison
NPS vs CSAT vs CES
Three metrics, three questions, three different uses. Most mature SaaS teams run all three.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about Net Promoter Score.
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