What Is Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
Learn what Net Promoter Score is, how NPS works, what promoters/passives/detractors mean, and how to use NPS without misreading the score.
Short answer: NPS is a customer loyalty score calculated as the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
What is Net Promoter Score?
Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is a customer loyalty metric that measures how likely customers are to recommend a company, product, service, or brand.
NPS is based on a simple idea: customers who are willing to recommend you are more likely to stay, buy again, and create positive word of mouth. Customers who would not recommend you often reveal friction, disappointment, or risk.
The metric was introduced by Fred Reichheld and popularized through the Harvard Business Review article "The One Number You Need to Grow" in 2003.
NPS is useful because it is easy to explain, easy to compare over time, and easy to connect with follow-up feedback. It is not a complete customer experience program by itself. The score tells you what is happening; comments, segments, and operational data help explain why.
The Net Promoter Score question
The standard NPS survey question is:
How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?
Customers respond on a 0 to 10 scale, where 0 means not at all likely and 10 means extremely likely.
Some teams adapt the wording for a product, service, app, store, support experience, or employee workplace survey. For trend reporting, keep the wording and scale consistent.
NPS score categories
Responses are grouped into promoters, passives, and detractors. These categories are the foundation of the NPS formula.
| Score | Category | What it usually means |
|---|---|---|
| 9-10 | Promoters | Customers who are likely to recommend and may become advocates |
| 7-8 | Passives | Customers who are not unhappy, but are not strong advocates either |
| 0-6 | Detractors | Customers who may be dissatisfied, frustrated, or at risk |
- Promoters help identify what your company should protect and repeat.
- Passives often reveal what is acceptable but not remarkable.
- Detractors point to friction that can damage loyalty, retention, reviews, or referrals.
What NPS measures and what it does not measure
NPS measures recommendation intent. It is often used as a practical signal of loyalty, advocacy, and relationship health.
NPS does not directly measure satisfaction with one interaction, ease of use, product quality, or revenue. Those signals can influence NPS, but they should be measured with the right supporting metrics.
- Use NPS for loyalty and recommendation intent.
- Use CSAT for satisfaction with a specific experience.
- Use CES for how easy it was to complete a task.
- Use retention, churn, repeat purchase, and expansion data to connect survey feedback with business outcomes.
Relationship NPS vs transactional NPS
Relationship NPS measures the overall customer relationship. It is usually sent periodically, such as quarterly, twice a year, or annually.
Transactional NPS measures a specific experience, such as onboarding, delivery, support, renewal, or implementation. It is usually sent soon after that interaction.
Do not mix relationship and transactional NPS in one trend line. They answer different questions and can produce very different scores.
| Type | Best for | Example timing |
|---|---|---|
| Relationship NPS | Overall loyalty and brand relationship | Quarterly or twice a year |
| Transactional NPS | A specific customer journey or interaction | After support, onboarding, delivery, or renewal |
How companies use NPS
Companies use NPS to identify loyalty trends, compare segments, prioritize improvements, and close the loop with customers.
The most valuable NPS programs do more than report the number. They connect the score with open-ended feedback, customer journeys, and operational data.
- Track loyalty trends over time.
- Segment feedback by product, plan, location, channel, or lifecycle stage.
- Follow up with detractors and high-value passives.
- Study promoters to understand what creates advocacy.
- Prioritize customer experience improvements based on recurring themes.
Common mistakes when using NPS
NPS is simple, which is part of its value. But that simplicity also makes it easy to misuse.
- Treating NPS as a complete explanation instead of a signal.
- Comparing scores across industries without context.
- Changing the question, audience, or timing and still comparing the trend as if nothing changed.
- Ignoring passives even though they often show where loyalty can be improved.
- Collecting feedback without closing the loop or taking action.
Calculate your Net Promoter Score
If you already have survey results, use the Net Promoter Score Calculator on this site to calculate your score, promoter percentage, passive percentage, and detractor percentage.
After you calculate the score, review the comments behind each group. That is where the real improvement work begins.
Related pages on Calculator for NPS
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does NPS measure?
NPS measures customer loyalty and the likelihood that customers will recommend a company, product, or service.
Can NPS be negative?
Yes. NPS ranges from -100 to +100. A negative score means there are more detractors than promoters.
Is NPS a satisfaction metric?
NPS is related to customer satisfaction, but it is primarily a loyalty and recommendation-intent metric. CSAT is a better fit for measuring satisfaction with a specific experience.
How often should you measure NPS?
Many teams measure relationship NPS quarterly or twice a year and transactional NPS after important customer interactions.