Your Net Promoter Score,without the spreadsheet.
NPS is one question and one subtraction, but people still botch it — averaging the 0-10 scores, counting passives, forgetting the score can go negative. Drop in your three counts and this gives you the real number, the share each group owns, and what good actually looks like.
Your numbers
People who scored you 9 or 10. The fans who'd actually refer you.
People who scored you 7 or 8. Satisfied, but one better offer from leaving.
People who scored you 0 to 6. The ones quietly costing you referrals.
The verdict
NPS
45
Promoters
60.0%
Detractors
15.0%
Responses
100
Total people who answered.
Who answered
Where you land (-100 to 100)
Strong. Promoters clearly lead — protect this and mine your detractor comments for the next jump.
Reverse-solve · hit a target NPS
More promoters needed
10
Your NPS now
45
To lift your NPS from +45 to +50, you'd need about 10 more promoters on top of today's 100 responses — fastest sourced by flipping passives and recovering detractors, not chasing new surveys.
Sensitivity · convert your passives
Flip the fence-sitters
| Passives → promoters | New promoters | New NPS |
|---|---|---|
| 0 (today) | 60 | +45 |
| +5 | 65 | +50 |
| +10 | 70 | +55 |
| +20 | 80 | +65 |
| +25 | 85 | +70 |
Passives are your cheapest upside: they already half-like you, and every one you flip to a 9 both adds a promoter and removes a body from the denominator drag. Recovering a detractor moves the score even harder, because it swings both percentages at once.
Your move
You've got the score. I find the customers behind it.
NPS +45 from 100 responses — 60.0% promoters, 15.0% detractors.
Send me your NPS and a handful of detractor comments. In the first 30 minutes I'll tell you whether the problem is the product, the promise, or the people you're selling to — and the one fix I'd run first. Free, and you keep it whether you hire me or not.
Plain English
NPS is one question, two groups, one subtraction.
Net Promoter Score comes from a single question: "How likely are you to recommend us, 0 to 10?" You bucket the answers into three groups — promoters (9-10), passives (7-8), and detractors (0-6) — and then ignore the passives entirely. NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
Because it's a subtraction of two percentages, the score runs from -100 (everyone's a detractor) to +100 (everyone's a promoter). It is not an average and it is not a percentage of happy customers. A score of 30 doesn't mean 30% liked you; it means promoters outnumber detractors by 30 points of your respondent base. That distinction is where most homegrown calculations quietly go wrong.
This calculator takes the three raw counts, works out the total, the promoter and detractor share, and the score itself — and then shows you whether that number is bleeding referrals, holding steady, or genuinely best-in-class. The point isn't the digit. It's what you do about the detractors generating it.
The formula
NPS = % Promoters − % Detractors
With 60 promoters, 25 passives, and 15 detractors you have 100 responses. Promoters are 60%, detractors are 15%, so NPS = 60 − 15 = +45. Note the passives never enter the math — they only dilute both percentages by sitting in the denominator. Add 100 more passives and the same 60 promoters would drop you to roughly +20.
What good looks like
The global average NPS sits around +32, so anything in the 30s already clears the typical company — but the bands below are what actually matter. Below zero means detractors outnumber fans, 0-30 is solid, 30-70 is genuinely strong, and 70+ is rarefied air very few brands ever reach. Industry shifts the goalposts (a luxury brand and a utility play by different rules), so weigh your own trend alongside these.
| Band | NPS |
|---|---|
| Needs work | Below 0 |
| Good | 0-30 |
| Great | 30-70 |
| Best-in-class | 70+ |
Source: Retently NPS benchmarks by industry, 2025 · 2025
Your NPS came back low. Now what?
Score is negative.
You have a retention emergency, not a survey problem. Detractors outnumber promoters and word of mouth is working against you. Stop chasing new acquisition and fix the core experience first — every new customer lands in a leaky bucket.
Lots of passives, few detractors.
Your product is fine but not loved. Passives don't refer and don't defend you. Find the one moment that turns a 7 into a 9 — usually onboarding speed, a support win, or a feature they didn't know existed — and engineer it deliberately.
High promoters AND high detractors.
You're polarizing, which is often fine, but it means you're selling to the wrong half. Tighten targeting so you attract more of the people who become promoters and fewer who were never a fit. A clearer offer raises NPS by lowering mismatched expectations.
Decent score, tiny sample.
An NPS off 20 responses is noise. One angry customer swings it 5 points. Get the count up before you trust the trend — and read the verbatim comments, which tell you far more than the number ever will.
Eight ways to move NPS up
01Close the loop on detractors
Personally reach out to every 0-6 within 48 hours. Recovered detractors often become your most vocal promoters — and you learn exactly what broke.
02Convert the 7s and 8s
Passives are your fastest upside. They already half-like you. A single proactive win — a feature tour, a saved hour, a human reply — flips them to 9.
03Fix the top three complaints
Tag every detractor comment. Three issues usually explain most of them. Kill those and the score moves on its own, no campaign required.
04Ask at the right moment
Survey just after a value moment, not at random. Timing shifts scores by double digits — ask right after a win, never mid-frustration.
05Make referring effortless
Promoters want to refer; most never get a clean way to. Give them a one-tap share, a code, a reason. Latent goodwill is wasted goodwill.
06Speed up support resolution
Resolution time is the single biggest driver of detraction in most products. Cut first-response time and watch the bottom of the distribution lift.
07Set expectations honestly
Overselling manufactures detractors. Customers score the gap between promise and reality. Promise a little less, deliver a little more.
08Track the trend, not the number
One reading is vanity. The direction over quarters — and the segments driving it — is what tells you whether your fixes are landing.
The vocabulary
- NPS
- Net Promoter Score: % promoters minus % detractors. Ranges from -100 to +100. A loyalty metric, not a satisfaction percentage.
- Promoter
- A respondent who scored 9 or 10. Loyal enthusiasts who fuel growth through referrals and repeat business.
- Passive
- A respondent who scored 7 or 8. Satisfied but unenthusiastic; excluded from the score but counted in the total.
- Detractor
- A respondent who scored 0 to 6. Unhappy customers who can damage your brand through negative word of mouth.
- Response rate
- Share of asked customers who answered. Low response rates skew NPS toward the loudest, most extreme opinions.
- Relational vs. transactional NPS
- Relational measures overall sentiment periodically; transactional measures a specific interaction right after it happens.
NPS questions, straight answers
Anything above zero means you have more promoters than detractors, which is the baseline. Most companies land between 0 and 30. Above 30 is good, above 50 is excellent, and 70+ is best-in-class territory that very few hit. The honest benchmark, though, is your own industry and your own trend — a 40 can be mediocre in software and outstanding in telecom.
Keep going
A calculator tells you what. A call tells you what to do about it.
Send me the account behind these numbers. I'll tell you straight where the money's leaking and what I'd fix first — free, and you keep it whether you hire me or not.