What Is Net Promoter Score? The Metric, and What to Do With It
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty on a -100 to +100 scale from one question. See what NPS means, how it is scored, and what to do with it.
TL;DR
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty by asking one question: how likely are you to recommend us, on a scale of 0 to 10.
- It sorts customers into Promoters (9 to 10), Passives (7 to 8), and Detractors (0 to 6), and the score is the percentage of Promoters minus the percentage of Detractors. It ranges from -100 to +100, and it is a number, not a percentage.
- The score itself is the easy part. What separates leaders is what they do with it: acting on Detractors before they leave, not filing the number in a quarterly deck.
As of 2026, Net Promoter Score (NPS®) remains the most widely used loyalty metric in business, and it comes down to a single idea: the customers who would recommend you are the ones who fuel growth, and the ones who would warn others away are the ones quietly draining it. NPS turns that into one comparable number.
What is Net Promoter Score?
Net Promoter Score is a customer loyalty metric based on one survey question: "How likely are you to recommend this company (or product) to a friend or colleague?" Customers answer on a scale from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely). The metric was introduced by Fred Reichheld of Bain and Company in the 2003 Harvard Business Review article "The One Number You Need to Grow," which argued that this single question predicted future growth better than long satisfaction surveys.
The appeal is its simplicity. One question, one number, comparable across teams, regions, and competitors. That is also its limit: the number tells you where you stand, not why, and not what to do next.
The NPS scale: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors
Every response falls into one of three groups based on the 0 to 10 score:
Group | Score | What they are |
|---|---|---|
Promoters | 9 to 10 | Loyal enthusiasts who refer others and fuel growth |
Passives | 7 to 8 | Satisfied but unattached. They will not champion you and can defect easily |
Detractors | 0 to 6 | Unhappy customers at high risk of churning and of spreading negative word of mouth |
Passives count toward your total responses but not toward the score itself. The whole exercise is built to move customers up this ladder: Detractors to Passives, Passives to Promoters.
How Net Promoter Score is calculated
The formula is deliberately simple: take the percentage of Promoters and subtract the percentage of Detractors. If 60 percent of respondents are Promoters and 20 percent are Detractors, your NPS is 40.
Because it is a subtraction of two percentages, the result runs from -100 (every respondent a Detractor) to +100 (every respondent a Promoter). This is why NPS is a number, not a percentage, a common and costly misunderstanding covered in why NPS is not a percentage. For the full method, worked examples, and survey timing, see how to calculate NPS.
What counts as a good NPS score?
Any score above 0 means you have more Promoters than Detractors. Above 30 is generally considered good, above 50 excellent, and above 70 exceptional. But those bands are only rough guides, because a good score depends heavily on your industry and region. A number that looks strong in one sector is average in another. We break the benchmarks down in what is a good NPS score.
Why Net Promoter Score matters
A Detractor does not just leave quietly. They tell others why, and that word of mouth costs you customers you never surveyed.
The reason NPS earned its place is that loyalty and growth are linked. Reichheld's research at Bain found that in most industries, the companies with the highest Net Promoter Scores grew fastest, and that a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lift profits by more than 25 percent. The logic is direct: Promoters buy more, stay longer, and bring others, while Detractors churn and warn people off. The gap between those two groups is a leading indicator of where revenue is heading.
The score is not the point. The action is.
Amitayu Basu, CEO, NumrNPS is not a scoreboard, it is a to-do list. The number only matters if it tells you which customer to call before they churn.
Here is where most NPS programs stall. They measure the score every quarter, chart it, and present it. But a number in a deck has never saved a single customer. The value is in the response: reaching the Detractor while they are still reachable, finding the pattern behind a falling score, and fixing the moment that created it.
That is the difference between tracking NPS and using it. A modern program treats every Detractor as a live signal, routes it to the person who can act, and closes the loop before the customer is gone. That discipline is the subject of closing the loop on feedback, and it is where a score becomes a business outcome rather than a report.
Frequently asked questions
What is Net Promoter Score? NPS is a customer loyalty metric based on one question: how likely a customer is to recommend you, scored 0 to 10. It is the percentage of Promoters minus the percentage of Detractors, on a scale of -100 to +100.
What is the NPS question? "How likely are you to recommend this company or product to a friend or colleague?" answered from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely).
Is NPS a percentage? No. It is a number from -100 to +100, produced by subtracting two percentages. Treating it as a percentage is a common mistake.
What is a good NPS score? Above 0 is net positive, above 30 is good, above 50 is excellent, but the real answer depends on your industry and region.
Who created Net Promoter Score? Fred Reichheld, with Bain and Company and Satmetrix, introduced it in a 2003 Harvard Business Review article.
Net Promoter Score, Net Promoter, and NPS are registered trademarks of Bain and Company, Satmetrix Systems, and Fred Reichheld.
