Net Promoter Score (NPS)
What Is NPS?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a high-level CX metric that quantifies customer loyalty by asking a simple but telling question:
“How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend or colleague?”
It’s scored on a 0–10 scale. Responses fall into three buckets:
- Promoters (9–10): Loyal enthusiasts — likely to advocate, renew, and expand
- Passives (7–8): Satisfied but not enthusiastic — easily swayed by competitors
- Detractors (0–6): Unhappy or disengaged — potential churn risks
To calculate NPS, subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters:
NPS = % Promoters – % Detractors
You’re left with a number between –100 and +100. But in a B2B SaaS context, the number matters less than what it reveals. NPS is not a performance score — it’s a directional signal. When paired with segmentation and verbatim feedback, it shows you how sentiment is shifting across accounts, personas, or stages of the customer lifecycle.
And because it measures long-term loyalty — not just satisfaction or effort — NPS serves as an early warning system for churn and a signal booster for expansion opportunities.
Why NPS Matters in B2B SaaS CX
In complex SaaS ecosystems, where buying is multi-threaded and loyalty is earned over time, NPS offers key strategic value:
Early Churn Signal: A drop in NPS often precedes loss of usage or renewal risk
Advocate Identification: Promoters are your best source for referrals, testimonials, and expansion
CX Intelligence: Written feedback surfaces product gaps, UX issues, or service problems
Cross-Functional Alignment: Gives CX, Product, Success, and RevOps teams a shared pulse on customer sentiment
Used properly, NPS becomes less of a KPI and more of a CX operating system.
How to Measure NPS
Measuring NPS starts with a fast, lightweight survey delivered at key moments in the customer journey.
The core format includes two parts:
- The rating question: “How likely are you to recommend [Product] to a friend or colleague?”
- The open-ended follow-up:What’s the primary reason for your score?”
The follow-up is where the insight lives. The score tells you where to look — the comment tells you why.
To calculate your NPS:
- Group all responses into Promoters (9–10), Passives (7–8), and Detractors (0–6)
- Subtract the % of Detractors from the % of Promoters
- Ignore the Passives in the calculation
Example:
You collect 100 responses:
- 60 are Promoters
- 25 are Passives
- 15 are Detractors
Your NPS = 60 – 15 = +45
That’s a solid score — but don’t stop there. The real value comes from breaking it down.
Strategic Ways to Measure NPS in SaaS
NPS is most powerful when you track it by segment and over time:
- By role: Product admins might give you 9s while end users are stuck at 6s.
- By stage: Early customers post-onboarding may be promoters — but that sentiment could decline by renewal.
- By account type: Enterprise clients vs. SMBs often have different expectations and experiences.
In B2B SaaS, customer loyalty is earned through consistent product value, frictionless experience, and responsive support. NPS helps surface sentiment across all of those — but only if your teams act on it.
If you’re just measuring NPS to report a number, you’re missing the point. But if you’re using it to close feedback loops, identify revenue risks, and mobilize promoters, it becomes one of your most strategic CX tools.