NPS Benchmarks 2026: Net Promoter Score by Industry (Complete Reference)

TL;DR: A "good" Net Promoter Score depends entirely on your industry. In 2026, SaaS averages NPS 36, ecommerce hovers around 45, healthcare lags at 27, and financial services trails at 22. Any positive score is acceptable; anything over 50 is excellent; over 70 is world-class. But the score matters less than the why — and asking respondents to explain their rating (especially with AI follow-up probing) is what separates leading teams from those tracking vanity numbers.

What Is a Net Promoter Score?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) was introduced by Fred Reichheld at Bain & Company in 2003. It is the single most-tracked customer experience metric on Earth — used by 65% of Fortune 1000 companies and millions of smaller businesses.

The NPS question is:

"On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [company/product] to a friend or colleague?"

Responses are bucketed:

• Promoters (9–10): Loyal enthusiasts who fuel growth
• Passives (7–8): Satisfied but unenthusiastic, vulnerable to competition
• Detractors (0–6): Unhappy customers who can damage brand and impede growth

NPS = % Promoters − % Detractors

The score ranges from −100 (everyone is a Detractor) to +100 (everyone is a Promoter). For more on the math and how to set up an NPS survey end-to-end, see our NPS Survey Guide.

2026 NPS Benchmarks by Industry

The table below summarizes average NPS scores aggregated from recent published benchmark studies (Bain, Retently, SurveyMonkey, ClearlyRated, Customer Gauge) covering 2024–2026 data.

A general rule: B2B services and high-touch hospitality skew higher, regulated industries (financial, telecom, utilities) skew lower. If you're in a "trust-friction" industry, breaking 30 is genuinely impressive.

What Counts as a "Good" NPS?

Independent of industry, the broad NPS interpretation is:

World-class NPS leaders in 2026 include:

• Tesla: 96
• Costco: 79
• USAA: 75
• Apple: 72
• Patagonia: 71
• Netflix: 68
• Notion: 60
• HubSpot: 53

For context: most companies sit between 20 and 40. If you're at 40+, you're ahead of the pack.

Why Industry Benchmarks Are More Useful Than Absolute Scores

Comparing your SaaS company's NPS of 35 against Apple's 72 is meaningless. Apple is selling to consumers in a category they've spent 20 years engineering for love. Your benchmark should be:

• Your industry average (the table above)
• Your direct competitors (use review sites or anonymous panels to estimate)
• Your own score over time (trend matters more than absolute number)

Trend is the most important. A company moving from NPS 25 → 35 in 12 months is healthier than one stuck at 50 with declining momentum.

NPS Benchmark Caveats Most Teams Miss

1. Cultural skew: US customers give higher NPS scores than Asian or European customers for the same satisfaction level. Multi-region products must benchmark regionally, not globally.
2. Touchpoint timing: Transactional NPS (after a specific event) typically scores 10 to 20 points higher than relational NPS (annual survey). Compare apples to apples.
3. Response bias: Detractors are 2–3x more likely to respond than Promoters. Apply non-response weighting if you have low response rates.
4. Sample size: Scores from samples below 100 have wide confidence intervals. A score of "40" with N=30 could really be anywhere from 22 to 58.
5. Verbatim quality: A score of 40 with rich qualitative feedback is more actionable than a score of 60 with no "why."

The Hidden Value: NPS Verbatim Analysis

The NPS score is the headline. The follow-up question — "What's the primary reason for your score?" — is the playbook.

The problem: most teams collect verbatim answers as one-line text fields. The result is shallow data like "Good product" or "Slow support" that's impossible to act on.

AI-moderated NPS interviews fix this. With a platform like Koji, the follow-up to a score isn't a text box — it's a conversation:

"You gave us a 6. Can you tell me about the last time you were frustrated with the product?"

"What would need to change for you to give us a 9 or 10?"

Koji's AI handles the follow-up probing automatically using the same six structured question types (open_ended, scale, single_choice, multiple_choice, ranking, yes_no) you'd use in any study. The score is captured as a scale question with scaleMin: 0, scaleMax: 10. The follow-up is open_ended with AI probing enabled.

The difference in actionability:

• Text-box NPS verbatim: "Customer support is slow."
• AI-probed NPS verbatim: "Customer support is slow because I had a critical issue on Friday at 5 PM and your team didn't respond until Monday at 10 AM. I almost switched to [competitor] over the weekend. If you had a 1-hour SLA, I would be a Promoter."

The second response gives you the exact root cause, the competitive risk, and the specific fix.

How to Set NPS Targets the Right Way

A common mistake: setting an arbitrary NPS goal (e.g., "we want to hit 50"). A better approach:

1. Establish your baseline. Run a representative survey, get N=100+ responses, accept the number.
2. Set a 6-month improvement target. A realistic gain is +5 to +10 points per period. Bigger gains usually come from skewed samples, not real improvement.
3. Tie the target to a Detractor reduction goal. Promoters drive growth, but reducing Detractors usually has bigger ROI. A goal like "reduce Detractor % from 22% to 15% in 6 months" is more actionable than "raise NPS to 45."
4. Track segment NPS, not just overall. Your overall NPS is the average of very different cohorts. Segmenting by tier, persona, or use case reveals where to invest.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an NPS of 50 good?

Yes — an NPS of 50 is excellent in any industry. Globally, the average NPS across all sectors hovers around 32, so 50 puts you well into the top quartile. In professional services or hospitality, 50 is average; in financial services or telecom, 50 is exceptional.

What is a good NPS for SaaS?

For SaaS, the 2026 industry average is around 36. A score of 40+ is healthy, 50+ is excellent, and 60+ puts you in world-class company alongside Notion (60) and HubSpot (53). Below 20, you have urgent retention work to do.

How often should I run an NPS survey?

Relational NPS (overall product/brand): quarterly or semi-annually. Transactional NPS (post-onboarding, post-support, post-purchase): immediately after the event. More frequent surveys cause survey fatigue and depress response rates.

What sample size do I need for a reliable NPS score?

A minimum of 100 responses for a stable score with reasonable confidence intervals. Below 30 responses, the result is directional only. For tracking trend over time, 300+ responses per survey period gives you the resolution to detect 5-point changes.

How is NPS different from CSAT or CES?

NPS measures loyalty and likelihood to recommend. CSAT measures satisfaction with a specific interaction. CES measures the effort required to complete a task. NPS is relational and long-term; CSAT and CES are transactional and short-term. Most mature programs use all three.

Can AI interviews replace traditional NPS surveys?

Not replace — augment. The NPS score is best collected as a structured numeric scale (0–10). What AI interviews replace is the shallow open-text follow-up. Platforms like Koji run the structured NPS question and then conduct a conversational follow-up that captures 5x more usable qualitative signal than a text box.

Related Resources

• NPS Survey Guide — How to set up and run an NPS program
• NPS Follow-up Interviews — Convert detractors with AI-moderated follow-ups
• Structured Questions Guide — Use the six question types to design your NPS + follow-up flow
• CSAT Survey Guide — Complement NPS with transactional satisfaction measurement
• Customer Effort Score Guide — Third leg of the CX measurement tripod
• Voice of Customer Research Program — Build a full VoC program around NPS
• Customer Health Score SaaS Guide — Use NPS as one signal in a composite health model

Want to turn your NPS scores into actionable insight? Koji's AI interview platform probes every score with conversational follow-ups, auto-tags themes, and pipes results into your CRM in real time.