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2026 NPS benchmarks for 14 industries — median, good, excellent ranges. Plus eNPS benchmarks, response-rate benchmarks, and peer-set guidance.
Your board asks whether your NPS of +42 is good. You search "average NPS by industry," find a chart from a vendor blog, notice it hasn't been updated since 2021, and present the number anyway. Three months later a competitor publishes their score of +61 and your funder asks why you're trailing. What nobody told you: the competitor used a 5-point scale, surveyed only their most engaged users, and their "+61" is not the same metric as your "+42." That gap between your score and theirs is methodology, not loyalty.
Last updated: April 2026
NPS benchmarks by industry provide directional context for interpreting a Net Promoter Score, but they rarely provide a precise peer comparison. Published benchmarks mix incompatible methodologies — different scales, different response rates, different collection moments — so a published "+40 average" for your industry and your own "+40" can mean radically different things. This page covers the 2026 NPS benchmarks across 14 industries, eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score) benchmarks for HR teams, response-rate benchmarks, the tools and providers that publish benchmark data, and — most importantly — how to read benchmarks without falling into the Benchmark Mirage.
An NPS benchmark is an industry-level or sector-level average Net Promoter Score, aggregated from surveys across many companies in the same category. Benchmarks are published by research firms (Bain & Company, Satmetrix/NICE, CustomerGauge), survey platforms (Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Medallia), and industry analysts. The intent is to give an organization context for interpreting its own score — "are we above or below the industry norm?"
Benchmarks are directional, not precise. Two companies in the same industry can score radically differently because of survey methodology, customer segment, collection timing, and response rate. A useful benchmark clearly documents its methodology (scale, collection moment, response-rate convention) and is less than 12 months old. Most benchmarks fail at least one of those tests, which is why your own trend line usually matters more than the external comparison.
A good NPS score depends on industry. Absolute benchmarks treat any positive score as baseline healthy, +30 to +50 as good, +50 to +70 as excellent, and +70+ as world-class. Most consumer and B2B contexts fall in the +20 to +50 range; industries with structural friction (telecom, cable, airlines) often average below +20, while premium consumer brands and high-engagement nonprofits often exceed +60. The wrong way to use these ranges: as universal targets. The right way: as directional context alongside your own trend.
Industry matters more than the absolute number. A +40 NPS is excellent in cable/telecom, healthy in financial services, and merely average in SaaS or e-commerce. Benchmark your score against companies with genuinely comparable customer bases, business models, and survey methodologies — not against a single aggregated industry average pulled from a five-year-old report.
NPS benchmarks vary dramatically by industry — from below zero in cable/telecom to above +60 in consumer-brand retail. The widget below shows median, good (top-quartile), and excellent (top-decile) ranges across 14 industries, based on aggregated 2024–2025 research from Bain & Company, Qualtrics, CustomerGauge, SurveyMonkey, and publicly disclosed company data. Treat the ranges as directional guidance — your peer comparison should look at companies with comparable scale, business model, and survey methodology, not at the industry average alone.
Three patterns worth noting before you read the table. B2B vs. B2C matters more than "industry": B2B SaaS scores typically run 10–15 points below consumer SaaS because switching costs depress active advocacy. Premium positioning drives variance within each category: Apple's +60, Amazon's +60, Costco's +70 all pull their category averages up without reflecting a typical retailer. Regulatory industries cluster below zero: cable, telecom, and airlines average near zero or below — a +20 in those industries is competitive, not merely acceptable.
eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) benchmarks generally run 20–30 points below customer NPS benchmarks in the same industry. The typical eNPS range across industries is −10 to +30, with "good" scores generally +10 to +30, "excellent" scores above +30, and "world-class" scores above +50. A few high-performing technology companies report eNPS above +50, but most industries center between 0 and +20. The question "is our eNPS good?" requires the same care as NPS — industry, company size, tenure mix, and survey methodology all shift the baseline.
eNPS benchmarks by industry (2026 composite ranges):
Technology and Professional Services tend to lead (eNPS +15 to +35 typical range for healthy organizations). Financial Services and Manufacturing cluster in the middle (eNPS 0 to +20). Healthcare, Retail, and Hospitality often report lower eNPS (−10 to +15), reflecting operational stress and high front-line turnover in those sectors. Nonprofit and Mission-Driven organizations frequently report above-median eNPS (+20 to +40) when mission alignment is strong — one of the few cases where a sector's structural features consistently produce higher scores. See the widget above for the eNPS view toggle.
NPS benchmarks vary across industries for structural reasons — not because some industries are "better" than others. Switching cost suppresses advocacy in regulated or contract-locked industries (telecom, enterprise B2B software, insurance) where customers may be satisfied but unable to recommend specific providers; this pulls benchmarks down regardless of service quality. High emotional investment raises advocacy in mission-aligned sectors (nonprofits, education, healthcare at its best) where customers become champions when outcomes land. Commodity positioning compresses scores in categories where price is the primary differentiator — generic retailers, budget airlines, mass-market banking.
Business model matters more than industry label. A SaaS company serving a high-NPS buyer persona (developers, designers) will run very different numbers from a SaaS company serving compliance-driven enterprises. A healthcare provider with vertical specialty focus will benchmark differently from a broad-network hospital system. The practical rule: when you select a benchmark, select a peer group — companies with your revenue model, customer acquisition channel, and relationship cadence — not just companies in your SIC code.
Build your benchmark bottom-up from three layers: your own trend (the most reliable comparison), a tight peer set of 3–5 named competitors (the most informative external comparison), and broad industry averages (directional only). Your own trend beats every external benchmark because it holds methodology constant — same scale, same collection moment, same respondent base across cycles. The peer set matters because it's close enough to your specific business model to make the comparison meaningful. The broad industry average provides directional context but should never be treated as a target.
The alternative — taking one published industry average as your benchmark — is what produces most of the misleading board conversations about NPS. Your +38 compared to your +32 six months ago tells you something real: the trend is positive and the absolute improvement is quantifiable. Your +38 compared to an industry average of +41 published in 2022 by a vendor using a different survey methodology tells you very little — and arguing about the gap is usually a worse use of time than investigating what's driving the positive movement in your own data.
NPS response rate benchmarks typically sit between 20% and 40% for email-distributed surveys, 10% to 25% for in-app surveys, and 50%+ for program-embedded or transactional surveys tied to a specific customer event. Low response rates (below 15%) skew toward detractor bias because disengaged customers either don't respond at all or respond negatively when they do; very high response rates (above 60%) typically indicate a well-designed transactional collection tied closely to a customer moment. The response rate directly affects the defensibility of the NPS score — a +50 built on a 8% response rate is substantially less reliable than a +35 built on a 45% response rate.
Response rate benchmarks also vary by stakeholder type. Customer NPS typically runs 20–30% response rates. Employee NPS (eNPS) typically runs 40–70% response rates when sent from internal HR systems. Beneficiary NPS in nonprofit programs typically runs 30–55% when embedded in program touchpoints. Transactional NPS tied to a specific moment (onboarding completion, support close, program milestone) consistently produces the highest response rates and the most actionable feedback.
The major NPS benchmarking sources in 2026 are Bain & Company (who developed NPS and publish the NPS Prism benchmarks), Satmetrix/NICE (the legacy NPS benchmarking platform), Qualtrics XM (broad cross-industry benchmarks through their XM Institute), Medallia (industry-vertical benchmarks), SurveyMonkey (eNPS benchmarks from their workforce research), and CustomerGauge (B2B-focused benchmarks). Each uses different methodology, samples different populations, and publishes on different cadences — so citing one benchmark without noting the source is rarely defensible.
For organizations without access to enterprise benchmarking platforms, the most practical approach is pairing a broad directional benchmark (from a publicly cited source like the NPS Prism Bain report) with a tight peer-set comparison of 3–5 named competitors and your own rolling trend. Sopact Sense doesn't publish external benchmarks — what it does is make your internal benchmark (quarter-over-quarter trend, cohort-over-cohort trend, segment-over-segment trend) visible as the default view, which is usually the more decision-useful comparison.
The Benchmark Mirage is the belief that cross-industry NPS averages provide an actionable comparison — when in practice most published benchmarks mix incompatible survey methodologies, response bases, and collection moments. Three mechanisms produce the misleading comparison.
Scale contamination. A meaningful minority of published NPS studies use 1–5 or 1–7 scales converted to NPS-equivalent scores through interpolation. These converted scores systematically overstate NPS relative to validated 0–10 collection. When an aggregator benchmark includes studies from survey tools that default to 5-point scales, the resulting average is not directly comparable to your 0–10 NPS program. Survivorship bias in response populations. Most NPS benchmarks are collected through email surveys, where active responders skew positive and disengaged customers — who are disproportionately detractors — opt out entirely. A benchmark built on a 15% response rate from your most engaged segment will always look better than a benchmark built on a 45% response rate from your full stakeholder population. Moment-of-collection mismatch. Post-transaction NPS collected within 48 hours of a positive event produces substantially higher scores than quarterly relational NPS from the same customer base. Benchmarks typically don't distinguish between collection moments, so comparing your quarterly relational NPS to a post-transactional industry benchmark produces a gap that reflects methodology, not loyalty.
The alternative is an internal benchmark built on consistent methodology over time — same scale, same collection moment, same respondent base across cycles. Your +32 six months ago versus your +38 today tells you something real and acts on. Your +38 compared to an industry average of +41 collected in 2021 using a different survey tool tells you very little.
Absolute benchmarks treat any positive score as healthy, +30 to +50 as good, +50 to +70 as excellent, and +70+ as world-class. Relative benchmarks matter more — a +40 is excellent in cable/telecom, healthy in financial services, and average in SaaS. Evaluate your score against industry context, not universal thresholds.
2026 NPS ranges directionally: SaaS +30 to +45, Financial Services +30 to +45, Retail +35 to +55, Healthcare +25 to +45, Telecommunications −5 to +20, Technology/Consumer +40 to +60, Professional Services +40 to +60, Education +30 to +50, Multifamily/Real Estate +10 to +35. Treat as directional — peer-set comparison is more reliable than broad industry averages.
A good eNPS score is +10 to +30, excellent is +30 to +50, world-class is +50+. eNPS benchmarks typically run 20–30 points below customer NPS benchmarks in the same industry. Technology and Professional Services tend to lead (+15 to +35 typical); Healthcare, Retail, and Hospitality often cluster lower (−10 to +15).
Technology +15 to +35, Financial Services 0 to +20, Healthcare −10 to +15, Retail/Hospitality −10 to +15, Manufacturing 0 to +20, Professional Services +15 to +35, Nonprofit/Mission-Driven +20 to +40, Education −5 to +20. Mission alignment is one of the few consistent cross-sector boosts to eNPS.
Industry medians vary widely: SaaS around +30, Financial Services around +35, Retail around +40, Healthcare around +30, Telecommunications around +10, Technology around +45, Education around +35, Nonprofits around +40 (internal data, no published consensus). Median is less useful than top-quartile and top-decile ranges for target-setting.
Benchmark response rates: email surveys 20–40%, in-app 10–25%, program-embedded or transactional 50%+. Below 15% indicates detractor bias risk; above 60% usually indicates a well-designed transactional touchpoint. Response rate affects the defensibility of the score — a +50 on 8% response is weaker evidence than a +35 on 45%.
The major sources are Bain & Company (NPS Prism), Satmetrix/NICE, Qualtrics XM Institute, Medallia, SurveyMonkey (eNPS), and CustomerGauge (B2B). Each uses different methodology and samples different populations. Cite the source when using a benchmark — an unsourced "industry average" is rarely defensible.
Enterprise NPS benchmarking tools include NPS Prism (Bain), Qualtrics XM Institute, Medallia Benchmarks, CustomerGauge B2B benchmarks, and SurveyMonkey benchmarks. For smaller programs, the most practical approach is pairing a publicly cited directional benchmark with a peer set of 3–5 named competitors and your own rolling trend.
B2B SaaS NPS typically averages +30 to +40 for healthy organizations, with top-quartile performers reaching +45 to +55 and world-class at +60+. B2B SaaS usually scores 10–15 points below consumer SaaS in the same product category because switching costs and procurement friction depress voluntary advocacy.
Healthcare NPS typically averages +25 to +45. Access friction (wait times, scheduling), billing complexity, and administrative experience are the largest drivers of detractor scores — often more impactful than clinical quality ratings. Patient loyalty runs highest when access and outcome feel strong together.
Multifamily/apartment NPS typically runs +10 to +35, with top-quartile properties reaching +40 to +55. Move-in experience, maintenance response time, and communication clarity are the most common drivers of both promoter and detractor scores. Multifamily tends to score below consumer retail but above telecom.
The Benchmark Mirage is the belief that cross-industry NPS averages provide an actionable comparison, when in practice most published benchmarks mix incompatible survey methodologies, response bases, and collection moments — producing a number that looks authoritative but measures nothing you can act on against your own program.
Published NPS benchmarks should be less than 12 months old. Industries change quickly (especially tech, retail, and finance), and citing a 2021 benchmark in a 2026 board conversation is the most common Benchmark Mirage mistake. Internal rolling benchmarks update automatically as new collection cycles complete — the most current reference point is always your own recent trend.