# When to Send an NPS Survey in SaaS > When SaaS companies should send NPS surveys, including relationship versus transactional NPS, timing by lifecycle stage, frequency, channels, follow-up questions and acting on results. Source: https://comppound.com/blog/when-to-send-an-nps-survey-in-saas (published 2026-09-29) Net Promoter Score (NPS) asks customers how likely they are to recommend your product. It is widely used in SaaS to measure customer sentiment and to identify promoters, who are likely to speak well of you, and detractors, who are at risk of leaving or complaining. The survey itself is simple. Getting useful results from it is mostly a question of SaaS NPS survey timing. Ask too early and customers have not experienced enough value to give a meaningful answer. Ask too often and they stop responding. Ask at the wrong moment, such as during an outage or right after a billing problem, and the results reflect that moment rather than the relationship. This guide covers the types of NPS, when to send each one, which moments to avoid and what to do with the responses. ## The NPS question The standard question is: > How likely are you to recommend [Product] to a friend or colleague? (0–10) Follow it with an open question: > What's the main reason for your score? The follow-up is where most of the value lives. The score tells you how customers feel. The reason tells you why, and the why is what you can act on. A survey that collects scores without reasons gives you a number to watch but little to do about it. Keep the survey short. Two questions is ideal. Every additional question lowers the response rate and makes the survey feel like a chore rather than a quick check-in. ## Types of NPS There are two broad types of NPS survey, and they answer different questions. ### Relationship NPS Relationship NPS measures overall sentiment about your product and company, sent periodically regardless of what the customer has just done. It tells you how the relationship is going in general and how that changes over time. This is the number most companies report when they talk about their NPS. ### Transactional NPS Transactional NPS measures sentiment after a specific event, such as completing onboarding, resolving a support ticket or adopting a major feature. It tells you how a particular experience felt. Because it is tied to a moment, it is more useful for improving specific processes than for judging the overall relationship. Keep the two separate in your reporting. Mixing transactional responses, which skew toward whatever just happened, with relationship responses makes trends hard to interpret. ## When to send relationship NPS ### After customers experience value Avoid surveying brand-new users. Someone who signed up three days ago has not used the product enough to say whether they would recommend it, and their answer mostly reflects first impressions of onboarding. Wait until customers have used the product meaningfully. For many products, that means after onboarding is complete or after a set period, such as 60 or 90 days, combined with some sign of recent activity. The right threshold depends on how quickly your product delivers value. A tool that is useful on day one can survey sooner than one that takes weeks of setup. If you have an activation metric, a simple rule is to wait until accounts are activated and have been active for some time after that. ### Periodically Many SaaS companies survey customers on a regular cadence, often quarterly or twice a year. More frequent surveys give you faster feedback but risk fatigue. Less frequent surveys respect customers' time but make it harder to see trends. Twice a year is a reasonable default for most B2B products, with quarterly surveys for products with larger customer bases and more frequent changes. One useful refinement is to survey each account on its own schedule rather than surveying everyone on the same day. If every customer receives the survey on the first day of the quarter, results depend heavily on what happened that week, and your support team receives a wave of follow-ups all at once. Spreading surveys based on each account's signup date smooths both problems. ### Before renewals Surveying a few months before an annual renewal can identify risk while there is still time to act. A detractor response three months before renewal gives you room to understand the problem and fix it. The same response a week before renewal gives you very little room. For larger accounts, this survey can be replaced or supplemented by a personal check-in from the account owner. ## When to send transactional NPS Transactional surveys work best after moments that shape how customers feel about the product. The three most common are after onboarding is complete, after a support ticket is resolved and after a customer adopts a major feature. The onboarding survey tells you whether new customers felt well supported in getting started, and the reasons often reveal specific steps that confuse people. The support survey tells you how customers experienced the resolution, which is useful for coaching and process improvement. The feature adoption survey tells you whether a new capability is delivering value, which helps product teams decide where to invest. Send transactional surveys soon after the event, while the experience is fresh, and keep them separate from relationship NPS so the two do not contaminate each other. ## Avoid bad timing Some moments reliably distort results. Surveying immediately after signup captures expectations rather than experience. Surveying during or right after an outage captures frustration with the incident, which may not reflect the broader relationship. Surveying right after a billing issue, such as a failed payment or a disputed charge, captures irritation with that specific problem. And surveying too frequently trains customers to ignore your surveys, which lowers response rates and skews results toward the most opinionated customers. Build these exclusions into your survey logic. A simple rule might pause relationship surveys for an account during an active incident, after a billing issue in the past week or if the account received any survey recently. ## Choose the right channel The two main channels are in-app surveys and email surveys. In-app surveys reach users while they are using the product, which tends to produce higher response rates among active users. Email surveys reach customers who rarely log in, who may be at higher risk and whose views you need to hear. Using both is often the best approach. Send in-app surveys to active users and email surveys to less active ones. That way, your results include both groups rather than only the people who happen to be in the product when the survey appears. ## Segment the results A single NPS number for your whole customer base hides a lot. Analyze results by plan, company size, role, tenure and usage level. Different segments often feel very differently about the same product. Admins may love features that end users find confusing. Customers on your top plan may be promoters while those on your entry plan are passives. Newer customers may be enthusiastic while long-time customers are frustrated by something that has not changed. Segmentation turns NPS from a score into a diagnostic. If one segment is consistently lower, the reasons from that segment tell you exactly where to look. ## Act on the responses ### Promoters Promoters are your best source of advocacy. Ask them for reviews on relevant sites, invite them to refer colleagues and request case studies or testimonials from those who are willing. Time these requests soon after the survey, while the positive feeling is fresh, and make them easy to act on. ### Passives Passives are satisfied but not enthusiastic. They are often the easiest group to move, and the most overlooked. Read their reasons carefully and look for patterns, since passives frequently mention a single missing feature or recurring annoyance that, if fixed, could make them promoters. ### Detractors Detractors need a personal response. Reach out individually, ideally within a couple of business days, to understand the problem and try to resolve it. Share their feedback with product and support teams so recurring issues get fixed. A detractor who receives a thoughtful reply often softens, and some become loyal customers because they saw that the company listened. ## Close the loop Tell customers how their feedback led to changes. A short note, such as "Several of you mentioned the billing page was confusing, so we redesigned it," shows that responding to surveys is worth their time. Closing the loop increases future participation and builds trust, because customers see that the survey was more than a box-ticking exercise. ## Measure trends alongside other metrics Track NPS over time, and look at it next to churn and expansion. A rising NPS with rising churn suggests the survey is missing something, perhaps because unhappy customers are not responding. A falling NPS ahead of a rise in churn is an early warning worth taking seriously. NPS is one signal among several, and it is most useful when combined with usage data, support trends and renewal outcomes. ## Common mistakes The common mistakes are surveying too early, surveying too often, ignoring the written comments, not following up with detractors and treating NPS as the only customer metric. Each one either reduces the quality of the data or wastes the effort customers put into responding. ## A worked example (illustrative) A SaaS company sent an NPS survey to every user on the first day of each quarter. Many recipients had signed up only days earlier, response rates were low and scores swung widely from quarter to quarter. The team changed the approach. Only accounts at least 60 days old with recent activity became eligible for relationship NPS. Surveys went out on each account's own schedule, twice a year, rather than to everyone on the same day. Short transactional surveys were added after onboarding completion and support ticket resolution, kept separate from relationship NPS. Active users were surveyed in the app, and less active users by email. Every detractor received a personal reply within two business days, and promoters received a request for a review. Response rates rose, scores became more stable and easier to interpret, and detractor follow-ups surfaced several fixable problems, including a confusing billing page that was frustrating long-time customers. ## A simple NPS calendar A practical calendar for most [B2B SaaS](/blog/what-is-programmatic-seo-a-b2b-saas-guide-to-scaling-organic-traffic) products has four moments. At the end of onboarding, new accounts receive a transactional survey. At day 60 and then every six months, active accounts receive relationship NPS. After a support ticket is resolved, the person who raised it receives a transactional survey. And about 90 days before renewal, annual customers receive a relationship survey or a personal check-in. Add a frequency cap so no user receives more than one survey in a set period, regardless of which triggers apply. ## The takeaway Send NPS surveys after customers have experienced value, at a regular cadence and around meaningful lifecycle moments. Avoid moments that distort results, use both in-app and email channels, segment the responses, follow up with promoters and detractors and close the loop so customers know their feedback mattered. ## Frequently asked questions ### When should SaaS companies send NPS surveys? After customers experience value, periodically such as quarterly or twice a year, and around key lifecycle moments. ### Should new users receive NPS surveys? Usually not immediately. Wait until they have used the product meaningfully. ### How should SaaS companies use NPS feedback? Follow up with detractors, engage promoters, analyze comments and close the loop on improvements. ## About Comppound Comppound runs SEO and AI search for B2B SaaS companies: a person sets the plan and reviews samples and every high-risk page, and AI speeds up production. - [Get the free report](https://comppound.com/ai-visibility-report): When buyers ask ChatGPT about your category, are you in the answer? - [Book a call](https://comppound.com/contact): Most of this works better when buyers can find you first