Survey response rate calculator

Your response rate, what it means for how much you can trust the results, and how many people to invite next time. Every formula is shown, so the numbers are ones you can explain to whoever reads your report.

Your response rate

Response rate
15%

60 completed responses from 400 people reached.

Margin of error: ±11.7 percentage points at 95% confidence. A result of 60% from these responses means the real figure is likely between 48% and 72%.

Completed responses ÷ (people invited − bounced) × 100. The margin of error treats everyone you invited as the group you want to describe, and assumes the people who answered are like the people who did not. If they differ, more responses will not fix it: see whether a low response rate makes results wrong.

How many people to invite

Invite at least
500

To expect 100 completed responses at a 20% response rate. Your own last survey to the same audience is the best guide to the rate.

Not sure how many responses you need? The sample size calculator works that out first.

SurveyService counts how many people open your survey and how many finish it, so your completion rate is on the results page without any arithmetic. See how it works →

How is survey response rate calculated?

Response rate = completed responses ÷ (people invited − bounced) × 100

Two rules keep the number honest:

  • Only completed responses go on top. Partial answers and people who opened the survey and left are not responses.
  • Only people who could answer go underneath. Remove bounced emails and anyone the invitation never reached, because they never had the chance to respond.

If you shared a public link or a QR code, you can't count invitations, so there is no response rate to calculate. Use completion rate instead: completed responses divided by the number of people who opened the survey. A low response rate points at the invitation; a low completion rate points at the survey itself.

How accurate are results from a given number of responses?

The margin of error depends on how many people answered, far more than on the response rate itself. For a large audience at 95% confidence:

Completed responsesMargin of error
30±17.9 percentage points
50±13.9 percentage points
100±9.8 percentage points
200±6.9 percentage points
400±4.9 percentage points
1,000±3.1 percentage points

Smaller audiences do better than this table, because each response covers a bigger share of the group; the calculator above adjusts for that. The table also assumes the people who answered are like the people who did not, which a low response rate makes harder to rely on. For the full method behind these numbers, see how many survey responses you need.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate survey response rate?

Divide completed responses by the number of people who received the invitation, then multiply by 100. People who received it means everyone invited minus bounced or undeliverable invitations. 60 completed responses from 400 people reached is a 15% response rate.

What is a good survey response rate?

It depends mostly on how close you are to the people you ask. Employee and member surveys often get a majority to answer, surveys sent straight after a purchase or support case do moderately well, and emailed surveys with no recent contact often land in the low double digits or below. Your own previous survey to the same audience is the most useful comparison.

Should partial responses count?

Not in the response rate. Count only completed responses, and report partial ones separately if they matter. Counting someone who answered two questions out of twenty as a response makes the rate look better than the data behind it.

Is a low response rate a problem?

It costs precision, which the margin of error shows. The bigger risk is bias: if the people who did not answer differ from those who did, the results lean one way however many responses you collect. Check whether groups you can identify, such as teams or customer types, are represented roughly in proportion.

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