Enter the number of responses for each satisfaction level (1–5). CSAT is the **percentage of Satisfied + Very satisfied** responses.
Step 1 — Enter response counts
Not sure? .
Step 2 — Your CSAT
- Formula: CSAT = ((Satisfied + Very satisfied) ÷ Total) × 100
- We treat **4 (Satisfied)** and **5 (Very satisfied)** as "satisfied."
CSAT is deceptively easy to game — if you only survey customers right after a positive interaction, your score will look great while real satisfaction quietly erodes. We recommend surveying a random sample across all interaction types, not just the ones you feel good about. A 75% CSAT from an unfiltered sample beats 95% from cherry-picked touchpoints every time.
What is CSAT and how does it work?
Customer Satisfaction Score measures how a customer felt about a specific interaction — a support ticket, a purchase, an onboarding step. That distinction matters more than it sounds: a customer can give you 95% CSAT on a support resolution and still churn three months later because they are unhappy with the product itself. CSAT is a transactional signal, not a relationship one. It tells you how a moment landed, not how someone feels about you overall.
The calculation counts only the satisfied responses — ratings of 4 and 5 on a 5-point scale — as a percentage of all responses received. A score of 80% means 80 out of every 100 respondents rated their experience as satisfied or very satisfied. Enter your response counts into the calculator above to get your CSAT instantly, and change any number to see how individual responses shift the score.
What is a good CSAT score?
Benchmarks vary meaningfully by industry and by channel. A score that signals excellent performance in telecoms would be considered poor in ecommerce. The table below gives current averages across the industries where CSAT is most commonly tracked.
| Industry / Channel | Average CSAT |
|---|---|
| Software / SaaS | 78–82% |
| Ecommerce | 78–82% |
| Retail | 74–78% |
| Financial services | 72–76% |
| Telecommunications | 62–68% |
| Customer support (all industries) | 70–75% |
| Post-purchase email surveys | 80–85% |
Most teams use 80% as a practical target. Consistently below 70% points to a systemic problem — something structural in the experience, not just individual bad days. Above 90% is genuinely excellent, but it should prompt a question about sampling: if you are only capturing responses from your most engaged customers or immediately after moments of delight, the number is flattering rather than representative.
When to use CSAT vs NPS vs CES
CSAT is the right tool when you want to know how a specific interaction landed. Use it at transactional touchpoints: after a support ticket closes, after a purchase, after an onboarding step. The feedback is timely and actionable — if CSAT drops after a particular interaction type, you know exactly where to look.
Net Promoter Score answers a different question: not “how did that go?” but “would you recommend us?” It is a relationship metric, best measured quarterly or annually, and it reflects how someone feels about the brand as a whole rather than any single moment. NPS is better for understanding retention risk and growth potential; CSAT is better for operational improvement.
Customer Effort Score measures how easy it was to get something done. In high-friction contexts — a returns process, a complex support interaction, a multi-step checkout — CES is often a stronger predictor of repeat business than CSAT. A customer can be satisfied with a resolution that took three contacts and three days. CES catches what CSAT misses in those situations. Running all three tells a different story than any one alone. But if you are starting out, CSAT after support interactions is the fastest way to find where your experience is breaking down.
How to collect CSAT responses
Timing matters more than channel. The strongest CSAT data comes from surveys sent within minutes of an interaction closing — not hours, and not the next day. Satisfaction fades quickly and rationalises even faster. For support tickets, trigger the survey automatically when the ticket is marked resolved. For purchases, send it when the order is confirmed or delivered, depending on whether you are measuring the buying experience or the product experience.
Keep the survey short. The rating question plus one open-text follow-up — “what could we have done better?” — is the optimal format. It gives you enough context to act on without enough friction to kill your response rate. Every additional question you add drops completion by roughly 10 to 15%. The open-text field is where the actionable insights live; the score alone tells you that something is wrong, the comment tells you what.
Best tools to run CSAT surveys
Three tools we have reviewed stand out for CSAT specifically:
Best for fast CSAT deployment after support interactions.
Purpose-built for CSAT and NPS with minimal setup. Strong native integrations with Zendesk and Intercom make automated post-ticket surveys a one-time configuration.
Free to start
Read our review →Best for conversational CSAT surveys with high completion rates.
Chat-style format works particularly well for post-purchase and onboarding CSAT where traditional forms feel cold and impersonal.
Starting at $19/mo
Read our review →Best for customer support teams measuring post-ticket CSAT.
Sits natively inside Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Intercom — the survey is embedded in the ticket closure email, which consistently outperforms external survey links for support CSAT.
Starting at $59/mo
Read our review →See all tools with advanced CSAT features →
