Jason Cohen
Founder of WP Engine, the managed WordPress hosting company, and of SmartBear Software, a developer tools company he started in 2003 and sold in 2007.
“I don't believe in NPS. I have data from WP Engine showing that NPS is horseshit. … We found that there's zero correlation between NPS and retention. It's just as likely that a NPS 10 or 100 is going to churn in the next year as someone who did a two, at least for us.”
Smart Bear Live · Bootstrapped & Indie SaaS · October 2026
Another guest had just reported a Net Promoter Score of 90 and Cohen was asked what he thought. He also argued that the score stops meaning anything once customers know how it is measured, and allowed that it may be useful in other markets.
Transcript
It's 90.
Pretty good. What do you think, Jason?
I don't believe in NPS. I have data from WP Engine showing that NPS is horseshit. I think one of the problems is that once you know it's being measured or how it's being measured, then it doesn't mean anything anymore. People know what the zero to 10 question is, so I think it ruins it. And then the other thing we found is that NPS isn't correlated with anything we cared about. For example, you might assume NPS is correlated with retention. And we found that there's zero correlation between NPS and retention. It's just as likely that a NPS 10 or 100 is going to churn in the next year as someone who did a two, at least for us. So I can believe that there are markets and businesses where it's meaningful.
I think it's just personality. If someone's grumpy, they're doing, you know, six out of 10. If they're butterfly, they're doing 10 out of 10, whatever we do. I have a question for Jason.
Mary and I both have service businesses. I would argue that doing something versus nothing for an NPS is worth it. But what?
Yeah, exactly.
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