In real estate, referrals are one of the clearest signals of trust. Agents and brokers don't recommend lightly – whether it's a lender, a title partner, or another agent, a referral implies confidence that the experience will reflect well on the person making it. The same instinct applies to the Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms professionals rely on every day. When someone is willing to suggest a product to a colleague, they're signaling more than basic satisfaction – they're signaling real value.
This is where Net Promoter Score, or NPS, adds clarity.
What is NPS?
NPS is based on a single question: “How likely are you to recommend this product to a friend or coworker?” Respondents answer on a scale from zero to ten and can include text in the response. By comparing the share of strong advocates to the share of unhappy users, it produces a single number reflecting overall willingness to recommend – one that runs from -100 (every respondent is a detractor) to 100 (every respondent is a promoter).
What makes this especially relevant to real estate is that recommendation is already second nature in the industry. Agents build their businesses on referrals and tend to protect their reputations carefully. When they recommend a SaaS tool, they're vouching for the full experience of using it – the product, yes, but also the support behind it.
Benchmark Context
To understand what an NPS score represents, some context helps. Across industries, the median NPS typically falls in the low-to-mid 40s. In B2B SaaS specifically, scores commonly land in the 30s, reflecting how difficult it is to earn advocacy in deadline-driven, operational environments. Products scoring above 50 are considered strong performers. Scores above 70 are rare, and sustaining them almost always requires a combination of a reliable product and customer experience that holds up under pressure, consistently, over time. (For a deeper look at how these numbers compare across industries, Retently and Survicate both publish current benchmark data.)
Realtracs' NPS Score
As a SaaS platform ourselves, these benchmarks aren't abstract – they're the standard we're measured against. Over the past twelve months, Realtracs' Net Promoter Score is 76 – based on 3,534 responses collected through in-app prompts from agents, brokers, and appraisers. Our median NPS since February 2020 is 67, spanning multiple market cycles and operating conditions and indicating an upward trend over the last five years.
We share these numbers as a reference point for evaluating whether the platform is supporting the professionals who rely on it. Sustained scores at that level are difficult to maintain in SaaS without consistent performance – particularly in an industry where transactions are time-sensitive, and errors are costly.
Necessity vs Preference
A common question is whether NPS applies when certain systems are required. The recommendation-based question still provides insight because it doesn't ask whether someone must use a tool – it asks whether they'd feel comfortable endorsing it. People may comply with a SaaS platform out of necessity, but they rarely recommend something that creates risk, adds friction, or fails when timing matters.
Agent referrals are one of the strongest indicators of trust in real estate. NPS applies that same lens to the SaaS powering the transaction itself – helping distinguish between platforms that are simply used out of necessity and those professionals genuinely rely on to do their work well.