19 PMF Survey Templates: Basic, Advanced & Expert (and 8 mistakes to avoid!)
Last week, while testing out a bunch of tools that facilitate PMF Surveys, I realized something surprising — a lot of the “PMF Survey Templates” on Google are really not good. In fact, the majority actively promote harmful advice.
So I transcribed all the PMF Survey templates I could find into one list and set out to create a better version that is based on a real understanding of the purpose of the PMF survey so that teams could use it to conduct better customer research.
I analyzed 104 questions from PMF Survey templates — here’s what I learned…
PS. I included all 104 questions from the 18 reviewed templates at the end of this post.
1. A startling amount of the templates clearly just blindly copied from other blog posts. Most templates seem to have been created by people who aren’t researchers and don’t even understand the purpose of the PMF survey. Be careful who you trust as a source of expertise.
2. There is no point in asking users who they think would benefit from using the product. That is your job to figure out, not theirs. Plus, the results of the PMF survey will help you answer this without having to ask this question (hint: segmentation analysis).
3. It is not useful to know whether users have recommended your product to friends or colleagues. In most cases the data from this question will just mirror the PMF score anyway as a secondary metric of user satisfaction. Instead, you want to know how they described your product while recommending it, like how they explained its value, purpose, or core differentiator.
4. If you add extra text to the PMF question, you will skew your results. For example, changing “Not Disappointed” to “Not Disappointed (it isn’t really that useful)” will just discourage people from answering honestly by adding guilt to the wording of that choice.
5. PMF surveys should not be 12 questions long. Limit the number of open-ended questions by using branching to ask targeted follow-ups. You should not be asking “Not Disappointed” users to explain why your product is so valuable to them (spoiler: they don’t think it’s valuable).
6. Cut unnecessary questions — don’t ask for things you should already know (eg. how often they use your product), are unreliable to self-report (eg. how they originally found your product), or won’t be used in your analysis (eg. their gender or employment status).
7. You don’t need NPS or CSAT questions in a PMF survey — these formats all measure general customer satisfaction with your product and will deliver similar results.
8. If you have to include an “N/A - No longer use” option in your PMF question, then you’re targeting the wrong people for your survey in the first place. The “Not Disappointed” option is perfectly suitable for churned users.
Understanding the purpose of the PMF survey
The PMF survey initially started as a way to measure Sean Ellis’s Rule of 40 — ie. ask users how they would feel if they could no longer use your product, if 40% or more choose “Very Disappointed” then you’ve got Product/Market Fit.
But people don’t use PMF surveys to get a black-or-white measurement of their current PMF. Instead, it’s used as a customer segmentation study — figure out what makes “Very Disappointed” users such big fans of your product and what’s stopping the rest from becoming big fans too.
Once you look at the PMF survey in this way, you can easily see that a lot of the template questions are obviously quite bad. Asking for users’ gender, employment status, and acquisition channel will not help you better understand what is turning new users into big fans of your product.
Lets use this clarified purpose to create a better template for your PMF survey…
PMF Survey Template (Basic Version)
The “basic” version of the PMF survey is a simple 4-part poll without any branching. This is for teams using survey platforms with limited functionality or free tools that don’t offer branching logic.
Without a doubt, the first question must be the PMF one.
1. How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
a. Very Disappointed
b. Somewhat Disappointed
c. Not Disappointed
Our solution has clicked for our “Very Disappointed” users — they understand and appreciate the value it offers. If we can better understand what specifically is driving value for them, we can focus our messaging more on this, guide more users towards those features during onboarding, better align our pricing with how customers perceive the product’s value, and more.
2. Why did you choose our product? What was the main benefit or value you expected it could deliver for you?
(Open-Ended Response)
This question is worded in a way to elicit benefits from happy users while better understanding what unhappy users expected of the product that it failed to deliver for them.
Without survey branching (using respondents answers to send them to different questions), we risk losing “Somewhat” and “Not Disappointed” users if the next question is not more relevant to them. So here we’ll switch from what the product is doing well to what the product could be doing better. This will allow “Very Disappointed” users to flag areas for further improvement while problematic users can share the barriers and friction that limited their adoption of the product.
3. What one change or addition would make our product 10x better for you?
(Open-Ended Response)
For the final question, we want to focus more externally by looking at how users interpret the differences between our product and the range of alternative solutions that our competitors offer. Like question 2, the data this will provide will help us tighten our positioning and make our product stand out better against the competition.
4. How would you describe our product in one sentence if you were recommending it to a friend or colleague?
(Open-Ended Response)
Here’s how that looks altogether:
PMF Survey Template (Advanced Version)
If you pick a survey tool that has branching logic available (check out our review of the 12 best tools for PMF surveys), then you should tailor the three follow-up questions even more specifically to each of the three PMF groups:
PMF Survey Template (Expert Version)
The PMF question is a great way to filter users into three segments — activated fans, potential fans, and lost causes. When you’re conducting research into user needs, pains or preferences to inform key product decisions like planning your roadmap, being able to filter your data to see the differences between these three segments is invaluable.
Here’s an example of a survey that included both the PMF question and a feature upvoting poll, where the PMF question was used to compare how each segment voted differently:
You can play around with the survey from the video above in the Sample Survey Gallery on OpinionX. Some examples of similar surveys where the PMF question is used as an easy way to create segments for further analysis include:
The shared ingredient in all these use cases is that they require comparative ranking — a voting format that forces users to compare a set of options and pick the one that they feel stronger about. The most used comparative ranking formats at Pairwise Comparison, Points Allocation, and Ranked Choice Voting, which are all available for free on OpinionX surveys.
So what are you waiting for? OpinionX is a free survey tool that offers all users unlimited surveys, unlimited participants, unlimited questions, and unlimited teammate seats — all completely free. Create your PMF survey on OpinionX in under 5 minutes!
104 Questions from 18 PMF Survey Templates
To research this blog post, I tested out a bunch of PMF survey tools, wrote a guide explaining the purpose of PMF Surveys and how to analyze them, and transcribed 18 PMF Survey templates that I found online. The transcripts of those templates are all included below, but be warned that there are a bunch of reasons why you should proceed with caution (I’ve outlined those reasons at the start of this post). Note: some of the templates have been lightly edited to make them easier to read.
Superhuman
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very Disappointed, Somewhat Disappointed, Not Disappointed
What type of people do you think would most benefit from Superhuman?
Open
What is the main benefit you receive from Superhuman?
Open
How can we improve Superhuman for you?
Open
Learning Loop
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed, N/A – I no longer use it
Please help us understand why you selected this answer.
Open ended question
Have you recommended this product to anyone?
No, Yes: ___
What type of person do you think would benefit most from the product?
Open ended question
How can we improve the product to better meet your needs?
Open ended question
How often do you use our product?
Never, Once a year, A couple of times a year, Once a month, A couple of times a month, Once a week, Every day
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, No reaction / neutral
Have you ever recommended us to friends or family?
Yes, No
What do you think sets us apart from our competitors?
Open ended question
What could we improve on?
E.g. Customer Support, Reliability of Service, Design, Functionality, Other
Could you tell us a bit about yourself? What’s your employment status?
Open ended question
How did you discover/come across this product?
Blog, Google/Search, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Word of mouth, other
What would you likely use as an alternative if this product were no longer available?
I probably wouldn’t use an alternative, I would use an alternative: ___
Would it be okay if we followed up by email to request a clarification of one or more of your responses?
Yes - enter email, No
Typeform
How often do you use our product?
Never, Once a year, couple times a year, once/m, couple times/m, once a week, every day
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, No reaction/neutral
Have you ever recommended us to friends or family?
Yes, No
What do you think sets us apart from our competitors?
Open
What could we improve on?
Customer Support, Reliability, Design, Functionality, Other
What's your employment status?
Dropdown list
How do you identify?
Male, Female, Non Binary, Other
Usersnap
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product or service?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed, I’m no longer using it
How could we improve our offering for you?
Open
Zonka Feedback
How did you discover our product?
Blog, Friend/Colleague, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Others
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed (it really isn’t that useful), N/a - I no longer use it
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
Open
What would you likely use as an alternative if our product was no longer available?
I probably wouldn’t use an alternative, I would use an alternative
If “would use” → Please enter the name of the alternative you're likely to use if our product was not available
Open
What is the primary benefit that you have received from our product?
Open
Have you recommended our product to anyone? If yes, please explain how you described it.
Open
What type of person do you think would benefit most from our product?
Open
How can we improve our product to better meet your needs?
Open
Would it be okay if we followed up by email to request a clarification to one or more of your responses?
Yes (Please enter the best email for contacting you), No
Delighted
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Not disappointed, Mildly disappointed, Very disappointed
Tell us more about why you chose your answer?
Open
Refiner
How disappointed would you be if you could no longer use our service?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed
Formbricks
How disappointed would you be if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not at all disappointed
What is your role?
Founder, Executive, Product Manager, Product Owner, Software Engineer
What type of people do you think would most benefit from our product?
Open
What is the main benefit you receive from our product?
Open
How can we improve our service for you? Please be as specific as possible.
Open
Ballpark
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed, I no longer use our product
Would you like to share any details about why you chose this answer?
Open
Tally
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed (it isn't really that useful)
Have you recommended our product to anyone?
Already recommended, Wouldn't recommend
How did you discover our product?
Twitter, Google, Community or forum (e.g. Indie Hackers, Product Hunt, Reddit...), Colleagues/Friends, Other
What would you likely use as an alternative if our product were no longer available?
Open
What type of people do you think would most benefit from our product?
Open
What is the main benefit you receive from our product?
Open
How can we improve our product for you?
Open
Formsicle
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed, N/A - No longer use
How often do you use our product?
Never, Once a year, A couple times a year, Once a month, A couple times a month, Once a week, Every day
Have you ever recommended us to friends or family?
Yes / No
What sets us apart from our competitors?
Open
What could we improve on?
Customer Support, Reliability of Service, Design, Functionality, Other
Any additional comments?
Open
SatisMeter
How would you feel if you could no longer use our service?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed, I do not use this service anymore
Have you recommended our service to anyone?
Already recommended, Would recommend, Would not recommend
What is the primary benefit that you have received from our service?
Open
What type of person do you think would benefit most from our service?
Open
How can we improve our service to better meet your needs?
Open
Florm
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed, I do not use this service anymore
Have you recommended our product to anyone?
Already recommended, Would recommend, Would not recommend
What is the primary benefit that you have received from our product?
Open
What type of person do you think would benefit most from our product?
Open
How can we improve our product to better meet your needs?
Open
SurveyMonkey
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed (it isn’t useful), N/A
What would you use if our product was not available to you?
I wouldn’t use an alternative product, I would use an alternative product (please indicate the product
Alternative product name:
Open
SurveySensum
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed, I do not use this service anymore
How did you first hear about our product?
Open
What challenges were you facing before using our product?
Open
On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your overall satisfaction with our product?
Open
Would you recommend our product to your friends and colleagues?
Open
Which specific features of our product do you find most valuable?
Open
Have you encountered any issues while using our product?
Open
How frequently do you use our product?
Open
What made you choose our product over alternatives in the market?
Open
How likely are you to continue using our product in the future?
Open
Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience with our product?
Open
QuestionPro
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not at all disappointed
Why did you choose to use our product/service?
Open
In your opinion, what is one thing we could do to make our product/service even better?
Open
Are there any specific issues or challenges you encounter when using our product/service?
Open
Have you tried similar products/services from our competitors? If so, how does our product/service compare?
Open
How likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?
Open
On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your experience using our product/service?
Open
PMFSurvey.com
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not Disappointed, N/A - No longer use
Have you recommended our product to anyone?
Already recommended, Wouldn’t recommend
How did you discover our product?
Friend, Blog, Twitter, Google, Facebook, Other
What would you likely use as an alternative if our product was no longer available?
Possible alternatives, No alternatives
What is the primary benefit that you have received from our product?
Open
What type of person do you think would benefit most from our product?
Open
How can we improve our product to better meet your needs?
Open
Retently
How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
Not disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Very disappointed
What type of people would benefit most from using our service/product?
Open
What is the main benefit you get from our product?
Speed, easy navigation, reliability, or customization options.
How can we improve our product?
Open
OpinionX
1. How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
a. Very Disappointed
b. Somewhat Disappointed
c. Not Disappointed
2. Why did you choose our product? What was the main benefit or value you expected it could deliver for you?
Open-Ended Response
3. What one change or addition would make our product 10x better for you?
Open-Ended Response
4. How would you describe our product in one sentence if you were recommending it to a friend or colleague?
Open-Ended Response
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