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Survey Random Sample Calculator

If you are conducting an employee survey or a customer survey with a large number of potential respondents, it might make sense to survey only a portion of the population. Our article on random sampling explores this topic and explains the concepts used in the calculators on this page.

If you have not yet conducted your survey and you want to calculate how many people you need for your random sample, use calculators #1 and #2 below.

If you already conducted your survey and you want to know how accurate your data are given the number of responses you received, scroll down and use calculator #3.


#1 - How many survey respondents do you need?

Specify your desired error level and population size below and click calculate. The numbers next to each confidence level indicate how many people need to complete your survey to achieve the specified error level.

How much error are you willing to tolerate?
If you are not sure, try somewhere between 3% and 6%
%
How many people are in your population?
 e.g. total number of employees in the company
Error Level 
90% Confidence
95% Confidence
99% Confidence

#2 - How many people do you need to send the survey to?

How many people need to complete the survey?
From Calculator #1 above
 
What is your estimated response rate?
What % of people do you expect to complete the survey?
  %    (employee surveys usually get at least 70%)
  Send the survey to people

#3 - How accurate are your survey results?

How many people are in your population?
 e.g. total number of employees in the company
How many people completed your survey?
 e.g. number of employees who completed the survey
Error Level 
90% Confidence
95% Confidence
99% Confidence


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