A product-market fit (PMF) survey measures how well you’re fulfilling demand for a product and helps you gather valuable feedback about what your customers want.
For example, customer feedback helped health food brand IQBAR achieve product-market fit, as founder Will Nitze discusses on Shopify Masters. Survey results told Will that the bars needed to be sweeter, and that feedback helped IQBAR improve their product. Will says, “Once you hear 500 people say, ’Hey, this should be sweeter.’ Well, it should probably be sweeter, right?”
This guide explains what a PMF survey is, how it can help you improve product-market fit, and questions to ask to get valuable feedback from your target audience.
What is a product-market fit survey?
A product-market fit survey is a market research tool that asks customers questions about what they want. Companies use them to gauge demand for a product they sell, or one they’re considering.
A product-market fit survey is intended to reveal customer expectations of a product and whether it solves a problem or meets a need. You can send a survey before developing a new product or making significant changes, or at regular intervals (such as quarterly or twice a year) to check in on how a product is performing.
Even your most satisfied customers can be tempted by a better deal, as Salsify and the Digital Shelf Institute found in their Ecommerce Pulse Report from Q4 2025: 72% of customers polled opted to try a new company’s product over their go-to brands. A PMF survey helps you learn where your product is falling short and tempting customers to try a competitor’s product.
A product-market fit survey differs from other survey types that are about the overall brand experience, such as customer satisfaction surveys and Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, which target customer sentiment. A PMF survey targets product desirability and dependency, such as “How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?”
You can send and analyze PMF surveys with tools like Zigpoll Customer Surveys or Fairing Post-Purchase Surveys, which are available in the Shopify App Store.
Reasons to use a product-market fit survey
- Reduce the risk of launching unsuccessful products
- Uncover customer pain points
- Choose which products to sell
Here are three reasons retailers use PMF surveys to better understand evolving customer needs:
Reduce the risk of launching unsuccessful products
Sending a survey before you develop a new product tells you whether it aligns with customer needs, so you’re less likely to spend money on dead stock. Meghan Cross, founder of umbrella brand Original Duckhead, recommends establishing product-market fit early on to make sure you’re giving customers what they’re asking for.
“Make sure that you have product-market fit as soon as possible,” Meghan says on Shopify Masters. “In the beginning, you have to make that sale, you have to make that phone call in order to see if people really want what you’re selling. And if they’re not, pivot as quickly as possible.”
Uncover customer pain points
Product-market fit surveys help you understand customer pain points—and whether or not your products are helping.
Some companies use surveys after a product has launched to understand where their customers get stuck in the purchasing journey. For example, during their soft launch, coffee concentrate brand Kloo surveyed their email subscribers, trying to understand why they were missing product-market fit—and therefore sales.
“Their biggest roadblock was the price per bottle,” Kloo founder Claudia Snoh says on Shopify Masters. “We got rid of the shipping fee, and we upped our minimum quantity to two bottles per order. We were able to really satisfy our customers’ needs by reducing the price and eliminating shipping fees, but it also actually made us more profitable.”
Choose which products to sell
Product validation is another benefit of conducting a product-market fit survey. Understanding customer demand helps you see which products your customers are most receptive to.
Tools like Google Trends show demand at a macro level based on what customers are searching for in general. But product-market fit surveys, sent to a segment of your customers or email subscriber list, are specific to your audience. The results from those surveys are direct feedback from your target market about the kinds of products they want to buy.
The Sean Ellis test for measuring product-market fit
Sean Ellis is an entrepreneur, startup adviser, and the author of Hacking Growth. He’s a growth hacker known for his method of measuring product-market fit by asking customers one question: “How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?”
Customers respond to this by selecting one of three options:
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Very disappointed
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Somewhat disappointed
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Not disappointed
Then you calculate the PMF score using the following formula:
PMF score = (Number of “very disappointed” responses / Total responses) x 100
The number of “very disappointed” responses divided by the total responses and multiplied by 100 is your product-market fit score, expressed as a percentage.
If more than 40% of users responded that they would be very disappointed if they could no longer use your product, that’s an indicator that you have a strong product-market fit. This doesn’t guarantee your product will succeed. It means that it satisfies a need for a meaningful share of your customers.
If the percentage of customers who selected “very disappointed” is 25% to 40%, it shows that you may need to improve your product. Scoring below 25% in “very disappointed” users means you do not have product-market fit and need to pivot to a new product or make significant changes.
The Sean Ellis test is important because it measures dependency, not customer satisfaction. This shows not how happy customers are with your company, but how much they rely on your product.
Product-market fit survey questions
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Product-market fit and product dependency questions
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Customer pain point questions
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Core value and benefit questions
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Alternative product and competitor questions
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Feature and improvement questions
Here are some suggestions for questions to include in your product-market fit survey:
Product-market fit and product dependency questions
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How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?
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How long have you been using this product?
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How often do you use this product?
Customer pain point questions
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What problem does this product solve for you?
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What made you start using this product?
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If this product could do only one thing, what should it be?
Core value and benefit questions
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What is the main benefit you get from this product?
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How would you describe this product to a friend or colleague?
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What does this product do better than other options?
Alternative product and competitor questions
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What other products have you tried to solve this problem?
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Before buying this product, what other solutions did you try?
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What would you use instead, if this product didn’t exist?
Feature and improvement questions
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Which features are most important to your satisfaction with this product?
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What is the main thing you would change to improve this product?
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What is the most frustrating or confusing thing about this product?
Product-market fit survey FAQ
What is product-market fit in simple terms?
Product-market fit is when your product satisfies a need among your target audience.
What is the 40% rule for product-market fit?
The 40% rule for product-market fit relates to the percentage of customers who respond “very disappointed” to the PMF survey question “How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?” in the Sean Ellis test. According to this rule, if at least 40% of customers respond that they’d be very disappointed if the product no longer existed, that’s a signal you’ve achieved product-market fit.
What is the question on the product-market fit survey?
The main question of a product-market fit survey, also known as the Sean Ellis test, is “How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?”
