What is Completion Rate?
Completion rate is the proportion of people who start a survey and finish it. It’s a quick measure of how many respondents complete the full questionnaire compared with those who began it.
Completion rate shows what share of participants who began a survey submitted a final, completed response. The basic formula is: completed responses ÷ people who started the survey (or clicked the link). Different teams sometimes use other denominators — for example, invitations sent or unique page views — but the idea is the same: it measures drop‑off during the survey process. In multilingual projects you can calculate completion rate overall or split it by language to spot where participants abandon the survey more often.
Usage example
If 800 people opened a survey and 560 submitted all required answers, the completion rate is 560 ÷ 800 = 70%. On Hearo you can also view completion rates per language; if Arabic respondents started 200 and completed 120, the Arabic completion rate is 60%.
Practical application
Completion rate matters because it signals participant engagement and data quality. A low completion rate can mean the survey is too long, confusing, or not available in the respondent’s preferred language. For Hearo users, tracking completion by language helps identify communities that may be dropping out because of translation problems, unclear wording or accessibility issues. Improving completion rates increases usable data, reduces bias from selective responses and helps you justify changes to question wording, survey length or distribution channels.
FAQ
How should I calculate completion rate when some respondents only answer a few questions?
Decide a consistent rule up front. Common approaches are: count anyone who reaches and submits the final page as completed; treat a response as completed when all required questions are answered; or set a threshold (e.g., 80% of questions answered). Whatever you choose, use the same definition when comparing surveys or languages and document it.
What’s a “good” completion rate?
There’s no single benchmark — expectations depend on audience, survey length and channel. Short, pushed surveys often exceed 70–80%, while longer or voluntary surveys frequently fall below 50%. Look at trends over time, compare similar surveys, and pay attention to differences between language groups rather than relying on a universal target.
Can completion rate tell me which language needs better translation or outreach?
Yes. If one language shows systematically lower completion rates on Hearo, it’s a strong signal to review translation quality, cultural wording, mobile layout, or how the survey was promoted to that community. Pair completion-rate analysis with participant flags and open-text feedback to pinpoint and fix issues.