What should my sample size be

Get familiar with sample bias, sample size, statistically significant sample sizes, and how to get more responses. If the sample size calculator says you need more respondents, we can help. With millions of qualified respondents, SurveyMonkey Audience makes it easy to get survey responses from people around the world instantly, from almost anyone. SurveyMonkey Audience has millions of respondents who are ready to take your survey.

Products Surveys. Specialized products. View all products. Survey Types. People Powered Data for business. Solutions for teams. Explore more survey types. Curiosity at Work. Help Center. Log in Sign up. Sample size calculator. Get started. Calculate your sample size. Population Size The total number of people whose opinion or behavior your sample will represent.

Sample size 0. What is sample size? Understanding sample sizes. How to calculate sample size. Things to watch for when calculating sample size. If you want a smaller margin of error, you must have a larger sample size given the same population. Partnerships Become a Partner. What is XM? Back Platform Security Overview. Back Survey Tool Overview. Back Partnerships Overview Become a Partner. Back Resources What is XM? Back What is XM?

Experience Management. Try Qualtrics for free Free Account. Determining sample size: how to make sure you get the correct sample size 7 min read How many is enough? What is sample size? So what is sampling, and why does sample size matter? If your sample is too small , you may include a disproportionate number of individuals which are outliers and anomalies. Population Size:. Ideal Sample Size:. Sophisticated research made simple. Learn more. Related resources.

Checking is simple:. Enter your school-issued email address:. A university-issued account license will allow you to: Complete assignments more easily Export your data in multiple formats Activate multiple surveys and emails Access additional question types and tools. Still can't find your institution?

I double-checked. My academic institution does not already have a Qualtrics license. Good news! It looks like you are eligible to get a free, full-powered account. This exceeds , so in this case the maximum would be Even in a population of ,, sampling people will normally give a fairly accurate result. Suppose that you want to survey students at a school which has pupils enrolled. The minimum sample would be This would give you a rough, but still useful, idea about their opinions. The maximum sample would be , which would give you a fairly accurate idea about their opinions.

In practice most people normally want the results to be as accurate as possible, so the limiting factor is usually time and money. In the example above, if you had the time and money to survey all students then that will give you a fairly accurate result. In that case you can use the following table. Simply choose the column that most closely matches your population size.

You will see on this table that the smallest samples are still around , and the biggest sample for a population of more than is still around The same general principles apply as before — if you plan to divide the results into lots of sub-groups, or the decisions to be made are very important, you should pick a bigger sample.

Note: This table can only be used for basic surveys to measure what proportion of the population have a particular characteristic e.