Use case: survey analysis
Open-Ended Survey Response Analysis with AI
Analyze open-ended survey responses with AI. Apercu codes answers into labeled themes with counts, percentages and examples from your CSV or Excel export.
By Apercu team · Last updated
Open-ended survey response analysis turns freeform answers into themes, counts, examples and summaries. Apercu automates the coding step with AI, so you can analyze NPS comments, post-purchase surveys, research questionnaires and usability notes without tagging every response by hand.
Why open-ended survey responses are hard to analyze
Closed questions give you percentages and charts straight away. Open-ended questions are where the useful detail lives, and they are also the answers that sit untouched in a spreadsheet because nobody has time to read 800 of them.
Coding 300 to 500 responses by hand typically takes 4 to 8 hours: reading, building a codebook, tagging every row and counting the results. With Apercu, the grouping, labeling and counting take minutes, and your time goes into reviewing the themes and deciding what to do about them.
If you want to understand the manual method first, read our step-by-step guide on how to analyze open-ended survey responses.
How to analyze open-ended survey responses with AI
- Export your survey as a CSV or Excel file. Typeform, SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, Google Forms and most other survey tools can export responses. You need one column containing the open-ended answers.
- Upload the file and confirm the text column. Apercu suggests the column most likely to contain the answers. You can also describe the data, for example "NPS detractor comments for a SaaS product", to help the AI choose clearer theme labels.
- Choose how detailed the themes should be. Pick Few for a high-level overview or Balanced for most surveys. Paid plans add Many and a custom number of themes.
- Review AI-labeled themes with examples. Each theme gets a descriptive label, a count, a percentage and real responses from your data, so you can check the grouping. Rename themes or move responses if needed.
- Export or share the results. Download the full results as JSON on any plan, or as CSV and Excel on paid plans. Paid plans also generate a PDF report with an executive summary, key findings and recommendations.
Survey types Apercu can analyze
- NPS comments: understand what drives promoters and detractors beyond the score
- Post-purchase surveys: find out why customers bought, or almost did not
- Customer and user research surveys: spot recurring needs and pain points across hundreds of answers
- Employee engagement surveys: see what your team is most concerned about
- Academic and research questionnaires: get a first-pass code frame without NVivo or days of manual coding
- Usability study notes: identify common friction points across participants
Related survey analysis pages
- How to analyze open-ended survey responses: the full manual, Excel and AI method
- How to code open-ended survey responses, with a free codebook template
- NPS comment analysis for detractor, passive and promoter comments
- Employee survey comment analysis for engagement and pulse surveys
- Customer feedback analysis for support tickets, reviews, NPS comments and interviews
- Product review thematic analysis for G2, app store and marketplace reviews
- Automated thematic analysis for replacing manual coding in Excel, NVivo or Python
Frequently asked questions
What is thematic analysis of survey responses?
It is the process of reading open-ended answers and finding the recurring topics in them, for example discovering that 30 percent of customers mention slow checkout in a post-purchase survey. Traditionally this is done by hand with a codebook. Apercu automates the grouping and labeling with AI.
Can Apercu code open-ended survey responses automatically?
Yes. Apercu groups answers that talk about the same thing and uses AI to name each group, which gives you a ready-made code frame with counts and examples. Each response is assigned to the single theme it fits best, and you can rename themes or move responses that landed in the wrong group.
How many survey responses can Apercu analyze?
The free Explorer plan handles up to 2,500 rows per analysis. The Analyst plan ($14.99/mo) supports up to 50,000 rows and the Pro plan ($39.99/mo) up to 100,000 rows.
Does Apercu work with NPS surveys?
Yes. NPS verbatim comments are one of the most common inputs. Export your NPS comments as a CSV and Apercu groups them into themes. For the clearest picture, run detractor and promoter comments as separate analyses and compare the themes.
Can I analyze surveys in languages other than English?
English works best. Other languages may produce usable themes depending on the dataset, but label quality is lower than for English text.
Can I export the survey analysis as a PDF report?
Yes, on paid plans. Apercu generates a report with an executive summary, key findings and recommendations that you can export as a PDF. The free plan includes JSON export of the full results.
Do I need to pre-code any responses for Apercu to work?
No. You do not need a codebook, labeled examples or predefined categories. Apercu finds the themes in your data and names them for you.