A survey reminder email is a short follow-up sent only to people who have not answered yet. It says in two or three sentences what the survey is about, how long it takes and when it closes, then repeats the personal link. Below is a survey reminder email template for each stage, with the invitation they all depend on.
By the Wavefield Research team · Published Nov 12, 2026
A reminder cannot rescue a weak invitation, because it borrows everything from it: the sender, the reason, the trust. So the set is written as one sequence of four messages. This schedule is a default to start from. The section on stopping further down explains how to adjust it from your own returns.
| When | Message | Goes to | Its job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 0 | Invitation | Everyone on the list | Say who you are, what the survey is for, how long it takes and when it closes. |
| Day 3 | First reminder | People who have not answered | A short nudge for people who meant to answer and forgot. Half the length of the invitation. |
| Day 7 | Second reminder | People who have not answered | Give a reason the invitation did not: what the results will be used for, or that you will share them. |
| Day before closing | Final reminder | People who have not answered | State the deadline plainly and say this is the last message. |
Two rules hold for every row. Reminders go only to people who have not answered, which means the survey tool has to know who has finished. And each message is shorter than the one before it. Nobody has ever wished a survey reminder were longer.
A survey invitation email has about five seconds to answer the questions a stranger asks of any request: who is this, why me, how much of my time, and what happens to what I say. The template answers them in that order. Replace everything in square brackets.
Subject: Your view on [topic]: 5 minutes, open until [date]
Hi [first name], I'm [name] at [organization]. We are asking [who you are asking, e.g. customers who ordered this year] about [topic], and the answers will be used to [the decision, e.g. choose which features we build next]. It takes about [5] minutes and closes on [Friday, March 14]. Your answers are reported in totals only, never by name. Start here. This link is yours, so please do not forward it: [personal link] Thank you, [name], [role] [organization] If you would rather not hear about this study again, reply to this email and we will take you off the list.
Five jobs in under 120 words: who is asking, why this person, how long, until when, and what happens to the answers. Cut anything that does not do one of them.
Three details decide more than the wording does. Send from a real person at your own domain, with a reply address somebody reads, because the sender name is the first thing a reader sees. State the time honestly: a survey that claims five minutes and takes twelve loses people in the middle and loses them again next year. And keep the email as plain text or close to it. A message that looks like a letter from a person gets treated like one. Wording for the first screen of the survey itself is covered in the questionnaire guide.
Each survey reminder template below does a different job, which is the point of sending more than one. If you only have room for a single reminder, use the first. As a reminder email template for a survey with a hard deadline, the final one is the strongest.
Subject: Still open until [date]: your view on [topic]
Hi [first name], A few days ago I asked for your view on [topic]. If the message slipped down your inbox, your link still works. It takes about [5] minutes and closes on [date]. [personal link] Thank you, [name] [organization]
Assume the kind explanation: they meant to answer. Do not repeat the whole invitation, and do not apologize for writing again.
Subject: [Topic]: we would still like to include you
Hi [first name], We have heard from [number] people so far about [topic]. The results will be used to [the decision], and we want them to reflect people in your position too. [If true: Everyone who takes part gets a summary of what we found.] About [5] minutes, open until [date]: [personal link] Thank you, [name] [organization]
A second reminder that only repeats the first tells the reader nothing new. Change the angle: what the answers are for, or what the respondent gets back. Use the real number of responses or leave the sentence out.
Subject: Closes tomorrow: your view on [topic]
Hi [first name], This is the last message about this study. It closes tomorrow, [date], at [5 pm]. If you have [5] minutes before then, here is your link: [personal link] If you would rather not take part, you do not need to reply, and you will not hear from us about it again. Thank you, [name] [organization]
The promise that this is the last message is part of why it works, so keep the promise.
Subject: You are partway through: [topic]
Hi [first name], You started our questions about [topic] and stopped partway. The rest takes about [3] minutes. [If your survey tool saves progress: Your answers so far are saved, and this link picks up where you left off.] [personal link] Thank you, [name] [organization]
Check what your tool does before promising saved progress. If the link starts from the first question again, say so, because finding that out on the page is worse.
The structure stays the same across audiences. What changes is the sentence that makes this reader willing to answer. For customers it is the specific event. For employees it is who can see the answers. For job candidates it is that nothing they say can count against them. Each email survey template here is an invitation, and the reminders above work with all three.
Subject: How did [the order / the repair / the call] go?
Hi [first name], You [ordered from us / spoke to our support team] on [date]. We have [3] questions about how it went, and they take about a minute. [personal link] Your answers go to the team that runs [the service], and we read every comment. Thank you, [name], [role] [company]
Name the specific event. A message about 'your recent experience' reads like a mass mailing, and one about the repair on March 3 reads like it was meant for them. Reminder: one, three days later, with the same subject line.
Subject: [Company] staff survey: open until [date]
Hi [first name], The [year] staff survey is open until [date]. It takes about [10] minutes and can be done during working hours. Your answers go to [the outside firm / the people team], never to your manager. Results are reported only for groups of [10] or more, so no individual answer can be picked out. [personal link] In [month] we will share what we heard and what we plan to change. [name], [role]
Employees decide in the second paragraph, where the confidentiality rule is. State the real rule, with its number. If managers can see answers from teams of three, do not call the survey confidential.
Subject: Three questions about your interview with [company]
Hi [first name], Thank you for the time you gave to our hiring process for [role]. We are trying to make that process better, and we have [3] short questions about how it went for you. Your answers are not seen by the hiring team for this role and have no effect on this or any future application. [personal link] Thank you, [name], [role] [company]
Send it after the decision has been communicated, never before. The line about future applications is what makes an honest answer feel safe, so keep that paragraph only if it is true.
What to ask once they click is a separate job: customer feedback surveys and employee engagement surveys each have their own guide.
The subject line decides whether the rest gets read, and the useful ones are plain. Put the topic first, since phones cut subject lines short, and change the opening words from one reminder to the next so each message is visibly new.
| Message | Subject line | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Invitation | Your view on the new returns policy: 4 minutes, open until Friday | Topic, effort and deadline are readable before the email is opened. |
| Invitation, from a person | A request from Dana at Northside Dental | Works when the sender is someone the reader knows. Useless from a stranger. |
| First reminder | Still open until Friday: your view on the returns policy | Tells the reader it is the same request as before and that there is still time. |
| Second reminder | Returns policy: we would still like to include you | A different opening from the first reminder, so it does not look like a resend. |
| Final reminder | Closes tomorrow: your view on the returns policy | The deadline does the work. Use it once, on the real last day. |
None of these contains the word that describes the whole exercise, and that is deliberate. The trial evidence in the next section found fewer responses when a subject line mentioned it. Avoid false urgency, capital letters and anything that sounds like a prize notification, all of which spam filters and readers have seen before.
Most advice on survey emails is passed from blog to blog. There is better material. A Cochrane systematic review, updated in 2023, pooled randomized trials of ways to increase response to questionnaires: 670 trials of mailed questionnaires and 88 trials of electronic ones. In each trial, people were assigned by chance to get one version of the request or another, which is the only design that separates the effect of the email from the kind of people who got it.
The review reports odds ratios. An odds ratio of 1.5 does not mean 50% more responses, so the third column converts each one for a survey that would otherwise get a 20% response rate.
| Change tested (electronic questionnaires) | Odds ratio | A 20% rate becomes about | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|---|
| A brief message instead of a detailed one | 3.26 | 45% | The largest effect in the review. Cut the invitation before you polish it. |
| A money incentive | 1.88 | 32% | Works, and changes who answers. Say the amount and when it is paid. |
| A non-money incentive | 1.60 | 29% | A report, a donation or a prize draw also helps, less than cash. |
| A shorter questionnaire | 1.51 | 27% | The honest time estimate in the email only helps if the number is small. |
| Stressing the benefit to others | 1.38 | 26% | Say what the answers will be used for, in one concrete sentence. |
| Offering the survey results | 1.36 | 25% | Cheap to offer. Then send the results. |
| Personalizing the message | 1.24 | 24% | Use the name and, better, the specific event you are asking about. |
| Giving a deadline | 1.18 | 23% | A small, reliable gain. Put the closing date in the email and the subject. |
| The word 'survey' in the subject line | 0.81 | 17% | Fewer responses. Name the topic in the subject line and leave that word out. |
On reminders themselves, the pooled figures come from the mailed-questionnaire trials: a reminder sent electronically raised the odds of response by a factor of 1.60, and a telephone reminder by 1.96. The review does not give a pooled figure for email reminders to web surveys, so read those two numbers as support for sending reminders, and do not use them to forecast your own study.
Two cautions before you tape the table to the wall. The review was written for health researchers, its trials cover many kinds of people and questionnaires, and the authors found substantial variation between trials for about half the strategies. The effects also do not simply add up. A short, personal email with a deadline is a sound bet, and nobody should expect all nine rows to stack.
Each reminder brings in fewer people than the one before, because the people easiest to persuade have already answered. Your own counts show the curve. As an illustration (not a benchmark): the invitation yields 120 completes, the first reminder 45 and the second 18. A third reminder might add 7 or 8, sent to a list that has now ignored you three times. Whether that is worth it depends on what the extra completes are for.
Stop when one of three things is true: your quotas are full, the sample is large enough for the comparison you need to make, or the last reminder added less than about a tenth of the completes you already had. The second test has real arithmetic behind it, and the statistical significance calculator shows whether another 20 completes would change what you can conclude.
Reminders also give you something for free. People who answered only after the second reminder are the closest thing you have to the people who never answered. Compare their results with the early responders on your main question. If the two groups agree, non-response is probably not distorting the result much. If satisfaction is 70% among early responders and 55% among late ones, the people you never reached are likely lower still, and the headline number is too rosy. That check costs nothing and is worth more than a few extra points of response, a point made at more length in the guide to survey response rates.
Upload a contact list and every contact gets a personal link that works once. One button sends the invitation to everyone who has not been invited. A second button sends the reminder, and its count shows exactly who will get it: invited contacts with no completed response. People who finished are never reminded, and people who started and stopped are.
You can add your own sentences (who you are, the deadline, an incentive), and they are placed between the greeting and the link. Both messages are previewed before anything is sent. The limits are worth knowing. The emails are plain text, with no images. The subject line is built from your survey title (“You're invited: ” or “Reminder: ” and then the title), so choose a title that names the topic. Reminders are not scheduled automatically: each wave is a click, which also means you decide when to stop.
If you would rather send from your own email tool, download the list of non-responders with their personal links and paste the templates above into it. Text message invitations follow the same pattern for people who have opted in, as described in the SMS surveys guide.
Two or three after the invitation is a sensible default, and the right number comes from your own returns. Count the completes each message produced. When a reminder adds only a small fraction of what the previous one did, the next one will add less still and cost you goodwill on the list. Stop earlier if your quotas are full or the sample is already large enough for the decision.
Send the first reminder two to four days after the invitation, while the request is still familiar. Space later reminders three or four days apart and put the last one on the day before the survey closes. Vary the weekday and the hour between messages, so that someone who is always busy on Tuesday morning gets at least one message at another time.
Less than the invitation. One sentence that connects it to the earlier request, the time the survey takes, the closing date and the personal link. A second or third reminder should add one new reason to answer, such as what the results will be used for or that a summary will be shared. Do not scold, and do not apologize for writing.
No. Send reminders only to people who have not completed the survey. Reminding people who already answered irritates the respondents you most want to keep, and some of them will answer a second time. This is the main reason to send personal links through a survey tool, which knows who has finished, instead of pasting one shared link into a mass email.
One that names the topic and the deadline, for example 'Still open until Friday: your view on the returns policy'. Keep the subject honest and specific, change the opening words between reminders so each one is recognizably new, and avoid the word 'survey': in a Cochrane review of randomized trials, mentioning it in the subject line lowered the odds of response.
Short enough to read without scrolling on a phone, which is roughly 80 to 120 words. It needs to say who is asking, why this person was chosen, how long it takes, when it closes and what happens to the answers. In the Cochrane review, a brief message produced about three times the odds of response of a detailed one, the largest effect found for electronic questionnaires.
Yes, if the person has agreed to receive texts from you. A text reminder is much shorter than an email (one or two sentences and the link) and needs a way to opt out, such as replying STOP. Texting people who never gave their number for that purpose is a legal risk in many countries, so treat consent as a requirement.
Related: survey response rates · survey data collection methods · SMS surveys · sample size calculator
Upload your list, send personal links, and remind only the contacts who have not finished. Building and previewing is free; fielding starts at $99 per study.
Start a study