Can you trust the numbers in Qualtrics?
Qualtrics is an experience management (XM) data and AI platform that helps organizations turn what they learn about people into decisions. Its own help pages give 3 reasons its numbers can look different from what you expect. The first to rule out: As Qualtrics' help pages say, answers still in progress are left out of its analysis and reports, so those totals can look lower than live activity.
What does Qualtrics keep track of?
Qualtrics keeps both finished and closed-out unfinished survey answers in its recorded responses.
In Qualtrics's own words:
Recorded responses include any survey response that is completed or incomplete responses that were closed.
Recorded Responses - Qualtrics, read 2026-11-12.Qualtrics keeps one row per respondent in an export, so an owner can count rows to count people.
In Qualtrics's own words:
Each row of the file is a different respondent
Exporting Response Data - Qualtrics, read 2026-11-12.
What can make Qualtrics's numbers look wrong?
As Qualtrics' help pages say, answers still in progress are left out of its analysis and reports, so those totals can look lower than live activity.
In Qualtrics's own words:
Only recorded responses are used in Text iQ, Stats iQ, Crosstabs, and both types of reports.
Recorded Responses - Qualtrics, read 2026-11-12.As Qualtrics' help pages say, test and imported answers are in the recorded list, so response counts can include answers that did not come from real respondents.
In Qualtrics's own words:
Preview, test, and imported responses.
Recorded Responses - Qualtrics, read 2026-11-12.As Qualtrics' help pages say, a large survey cannot be read in full on screen, so a count taken from the table may stop short.
In Qualtrics's own words:
You cannot view more than 10,000 responses in the Qualtrics data table.
Recorded Responses - Qualtrics, read 2026-11-12.
How do I check Qualtrics's numbers myself?
Before comparing an export with a total, an owner can check whether a filter was on, since that changes the row count.
In Qualtrics's own words:
If you have a filter applied to data, you will export only the filtered data.
Exporting Response Data - Qualtrics, read 2026-11-12.An owner can check this survey setting so unfinished answers are not lost from the counts.
In Qualtrics's own words:
Make sure that the Incomplete survey response settings in your survey options is not set to delete responses.
Responses in Progress - Qualtrics, read 2026-11-12.
How does Qualtrics work with Feder?
Connect Qualtrics to Feder and it joins your Experience apps. Feder only reads. It never changes anything in Qualtrics.
When you connect Qualtrics, Feder checks the connection straight away and shows Connected only when that check passes. If a reading cannot be taken later, Feder shows it as not read, never as zero.
Other apps that feed Experience
Where do these answers come from?
Everything this page says about Qualtrics comes from Qualtrics's own pages, quoted above with the date we read them. Last reviewed 2026-11-12. We read them again by 2027-11-12. If one changes, this page changes or comes down.
Know the day a number breaks, not the month after.
Some numbers are too quiet to judge daily, such as a form filled in a few times a week. Until there is enough of your own history to judge a change, Feder says it is still learning and scores nothing, rather than guessing.