Cipher scores and flags
What the Cipher score from 0 to 100 means, when a response is flagged, and where to find both.
Every response Cipher checks gets a Cipher score from 0 to 100. The score is Cipher's estimate of how likely the response is to come from a real, attentive person. Higher is better.
How to read the score
Surbee groups scores into three bands, and uses the same bands everywhere in Insights:
| Score | Label | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 80 and above | Trusted | Timing, typing and device signals all look like a real person. |
| 60 to 79 | Review | Something is off, but not enough to call it. Worth reading the answers. |
| Below 60 | Flagged | Several signals say this is unlikely to be a genuine response. |
What "flagged" means
A flagged response is one Cipher thinks you should look at before you use it. A response is flagged when:
- its Cipher score is below 60, or
- Cipher recorded a specific reason that is strong enough on its own, such as failing the invisible bot check, or a reason from one of the integrity settings you switched on for the survey.
Flagging never deletes or hides a response. The response stays in your results with a flag on it, and you decide whether to keep it. See Review flagged responses.
Where scores and flags appear
Overview
Open your survey, go to Insights, then Overview.
- Flagged by Cipher shows how many responses were flagged and what share of the total that is.
- The Cipher card shows the average score across your responses, how many fall into each band, and a verdict for the whole sample: Looks genuine, Worth reviewing or Likely not genuine.
- Checks passed breaks the score into five readings: Pace, Attention, Typing, Device and Consistency. Each bar is the share of responses that look clean on that signal alone, so a low bar tells you which kind of problem is dragging your sample down.
- The Speed against trust chart plots each response's completion time against its Cipher score, so rushed, low-trust responses stand out.
Results table
Go to Insights, then Results.
- The Cipher column shows each response's score, coloured by band. Click the column heading to sort by score.
- Hover over a score to see the band and a one-line summary of why.
- A flagged response has a small alert icon next to it. Click the row to expand it and see why it was flagged.
Response detail
When you expand a response in Results, you see:
- The flags. Each flag reason in plain words, such as Finished too fast, Straight-lined, Likely a bot, Contradicts itself or Answers look generated. Hover over a flag to see what the signal means.
- Reasoning. A one-line summary of Cipher's reading of this response. Hover over it to see What tripped the flag.
- Every answer, with the time spent on each question.
Exports
Use Export on the Insights page and pick Excel workbook, CSV or PDF report. The spreadsheet exports include three Cipher columns for every response:
- Cipher score
- Flagged (Yes or No)
- Flag reasons
The PDF report includes the average Cipher score and the number of flagged responses.
Slack
If you connect a survey to Slack, you can choose to be notified only about Cipher-flagged responses. See Slack notifications.
Plain-language observations
Cipher explains each score with short observations built from that response's own signals. They describe things like:
- the device, for example "Answered on iPhone, held in hand"
- how written answers were produced, for example "Typed answers naturally" or "Pasted a long answer rather than writing it", with the question numbers involved
- attention, for example "Stayed engaged throughout" or "One attention dip during the survey"
- speed, for example a count of very fast answers and which questions they were on
For a trusted response, the summary leads with what reassured Cipher. For a flagged or borderline response, it leads with what concerned it.