How to Calculate Hitting Percentage in Volleyball

Hitting percentage is the standard measure of attacking: kills minus errors, divided by total attempts. It is written as a three-place decimal, so .250 is said "two-fifty."

The formula

Hitting % = (Kills − Errors) ÷ Total attempts

• Kill: an attack that wins the point directly.
• Error: an attack that loses the point: hit out, into the net, or blocked straight down for their point.
• Attempt: every attack, including the ones kept in play.

Worked examples

Hitting percentage can be negative, as Opposite C shows: more errors than kills means her attacks cost the team points on balance. It can never be above 1.000.

What is a good hitting percentage?

These are rough team ranges; individual numbers swing more, and middles usually hit higher than outsides because they attack fewer, faster sets.

Treat these as ranges, not lines. Passing quality moves hitting percentage more than anything a hitter does on her own: a team that passes in system gets hittable sets.

Kill % and error %: why the number is low

Hitting percentage is kill percentage minus error percentage. Splitting it tells you what to fix:

• Kill % (kills ÷ attempts) low, error % fine: the hitter keeps the ball in but does not finish. Work on shot selection and attacking the seams.
• Error % (errors ÷ attempts) high: she is giving points away. Look at the sets she is getting and whether she is swinging hard at out-of-system balls she should be rolling.

Two hitters at .200 can be very different players: one at 30% kills and 10% errors, the other at 45% kills and 25% errors.

Tracking it live

It takes one tap per attack: error, in play, or kill. Everything else is arithmetic. Track it by rotation too, because the rotation where your best hitter is in the back row is often the one leaking points.

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