SPSS is a widely used program for statistical analysis in social science. It is also used by market researchers, health researchers, survey companies, government, education researchers, marketing organizations, data miners, and others. The original SPSS manual (Nie, Bent & Hull, 1970) has been described as one of "sociology's most influential books" for allowing ordinary researchers to do their own statistical analysis. In addition to statistical analysis, data management (case selection, file reshaping, creating derived data) and data documentation (a metadata dictionary is stored in the datafile) are features of the base software.

Statistics included in the base software:
Descriptive statistics: Cross tabulation, Frequencies, Descriptives, Explore, Descriptive Ratio StatisticsBivariate statistics: Means, t-test, ANOVA, Correlation (bivariate, partial, distances), Nonparametric tests, BayesianPrediction for numerical outcomes: Linear regressionPrediction for identifying groups: Factor analysis, cluster analysis (two-step, K-means, hierarchical), DiscriminantGeo spatial analysis, simulationR extension (GUI), Python