[12] Civil said that the song was "recorded in rather bad musical style, in that it was 'in the cracks' [not in concert pitch], neither B-flat nor B-major.

[14] In her contemporaneous review of Revolver, for The Evening Standard, Maureen Cleave highlighted "For No One" among McCartney's contributions and deemed it "as moving as 'Yesterday'".

[16] Ward praises McCartney's vocal performance and calls the song's melody "one of the most inspired of the singer's whole career".

[16] Ward also admires the bass line and French horn solo, and concludes his review by calling the song "one of the most delicate and fine ballads of the Beatles' entire canon".

[16] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone writes that McCartney's songs on Revolver "[had] a new caustic realism".

Costello went on to call it McCartney's best lyric and lauded the song's arrangement, concluding, "It's about as perfect a record as you could make.