Abstract In this paper, a strain-based contact force simulation method (abbreviated as strain-based method or stain method) for low-velocity impact is proposed on the basis of static strain equivalence hypothesis, in which a straine at the contact point of a structure is selected as a quantity to evaluate the contact force. The procedure of this method is illustrated through a concrete example. The strain responses at different impact velocities calculated by the strain-based method are compared to the responses by the prediction method and by experiments, and the differences are analyzed. The results show that the responses from the former are much closer to the measured ones than those from the latter, especially when there exist some factors difficult to be considered in its theoretical model. So the proposed strain-based method is feasible and practical in research and engineering applications and the dynamic responses calculated by the method are of good stability and reliability. In addition, an existing prediction method is modified here based on the same hypothesis, and the modified results agreed well with the experimental results.