Uh-huh. I see you," she says. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic claimed that "even when she cheers on excess on 'This Is How We Do' she's not a participant but rather a ringmaster," picking the song as one of the album's highlights. Jason Lipshut of "Billboard" wrote that the song "carries 'song of next summer' potential," while Edna Gundersen of "USA Today" named it a "buoyant pop blast." In similar vein, James Montgomery of MTV News described the track as "a cocksure, club-ready banger." Nick Catucci of "Entertainment Weekly" called it "irresistibly bouncy," while Andy Gill of "The Independent" noted that the song "offers the year's best top-down cruising anthem." Rob Harvilla of "Spin" enjoyed the track, but felt it wasn't as strong as "Last Friday Night", ultimately calling it "a knuckleheaded, bottle-service party jam." Chris Bosman of "Consequence of Sound" criticized the "'this goes out to the [blank]' coda", claiming that "it only hammers home how much better Kesha is at this stuff." Melinda Newman of HitFix gave the song a "C−" grade, claiming that "It's hard not to raise your arm in the air and wave it back and forth in this old-school sounding track about partying, claiming that the song is "unlike anything else Perry has recorded before" and that it "could be a sleeper hit." Evan Sawdey of PopMatters was mixed with the song, calling it an "odd number, where her lyrics swing from actually-clever ('suckin' real bad at Mariah Carey-oke') to a bit worrisome ('getting' our nails did / all Japanese-y')." While calling it "a Ke$ha-grade throwdown", Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" claimed that the track "features possibly the dumbest lyric of the year." Philip Matusavage of musicOMH felt that the song "is so clearly calculated to every second that it instead feels cynical." "This Is How We Do" first charted on South Korea's Gaon Download Chart and the Canadian Hot 100 when its parent album was released, debuting at number 73, with sales of 2,263 copies, and number 88, respectively. When it was released as a single, the song charted moderately throughout the world.