We present an analysis of the relation between the star formation rate (SFR) and mass of dense gas in Galactic clumps and nearby galaxies. Using the bolometric luminosity as a measure of SFR and the molecular line luminosity of HCO^+^ (3-2) as a measure of dense gas mass, we find that the relation between SFR and Mdense is approximately linear. This is similar to published results derived using HCN (1-0) as a dense gas tracer.