Checkout conversion rate: benchmarks, formula, and how to fix a leaky checkout
Checkout conversion rate = (completed orders ÷ checkouts started) × 100 — and a typical store completes around 45–50% of started checkouts. In other words, roughly half the shoppers who begin checkout never finish. Unlike your overall conversion rate, this metric isolates the last step of the funnel, where intent is highest and losses hurt most.
The formula, step by step
- Count checkouts started over a period (shoppers who reached the checkout flow).
- Count completed orders over the same period.
- Divide and multiply by 100.
Example: 220 orders ÷ 480 started checkouts = 0.458 → ~46%.
This is a different metric from your overall ecommerce conversion rate (orders ÷ all sessions) — a store with a healthy 2.5% overall rate can still have a broken checkout quietly halving its revenue.
Checkout vs payment conversion rate
One level deeper sits the payment conversion rate:
Payment conversion rate = (successful payments ÷ payment attempts) × 100.
This isolates the payment step alone. A healthy rate is well above 90% — if yours is lower, the leak isn’t persuasion, it’s mechanics: failing cards, a glitchy gateway, missing payment methods, or fraud rules set too aggressively. Checkout conversion tells you shoppers gave up; payment conversion tells you the machine said no. They need different fixes.
Why shoppers abandon at checkout
By this stage they wanted the product — so the causes are friction, not interest:
- Surprise costs — shipping and fees revealed at the last step (the #1 cause by far).
- Forced account creation — “create an account to continue” is a wall, not a step.
- Too many steps — every extra form field bleeds a few percent.
- Limited payment options — no express pay (Apple Pay / Google Pay / PayPal) means friction on mobile especially.
- Trust wobbles — an unfamiliar payment page or missing security cues at the exact moment they enter a card number.
How to fix it
- Show total cost early — on the cart page, before checkout begins.
- Default to guest checkout and offer account creation after the order.
- Add express payment buttons — one-tap wallets convert the mobile majority.
- Cut form fields to the minimum you actually need to ship.
- Keep trust signals visible — secure-checkout badge, returns policy, support contact.
Checkout losses compound with everything upstream. See where your overall rate stands against your industry with the free conversion rate calculator — and if the leak is specifically abandoned carts, the cart abandonment calculator puts a dollar figure on it.
The bigger picture
A leaky checkout is one leak among several — speed, CTAs, and conversion gaps stack on top of it. Revyfix adds them all into one score and ranks the fixes by payback, so you fix the most expensive leak first. For overall benchmarks, see what’s a good ecommerce conversion rate by industry.