Pre-event checklist
Checkout conversion checklist
Checkout abandonment is the highest-impact, lowest-cost surface to fix in indie SaaS. The seven items below name the elements proven to hold or lose the buyer at the moment of payment.
Run before: Sending any optimized traffic to the checkout
When: Within the first week after live mode is on, or any time observed checkout abandonment exceeds 30%.
Verified · editorial policy
The 7-step checklist
Step 1
Verify the guarantee is visible on the checkout
Not just on the sales page. The guarantee must repeat at the moment the buyer types in card details. Buried guarantees do not lift conversion.
Done when: The guarantee block is visible on the checkout page without scroll on mobile.
Step 2
Verify the price summary matches the sales page
Identical to the cent. Tax handling, currency, and the cadence (one-time / monthly / annual) must match the buyer's expectation.
Done when: The checkout-page price summary matches the sales-page price exactly, including currency and cadence label.
Step 3
Eliminate optional fields
Phone number, company name, VAT ID unless mandatory — gone. Every optional field that is not strictly required for the transaction is a tax on conversion.
Done when: Every field on the checkout is either required for the transaction or removed.
Step 4
Offer Apple Pay and Google Pay where supported
One-tap pay paths lift mobile conversion. Stripe Checkout enables them with one flag.
Done when: Apple Pay and Google Pay are visible options on the checkout for any device that supports them.
Step 5
Verify the page on a real phone
Real device, not Chrome devtools. Complete a real test purchase on mobile. Time the full flow from CTA click to confirmation email.
Done when: Full checkout flow completes on a real phone in under 90 seconds.
Step 6
Set up cart-recovery email
A single email sent 4-8 hours after abandonment. One short message, one CTA back to the checkout, one human-readable from-address. Not a sequence.
Done when: Cart abandonment triggers exactly one recovery email within 8 hours, from a human-readable address.
Step 7
Verify the post-purchase confirmation page
Not just the receipt. A real post-purchase page with what-happens-next, the access link, and one reassurance element (e.g. founder photo + one line).
Done when: A real test purchase lands on a real post-purchase page within two seconds of charge confirmation, and the page tells the buyer exactly what happens next.
Related Brunson terms
If a step fails, diagnose the element
Frequently asked
- What is a good checkout abandonment rate?
- Below 30% is healthy; below 20% is excellent. Above 40% is almost always a checkout-page problem rather than an offer problem. Run the checklist above before re-pricing.
More checklists
Run the diagnostic on your live page
The free 90-second Launch Diagnostic labels which Brunson failure mode your page hits — Wrong Person, Weak Offer, or Weak Belief — so you know which checklist to run first.