Your checkout completion rate is the percentage of shoppers who start checkout and actually finish the purchase. The formula is completed orders divided by started checkouts, times 100. In 2026 a healthy rate sits around 45% to 55%, and top stores push past 60%, but most stores lose far more than they think. The average shopping cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, according to the Baymard Institute. That means roughly 7 in 10 ready-to-buy shoppers walk away at the till. You fix it by showing the real price upfront, cutting the account-creation nonsense, offering guest checkout, and adding the ways locals actually like to pay. This guide shows you the exact number to aim for, why people quit, and how to lift it. No extra ad spend. Just stop throwing buyers away at the till.
What is a checkout completion rate?
It is the share of people who begin checkout and actually pay.
Someone clicks "Checkout". They start filling in their details. The completion rate tells you how many of them make it all the way to "Order confirmed".
So if 100 people start checkout and 40 buy, your checkout completion rate is 40%.
This is the most expensive number in your store. These are not window shoppers. They are people with their card half out of their wallet.
And most store owners never look at it. They obsess over traffic, sessions, and ad clicks. Those are the easy numbers to stare at. The completion rate is the one that pays your salary.
Think of it like a shop with a queue at the till. Loads of people in the line. Then half of them put their basket down and walk out the door. That is what a leaky checkout looks like.
Checkout completion rate vs cart abandonment rate
People mix these two up constantly. So let us clear it up fast.
Cart abandonment is the bigger, looser number. It counts everyone who adds something to their cart and then leaves, even the browsers who were never going to buy.
Checkout completion is tighter. It only counts people who actually started the checkout flow, then measures how many finished.
| Cart abandonment rate | Checkout completion rate | |
|---|---|---|
| What it counts | Anyone who added to cart, then left | People who started checkout, then finished |
| Reads as | The leak (higher is worse) | The win (higher is better) |
| 2026 ballpark | ~70% abandon | ~45 to 55% complete |
| Where you see it | GA4, Shopify, your cart app | GA4 funnel, checkout reports |
They measure the same problem from two ends. One counts the people you lost. The other counts the people you kept.
Both matter. But checkout completion is the one you fix. It only counts buyers who showed up with their wallet open.
What is a good checkout completion rate in 2026?
Here is the honest answer. A good checkout completion rate sits around 45% to 55%, and the top stores clear 60%.
But the scary part is how much everyone leaks. The Baymard Institute, after reviewing 50 separate studies, puts the average shopping cart abandonment rate at 70.22%.
So the typical store waves goodbye to about 7 in 10 shoppers who were ready to buy. Right at the till.
Device matters too. Bold Commerce's Checkout Benchmark found desktop shoppers complete checkout at 52.5%, while mobile drags 10 points behind at 42.4%.
| Checkout completion rate | Desktop | Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Average store (Bold Commerce) | 52.5% | 42.4% |
| Top 25% of stores (Bold Commerce) | 73.2% | 65.3% |
Source: Bold Commerce, The Checkout Benchmark (desktop vs mobile completion rates).
Notice the mobile gap. Most South Africans shop on a phone, not a laptop. If your mobile checkout is clunky, that is where most of your money leaks out.
So do not panic at a single number. Find your own rate first, then beat it month on month. That is the only benchmark that actually pays you.
How to calculate your checkout completion rate
The maths is primary-school easy. Here is the formula.
Checkout completion rate = (completed orders ÷ checkouts started) × 100
Let us run a real Rand example.
Say 1,000 people start checkout on your store this month. Only 300 finish and pay.
300 orders ÷ 1,000 checkouts started = 0.30. Times 100 = a 30% completion rate.
That means 700 ready buyers walked out. Ouch.
Now say your average order is R600. Those 300 orders made you R180,000.
Lift your completion rate from 30% to 45% and you get 450 orders instead of 300. That is 150 extra orders, or R90,000 more in revenue. Same traffic. Same ad spend. Same products.
That is the whole point of this number. It is the cheapest growth lever you own. You already paid to get those people to the till. Fixing the checkout just stops you throwing them away.
Where do you find your checkout completion rate?
You cannot fix what you do not measure. And this is exactly the mistake most stores make. They never look.
Good news. The number is sitting in tools you already have.
On Shopify
Open Analytics, then look at your conversion funnel. Shopify shows you "Reached checkout" and "Sessions converted". The drop between them is your leak.
In Google Analytics 4
GA4 tracks a checkout funnel through events like begin_checkout and purchase. Compare the two and you have your completion rate.
The trap to avoid
If your tracking is broken, every number you see is a lie. Half-fired events, a broken pixel, a thank-you page that does not log the sale. It all warps your data.
Get the basics right first. We wrote a full walkthrough on conversion tracking if your numbers feel off.
Check this number weekly, not yearly. A new theme, a payment glitch, or a slow holiday weekend can crater it overnight. One bad day means nothing. Three bad weeks mean something is broken.
Why people abandon checkout (the real reasons)
This is the gold. Baymard asked shoppers why they bailed at checkout. The answers tell you exactly what to fix.
| Reason for abandoning checkout | Share of shoppers |
|---|---|
| Extra costs too high (shipping, tax, fees) | 48% |
| Site forced them to create an account | 26% |
| Did not trust the site with card details | 25% |
| Delivery was too slow | 23% |
| Checkout was too long or complicated | 22% |
| Could not see the total cost upfront | 18% |
| Website had errors or crashed | 17% |
| Returns policy was not good enough | 16% |
| Not enough payment options | 13% |
| Card was declined | 9% |
Source: Baymard Institute, reasons for checkout abandonment (excluding "just browsing").
Look at the top of that list. The number one killer is surprise costs.
The customer thinks they are paying R450. Then shipping, fees, and tax push it to R580 at the last screen. They feel tricked. They close the tab.
Almost every reason on that list is fixable. Most of them are free to fix. You just have to look.
How to improve your checkout completion rate
Right. Your rate is low. Baymard found that fixing checkout design alone can lift conversions by up to 35.26%. Here is how to grab that, in order of impact.
1. Show all costs early
This is the big one. Surprise shipping and fees are the number one reason people quit.
Put the full price in front of them early. Show delivery costs on the product page or in the cart, not at the final step.
Better yet, offer free delivery over a set amount, like R500. People love a round, clear deal more than a clever discount they have to work out.
2. Offer guest checkout
Forcing people to create an account chases away more than 1 in 4 shoppers.
Let them buy as a guest. Ask for the email, take the order, then offer to save their details after they have paid. Never before.
3. Cut the checkout steps
Baymard found the average checkout has 23.48 form elements, when the best stores use closer to 12 to 14.
Every extra box is a chance to lose someone. Drop anything you do not truly need. Do you really need their company name and a second phone number? No.
Autofill the address. Use one page if you can. Make it feel quick.
4. Win their trust
About 1 in 4 people bail because they do not trust the site with their card.
Add a "secure checkout" badge near the payment box. Show your refund policy. Add real reviews and a contact number. South Africans have been burned online before. A visible refund policy and a real phone number move the needle more here than almost anywhere.
5. Add the payment methods locals use
A missing payment option is a lost sale, plain and simple.
Offer cards, instant EFT, and the buy-now-pay-later options South Africans reach for, like PayJustNow or Payflex. If their favourite way to pay is not there, they leave.
6. Speed up your checkout on mobile
Remember that 10-point mobile gap. Most of your shoppers are on a phone, often on mobile data, not office fibre.
Test your own checkout on a cheap Android over a normal data connection. If it is slow or fiddly, fix it. That is where the money leaks. A faster landing page and checkout flow lifts the whole funnel.
7. Chase the ones who got away
Even a great checkout loses some people. So go and fetch them back.
An abandoned cart email or WhatsApp can recover a chunk of lost sales automatically. We break down the exact setup in our guide to abandoned cart automations.
What South African store owners need to know
Global numbers don't care about your courier costs or your Capitec customers. Here is what actually matters in SA.
- Mobile is king here. Most South Africans shop on a phone, per DataReportal's 2025 South Africa digital report. Your mobile checkout is your real checkout. Treat the desktop one as the backup.
- Delivery cost and time are deal-breakers. Slow and pricey shipping are the top two reasons people quit. Be upfront about courier costs and days to deliver, especially outside the big metros.
- VAT at 15%. Show the VAT-inclusive price early so there is no nasty jump at the end. And remember, 15% of that sale belongs to SARS when you work out your real profit.
- Trust takes extra work. Online scams have made local shoppers wary. A clear refund policy, a real address, and a secure-payment badge lift completion more here than in markets where card payments feel safe.
- Local payment habits. Instant EFT and pay-later options are huge in South Africa. Offer them, or watch carts die at the payment step.
Forget the global average. Track your own rate every week. Beat last month. That is the only number that matters.
Do not stop at the completion rate
Here is where most "gurus" stop. We are not going to.
A high checkout completion rate feels great. But it can still hide a money-losing store.
Imagine you fix the checkout and orders jump. Brilliant. Now imagine your margins are thin and your cost to get each sale is higher than your profit on it.
You are converting like a champion and going broke at the same time.
That is why we tie every metric back to profit. Not revenue. Profit.
We track POAS, profit on ad spend, instead of just ROAS, return on ad spend. ROAS counts the money in. POAS counts the money you actually keep. We explain it in ROAS vs POAS for eCommerce, and we cover the wider numbers in our eCommerce benchmarks guide.
So fix your checkout. But always ask the real question. Did this make me richer, or just busier?
Key takeaways
- Checkout completion rate = (completed orders ÷ checkouts started) × 100. It is the share of shoppers who start checkout and actually pay.
- A good rate sits around 45% to 55%, and top stores clear 60%. Desktop runs about 52.5% and mobile about 42.4%, per Bold Commerce.
- The average cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, per Baymard. Most stores lose 7 in 10 ready buyers at the till.
- The top reasons people quit: surprise costs (48%), forced account creation (26%), no trust (25%), slow delivery (23%), and a long checkout (22%), per Baymard.
- Biggest fixes: show all costs early, offer guest checkout, cut the form elements, win trust, add local payment options, speed up mobile, and chase abandoned carts.
- A high completion rate can still lose money. Tie it back to profit (POAS), not just revenue.
You are watching ad clicks and session counts while buyers walk out at the till. A leaky checkout is usually a one-afternoon fix. Once you know where the hole is.
We have pushed past R2 billion in client sales since 2018. See how we grow eCommerce stores profitably, then tell us your checkout rate and we will show you exactly where it is bleeding.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good checkout completion rate?
A good checkout completion rate sits around 45% to 55%, and the top stores clear 60%. Bold Commerce's data shows desktop completing near 52.5% and mobile near 42.4%. Since the average cart abandonment rate is 70.22% per Baymard, even hitting 50% puts you ahead of most stores. Compare your rate to your own past months, not just the average.
How do you calculate checkout completion rate?
Divide your completed orders by the number of checkouts started, then multiply by 100. So 300 orders from 1,000 started checkouts is a 30% completion rate.
What is the difference between cart abandonment and checkout abandonment?
Cart abandonment counts everyone who added something to their cart and then left, including browsers who were never going to buy. Checkout abandonment is tighter. It only counts people who actually started the checkout flow and then quit before paying. Checkout completion rate is the positive flip of checkout abandonment.
Why do so many people abandon checkout?
According to Baymard, the top reasons are surprise extra costs like shipping and fees (48%), being forced to create an account (26%), not trusting the site with card details (25%), slow delivery (23%), and a checkout that is too long (22%). Most of these are cheap or free to fix.
How can I reduce checkout abandonment?
Show all costs early, offer guest checkout, cut the number of form elements, add trust badges and a clear refund policy, offer the payment methods locals use, and speed up your mobile checkout. Then chase the ones who still leave with abandoned cart emails. Baymard found better checkout design alone can lift conversions by up to 35.26%.
