The checkout audit: 12 places sales quietly leak

Run the audit as a stranger, on a phone

Open your own product page on your phone, from the link your traffic actually arrives on: the ad, the post, the email. Not from your laptop. Not from the homepage.

Most sites are designed on a 1440px screen by someone who already knows what the product is. Your buyer is on a 390px screen, from an ad, with three seconds of patience and no context.

Do it in a private window so you are not logged in, and do not scroll. Everything in the rest of this audit is judged from that first screen.

Leak 1 · The price is below the fold

The single most common one. Price and button sit under the description, the feature list, the testimonials.

The buyer's first question is not "what is this": they clicked, so they have a rough idea. It is "what does it cost." Making them scroll to find out is making them work for the right to be interested.

The test: open the page on a phone, do not scroll. Can you see the price and a button? If not, that is your first fix and it usually outranks everything else on this list.

Leak 2 · Something is on top of the button

Cookie banners, chat widgets, newsletter pop-ups, sticky bars. Each was added deliberately; together they cover the thing you want tapped.

This one is invisible in every screenshot and every desktop review. It only shows up on a real phone, and it is completely fatal: not a friction, a wall.

The test: on your phone, tap the buy button. Did it work, or did you tap a banner? Do it before you read the rest of this list.

Leak 3 · You ask for an account before the money

"Create an account to continue" before payment is asking a stranger to commit before they have got anything.

The order that works: pay first, account after. You already have their email from the payment; create the account for them and email them the login. They wanted the product, not a membership.

If you must have an account first, say why on the button, and make it one field.

Leak 4 · Fields that are not needed to charge a card

Every field is a place to stop. Count them. Then ask of each one: does this need to exist before the money, or does it need to exist at all?

A digital product needs an email and a card. Not a name, not a phone, not a company, not a billing address unless tax requires it, not "how did you hear about us."

The test: count fields on your checkout. Over four for a digital product and you are collecting a CRM record at the cost of the sale. Ask the rest after payment, when they are already a customer and answering is free.

Leak 5 · A redirect you did not notice

The path click → product → checkout should not leave your domain and come back, bounce through a login, or flash a loading screen with a different brand on it.

Every hop is a moment to reconsider, and on mobile every hop is also a chance for the connection to be slow enough to abandon.

The test: watch the address bar from the ad click to the pay button. Count the hops. Two is fine. Four is a leak.

Leak 6 · The price appears twice and differs

The ad says $79. The page says $99 with a discount applied at checkout. The card gets charged $79.

Even when the final number is right, the buyer had a moment of "which is true." That moment costs more than the discount earns.

The test: does the number on the ad, the page, the button, and the card statement match exactly? If a discount is involved, is it visible as the price rather than as a promise?

Leak 7 · No answer to "what happens after I pay"

For a digital product this is the whole anxiety. Do I get it now, or in an email, or tomorrow? Do I need an account? Can I get a refund?

One line under the button answers all of it: "Instant download after payment. No account needed."

The test: read the area around your button as a stranger. Does it tell you what happens in the next 10 seconds? If not, add one line. This is the cheapest fix on the list.

Leak 8 · Nothing about risk

The buyer has never met you. Some visible answer to "what if this is rubbish" has to exist near the button.

A guarantee if you offer one. A free sample if you don't. A visible refund policy either way. Not three paragraphs: one line, near the money.

Whatever you say here has to be true and you have to honour it, so keep it narrow enough that you will.

Leaks 9-12 · The quiet ones

9. The page is slow on a phone on mobile data. Test on 4G, not office wifi.

10. The email field rejects valid addresses. Test a plus-address and a long TLD.

11. The button says "Submit" or "Continue". It should say what happens: "Get it now."

12. There is no way to ask a question. Some buyers need one answer before they can commit, and no route to ask is a silent no.

The order to fix in

Fix in the order a buyer hits them, not the order that is easiest.

1. 1Anything covering the button (leak 2). It is a wall, not a friction.
2. 2Price above the fold (leak 1).
3. 3What happens after payment (leak 7). One line.
4. 4Field count (leak 4).
5. 5Everything else.

The first three are usually a day of work between them, and they are usually most of the gap. Copy and price are the last things to touch, not the first: they are what you tune once the path is clear.