Reading the numbers
What conversion rate should I expect?
Updated 19 August 2026 · Thresholds read live from the verdict engine
Short answer
It depends on three things: how warm the traffic is, what you ask for, and what it costs. Cold paid traffic gives an email at 5% to 15% and completes a checkout at 2% to 5%. Warm traffic runs several times higher. Any benchmark you read that omits those conditions is describing a different page from yours.
The number depends on three things
How warm the traffic is
Someone who followed you for a year is not the same visitor as someone who tapped an ad between two videos. Warm traffic converts several times better and runs out quickly, which is why a founder's first landing page often looks brilliant and their first ad campaign looks broken. Both numbers are correct.
What you ask for
Rates fall as the ask gets heavier: a click is easy, an email is a small commitment, card details are a decision. Comparing your checkout rate to a benchmark built from email captures is the single most common mistake in this area.
What it costs
Price and conversion move against each other, and the curve is steep around the psychological levels ($9.99, $49, $99). A 1.5% rate at $99 a year can be worth more than a 3% rate at $29.
Benchmarks worth comparing against
| Traffic | Ask | Typical range | Strong |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cold paid (Meta, TikTok) | 5% to 15% | 20% and up | |
| Cold paid | Card stored, no charge | 2% to 5% | 5% and up |
| Cold paid | Paid checkout, no trial | 1% to 3% | 4% and up |
| Search, commercial intent | Email or trial | 8% to 20% | 25% and up |
| Community or newsletter | 15% to 40% | 50% and up | |
| Your own audience | Purchase | 3% to 10% | 15% and up |
Diagnosing a bad rate stage by stage
A single low number is undiagnosable. Split the funnel and work down until you find the first stage below its range.
| Symptom | Most likely cause | First thing to change |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks are high, page views are low | Slow page, or a redirect eating traffic | Compress the image, test on a phone off wifi |
| Page views are high, nobody presses the button | The promise does not match the ad, or the audience is wrong | Rewrite the headline in the words of the ad that brought them |
| They press the button and leave immediately | The next screen asks for too much too early | Cut fields, move reassurance above the form |
| They reach the paywall and stop | Price, plan shape, or trust | Try the other plan shape before cutting the price |
| Everything is fine but the rate is still low | The audience does not have the problem | Change the targeting, not the page |
Worked example
A 0.9% that was a targeting problem
A budgeting app for freelancers ran at 0.9% on 600 visitors, which reads as a kill. The segment breakdown said otherwise: visitors who answered "self employed" in the quiz converted at 3.1%, and they were a fifth of the traffic. The broad audience was full of employees who did not have the problem.
They narrowed the targeting and reran. 2.6% blended on 480 visitors, at a slightly higher cost per click. The page never changed.
What actually moves the number
Ranked by how much they move it in practice, at validation budgets.
- Audience. Showing the same page to people who have the problem changes everything. Nothing else on this list comes close.
- The promise. The headline and the ad hook, which have to agree. A rewritten promise routinely doubles a rate.
- Price and plan shape. Shape before number: annual with monthly beside it usually beats a discount.
- The commitment step. Field count, reassurance placement, and saying plainly that nothing is charged.
- Page speed. Free to fix, and it protects every stage below it.
- Proof. A named person with a reason to care. Invented testimonials cost more than they earn.
- Design polish. Real, and last. A tidy page loses to an ugly page pointed at the right people.
The numbers
For a build decision, the only rate that matters is visitors who completed checkout, and these are the bands the engine applies to it.
- Funnel starts before any verdict
- 30
- Below this, don't build
- 1.0%
- At or above this, build
- 2.0%
- Visitors before a segment counts
- 50
1% and 2% are set from the web2app cold-traffic range rather than from a general landing page benchmark, because that is the funnel these numbers get compared against.
| Result | Rate | 95% range | Confidence | Reads as |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 / 3003%, but only just decided | 3.00% | 1.59% to 5.60% | medium | Build |
| 12 / 400 | 3.00% | 1.72% to 5.17% | medium | Build |
| 8 / 8001%, sitting on the boundary | 1.00% | 0.51% to 1.96% | medium | Promising |
How VerifyToLaunch does this
The dashboard shows each funnel stage against the range it should be hitting, so a weak overall number resolves into a specific stage rather than a mood. It also slices by source, country, creative, device and quiz answer, which is how the targeting problem in the worked example above becomes visible. A segment needs enough traffic before it is allowed to carry a reading, so small slices stay grey rather than pretending.
The benchmarks in this guide are industry ranges rather than product settings. The thresholds that decide your verdict are the ones above, and they do not move.
Common questions
- What is a good conversion rate for a landing page?
- For cold paid traffic asking for an email, 5% to 15% is normal and 20% is strong. For cold paid traffic asking for card details, 2% to 5% is normal and 5% and up is strong. Warm traffic runs several times higher and should never be averaged with cold.
- Why is my conversion rate so low?
- Split the funnel before answering. Most low rates trace to the audience or to a promise that does not match the ad, and both are cheaper to fix than the page design. If people reach the paywall and stop, price is a live suspect.
- How do I compare my rate to a benchmark fairly?
- Match three conditions: traffic temperature, what you ask for, and roughly the price. A benchmark that omits any of them is describing a different funnel, and most published ones omit all three.
- Is a 1% conversion rate bad?
- For a paid checkout on cold traffic it sits at the kill line, which means optimisation rarely bridges it at that price and angle. For a page asking only for an email, 1% means something is broken.
Read next
- What is a web2app funnel and what converts?Why apps sell on the web first, the screens in order, and the rate each one holds.
- How do I run a smoke test with a landing page?The page block by block, four events to track, and how to read every drop-off.
- How many signups mean an idea is worth building?Signups are the wrong unit. Here is how to convert a list into expected buyers.
- How do I test an idea with Meta ads?Campaign settings field by field, three creatives worth testing, and the policy traps.
See which stage is losing them
Every stage of the generated funnel is measured against the range it should hit, and sliced by source, country, creative and audience, so a low number resolves into a specific fix.
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