Onboarding Drop-off Rate
The percentage of users who enter an onboarding step but do not complete it.
Definition
Onboarding drop-off rate measures the fraction of users who start a specific step in your onboarding flow but leave before completing it. Unlike overall funnel completion rate - which measures start-to-finish - drop-off rate is measured per step, making it the primary diagnostic metric for finding where your onboarding loses users. A step with a high drop-off rate is a friction point that, when fixed, improves the entire downstream funnel.
Drop-off rate
Drop-off rate = 1 − (users who completed step N ÷ users who entered step N)
Example: 1 − (380 ÷ 720) = 47% drop-off at the "Integration connected" step
→ In practice
"Our drop-off rate at the email verification step is 34%. We're going to defer verification to after the user's first session to see if that reduces abandonment."
Common questions
What is a good onboarding drop-off rate per step?
There is no universal good rate: step purpose, user intent, and traffic mix change the baseline. Prioritise a step when its loss count or rate worsens materially against your own comparable cohorts, then investigate the likely cause.
How is drop-off rate different from bounce rate?
Bounce rate measures users who visit one page and leave immediately. Drop-off rate is step-specific - it measures users who entered a specific onboarding step but did not complete it, regardless of time spent.
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