What this calculator does
Cart abandonment rate is the share of shopping carts that were started but never turned into a completed purchase. It is one of the most closely watched figures in e-commerce, because it sits right at the point where a visitor has already shown clear intent to buy, and something still stopped the sale.
A cart being abandoned does not always mean it is lost for good; some visitors return later, on the same device or after an abandoned-cart email, and complete the purchase. The rate calculated here measures abandonment within the period being looked at, not necessarily permanent lost sales.
The formula
Subtract completed purchases from carts created to get the number abandoned, then divide by carts created and express the result as a percentage.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Cart abandonment rate | The share of carts that did not convert: ((carts created − completed purchases) ÷ carts created) × 100. |
| Carts created | The number of shopping carts started, whether or not they were completed. |
| Completed purchases | The number of those carts that went on to complete checkout. |
The inputs explained
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Carts created | The total number of carts created over the period, from your e-commerce platform or analytics. |
| Completed purchases | The number of those carts that were completed as an actual purchase. |
When to use it
Diagnosing checkout friction
A high abandonment rate, especially one concentrated at a specific checkout step such as shipping cost or account creation, points to a specific point of friction worth investigating.
Measuring the effect of a checkout redesign
Comparing abandonment rate before and after simplifying checkout, or removing an unexpected cost late in the process, is a direct way to check whether the change helped.
Sizing an abandoned-cart recovery campaign
The number of carts abandoned in a period, alongside their average value, gives a rough sense of how much revenue an email or retargeting recovery campaign might realistically be able to reclaim.
Worked examples
Every figure in the tables below is produced by this page’s own calculator at build time, so the numbers and the tool always agree. Select any row to load that scenario.
How abandonment rate changes with completed purchases at a fixed number of carts
A fixed 1,000 carts created, across a range of completed purchase counts.
How abandonment rate changes with carts created at a fixed number of completed purchases
A fixed 280 completed purchases, across a range of cart creation volumes.
Questions
What is a typical cart abandonment rate?
Rates commonly reported across e-commerce sit in a wide range, and vary by device, industry and how "cart created" is defined by the tracking platform, so an external benchmark is a weak substitute for tracking your own rate over time.
What are the most common reasons for cart abandonment?
Frequently cited causes include unexpected extra costs revealed late in checkout, being required to create an account, a checkout process that takes too many steps, and simply browsing or comparison shopping without an intention to buy that visit.
Does cart abandonment rate include browsers who never intended to buy?
It can, depending on how "cart created" is tracked; some visitors add items purely to check the total price or shipping cost with no intention of purchasing that session, which inflates the abandonment figure without reflecting a genuine failure of checkout.
How does this relate to conversion rate?
Conversion rate is usually measured from site visitors through to purchase, a wider funnel; cart abandonment rate looks specifically at the narrower step from cart creation to completed checkout, which is normally the highest-intent point in that funnel.
For the wider view from total visitors through to a completed sale, see the conversion rate calculator. Once you know the average value of a completed order, the average order value calculator shows what each recovered cart could be worth.