Checkout redesign: simplifying conversion

Simplified a high-friction SaaS checkout to boost conversions—driving a 104% revenue increase in the first month and unlocking clearer insights into customer acquisition.

Project overview

The problem

The original self-serve checkout confused users at critical steps — from pricing tiers to applying discounts — leading to drop-off and lost revenue. This mattered: 83% of transactions and ~60% of ARR came through this flow. Internally, the team also lacked visibility into performance and acquisition, making optimization difficult.

Business impact

This case study outlines how I redesigned the checkout to reduce friction, clarify decisions, and improve tracking — resulting in a 104% revenue increase in the first month and deeper insights into customer behavior.

My role

Led the end-to-end redesign across UX, UI, and research, working with both an external agency and internal teams. Ran multiple QA sessions to ensure design fidelity at launch.

Team

1 Product Designer (me), 1 PM, 1 PO, 2 BE engineers, 2 Marketers, 1 Revenue operations manager, external FE development agency

Project type

SaaS website - checkout flow redesign

Duration

November, 2023 – March, 2024

Challenges

Alignment across teams

Coordinating with both an external agency and in-house teams to ensure alignment on goals, timelines, and user needs.

Integrating Chargebee

Ambiguity around Chargebee ownership made it challenging to align pricing and tracking with the intended design.

Speed vs. Quality

Faced with tight timelines, I used clear specs and regular check-ins to maintain momentum without sacrificing quality

My approach

DESK RESEARCH

Understanding friction points

To start, I analyzed internal user research data to identify blockers like hidden fees, trust concerns, and overly complex flows. A key issue for our users was that they couldn’t find where to enter discount codes.
Complementing this, industry benchmarks revealed common drop-off triggers that echoed our own challenges:

STEPPING INTO THE USERS' SHOES

Auditing the old flow

Consequently I documented usability and UI issues in the current flow, identifying points of confusion, usability issues, and friction. This gave us a grounded understanding of why users were dropping off.

MARKET RESEARCH

What great checkouts get right

Building on these insights, I then studied best-in-class SaaS checkouts to identify effective UI patterns — such as clear progress bars, persistent order summaries, trust markers, and visible discount fields — that could help address our users’ pain points and improve conversion.

SKETCHING A BETTER PATH

From Ideas to MVP

Early wireframes helped clarify what to ask, what to remove, and where to guide users. Internal discussions shaped our MVP scope. Unfortunately I found out that adding a basket indicator was out-of-scope for now due to our cookie policies.

MAKING IT REAL

Future-proofing & building trust

With key questions clarified, I designed the final experience for flexibility—supporting add-ons, surfacing the discount code, reinforcing trust, and working within Chargebee's compliance constraints.

Easy access to support

Discount code:
now visible and minimizable

Establishing credibility:
secure checkout

Stepper: Clear progress overview

Edit order button:
change your mind anytime

Facilitating trust:
clear order summary throughout the flow

Order confirmation:

clear status and assurance

Future-proof design:
space for upsells

DESIGN QA

Design in the details

Finally, I partnered closely with our development agency through three build reviews, conducting detailed QA to catch responsiveness, UI issues and ensure the live experience matched the design vision.