Cart abandonment rate is the share of shopping carts that never become orders.
To calculate it, divide completed purchases by carts created, subtract the result from 1, and multiply by 100: if 4,000 sessions added an item to the cart and 1,120 ended in a purchase, your cart abandonment rate is (1 - 1,120 / 4,000) x 100 = 72%.
The calculator above does that division for you.
This page explains what to enter, how to read the result, and the mistakes that make the number look better or worse than it really is.
How the cart abandonment rate calculator works
The formula is short:
Cart abandonment rate = (1 - completed purchases / carts created) x 100
Both inputs must cover the same date range and the same unit.
Most stores count sessions, because that is how their analytics tools report the funnel.
| Input | What to enter | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Carts created | Sessions in which a shopper added at least one item to the cart | Shopify: sessions with cart additions. GA4: sessions with an add_to_cart event |
| Completed purchases | Sessions (or orders) that ended in a paid order | Shopify: sessions that completed checkout. GA4: sessions with a purchase event |
Shopify's ShopifyQL docs define these as "online store visits in which a visitor added an item to cart" and "online store visits in which a purchase was completed."
A third metric, sessions that reached checkout, sits between them and lets you split the rate in two (more on that below).
A worked example
Say a store's last 30 days look like this:
| Funnel step | Sessions |
|---|---|
| Added to cart | 4,000 |
| Reached checkout | 1,800 |
| Completed purchase | 1,120 |
Overall cart abandonment rate: 1,120 / 4,000 = 0.28, so 1 - 0.28 = 0.72, or 72%.
That single number hides two separate leaks. You can split it with the reached-checkout figure:
- Cart-stage drop-off: 1 - 1,800 / 4,000 = 55%. More than half of carts never reach checkout.
- Checkout abandonment rate: 1 - 1,120 / 1,800 = 37.8%. Of shoppers who started checkout, a bit more than a third left.
The two stages call for different fixes. A big cart-stage drop points to the cart itself: surprise costs, a cluttered drawer, weak reassurance.
A big checkout drop points to forms, payment options and errors.
Our conversion funnel guide covers how to break down every step this way.
How to read your result
For context, Baymard Institute's average of 50 studies puts the documented online shopping cart abandonment rate at 70.22% (list last updated September 22, 2025).
The individual studies vary a lot, so treat a result between roughly 60% and 80% as normal rather than as a grade.
Our cart abandonment rate benchmarks break the figure down by device and category.
Some rough reading rules:
- Above 85-90%: check for something broken first, such as a payment error, a shipping rate that fails for some regions, or add-to-cart events firing twice.
- Below 50%: check your tracking before you celebrate. Express checkout buttons that skip the cart, or carts counted only when checkout starts, can make the rate look far too low.
- In between: compare against your own history, split by device and traffic source. Your trend matters more than anyone else's average.
What real tests did to these numbers
A lower abandonment rate is the result of better cart and checkout pages, and tests in our database show how much those stages can move:
- ReplaceDirect added an order overview (products, total, delivery date) to checkout step 2, plus other changes, and reported -25% cart abandonment and +12% sales. Several changes were bundled together, so no single one gets the credit.
- Peter Christensen added a customer trust count and three USPs with icons to a checkout, and checkout conversion rose from 69% to 76%. In abandonment terms, that is checkout abandonment falling from 31% to 24%. It was a before-and-after comparison, not a split test.
- Surefoot's mobile cart redesign for SMITH produced +8% visits to checkout on mobile, a direct cut to the cart-stage drop-off.
- ABConvert reported that showing a preview of the shopper's uploaded photo in a personalized-jewelry cart gave +5% cart-to-checkout rate.
Surefoot
ABConvert
Visually
@peterac_
Clean CommitFor more, browse the cart tests and checkout tests, or read our guide to reducing cart abandonment.
Common mistakes
Mixing units
Dividing orders by carts works only if one session produces at most one order.
If you mix sessions in the denominator with orders in the numerator, repeat buyers and split orders will skew the rate.
Pick sessions or carts and stick with it.
Ignoring carts that skip the cart
Buy-now and express checkout buttons can send shoppers straight to payment without an add-to-cart event.
Those buyers show up as purchases but not as carts, which pushes your abandonment rate down.
If you add express buttons, expect the rate to shift for tracking reasons alone.
Treating a lower rate as the goal
Abandonment rate is a diagnostic, not the number that pays the bills.
Clean Commit tested a decluttered cart page and saw -11.1% conversion rate but +14.8% AOV, a mixed result that a single funnel metric would misread.
Judge cart and checkout changes on revenue per visitor, and track conversion rate and average order value alongside it.
Counting recovered carts twice
If a shopper abandons on Monday and buys from a cart recovery email on Wednesday, a session-based report shows one abandoned session and one converted session.
That is fine, but don't then subtract recovered carts from the abandonment rate again.
Reading short windows
A week with a sale, a holiday or a tracking change can swing the rate by several points.
Use at least 30 days and compare like with like.