Guest checkout lets a shopper buy without creating an account or a password.
Offering it, and making it the most visible option, is the safer default: 18% of US shoppers in Baymard Institute's abandonment survey say they left an order because the site wanted them to create an account.
Ask for the account after the purchase, on the confirmation page.
That's the short answer. The tests in our database add some nuance.
How you present the account choice matters about as much as whether a guest option exists, and a few stores have earned more by changing the layout of the login step than by removing it.
Guest checkout vs account: what the tests show
Most stores don't choose between "guest only" and "account only."
They choose how the account-selection step looks: which option comes first, how each one is labeled, and whether the shopper has to type an email before seeing any choices.
The step layout can move transactions
Lancôme's login step showed three options from left to right: log in as a client, check out as a guest, and create an account.
In Lancôme's test, moving "create account" to the center and guest checkout to the right produced +30% create-account clicks, +17% transactions and +15% revenue over a few weeks.
This result doesn't prove that pushing accounts beats pushing guest checkout.
Guest checkout was still on the page. What it shows is that the arrangement of the step changed buying behavior, so the layout is worth testing instead of copying from another store.
An email-first step can hide the guest option
GANNI asked for an email before the checkout page, and shoppers read that as "no guest checkout."
Their first round of variants that only clarified that guest checkout existed was inconclusive.
A structural change worked better: merging the email step into the information step is listed at +10% to the checkout funnel in GANNI's case-study summary.
That matches what Baymard sees in usability testing.
Its guest checkout research found that 47% of sites that offer guest checkout fail to make it the most prominent option.
Shoppers miss plain text links and options placed below the sign-in fields, and an email-first flow leaves them unsure whether an account is required.
Fewer login choices and fields
Removing sign-in options can help as well. BliVakker.no removed the Facebook login button from its checkout login page and kept only the email field, for +3% conversions.
The test ran on about 8,000 visitors with no significance stated, so treat it as a lead rather than proof.
At KoRo, DRIP Agency tested a simpler shipping form and login section with fewer decision points for returning and guest shoppers.
The checkout-step conversion rate went from 87.16% to 88.41% (+1.4%), with revenue per user up 1.5%.
DRIP AgencyExpress wallets act as guest checkout
Shop Pay, Apple Pay and PayPal buttons let shoppers skip both the account step and the forms, because the wallet already holds the address and card.
In our database, express checkout buttons in the cart lifted revenue per visitor by 26.2% for a sports nutrition store tested by Blend Commerce.
Placement still matters. Blend Commerce also saw a travel brand lose 14% of mobile conversions when it swapped payment icons for express checkout on the product page.
See the express checkout element page for the full set of results.
Guest vs account at a glance
| Guest checkout | Account at checkout | |
|---|---|---|
| First-time buyer effort | Email, address, payment | Same, plus password and often extra fields |
| Returning buyer effort | Retypes details unless a wallet or autofill helps | Saved details, if they remember how to sign in |
| Data you get | Email, address and order history keyed to the email | A login, preferences and a cleaner customer record |
| Main risk | Fewer registered customers | Abandonment at the account step and forgotten passwords |
The data argument for accounts is weaker than it looks.
A guest order still gives you an email address, a shipping address and an order history tied to that email, which is enough for receipts, abandoned-cart flows and most post-purchase email.
What you give up is a login, and a login only matters if the customer comes back and uses it.
Forced account creation: when it costs you and when it's worth it
Forced account creation means a shopper can't place an order without registering.
It's one of the friction points shoppers name most often.
Along with the 18% figure on Baymard's current list, Baymard's 2022 survey of 4,384 US shoppers put the share who had abandoned an order because of forced account creation at 24%.
The "$300 million button"
The most quoted example comes from Jared Spool, who wrote in 2009 about a large retailer that replaced its "Register" button with "Continue."
The page added a line telling shoppers they didn't need an account to buy.
Spool reported purchases rose 45%, adding $15 million in the first month and $300 million in the first year.
The same article gives the background: 45% of customers had more than one registration in the system, and of the 160,000 password-reset requests a day, 75% never finished their purchase.
The retailer wasn't named and no test data was published, so treat it as a well-told case study, not a benchmark for your store.
Long registration forms make it worse
If you do keep a registration step, its length matters.
BliVakker.no cut 3 fields from a 17-field registration form (account number, phone and evening phone) and got +11% form submissions.
An "ultra-light" version that stripped out even more did worse, by the source's account.
Cut the fields people resent, not every field.
Our form fields page has more tests on this.
When requiring an account makes sense
Some businesses have good reasons to require a login:
- B2B and wholesale stores, where pricing, credit terms or approval depend on who the buyer is.
- Subscriptions and memberships, where the customer needs a place to manage, pause or cancel.
- Digital goods and courses, where the account is how the customer gets access to the product.
- Regulated products, where you have to verify identity or eligibility before you sell.
Even in those cases, keep registration light and passwordless where you can.
Shopify's customer accounts sign shoppers in with a one-time 6-digit code sent to their email, so no password is needed.
Shopify also has a "Require customers to sign in to their account before checkout" setting, which is off unless you turn it on.
Leave it off unless one of the cases above applies.
Get accounts without forcing them
You can still sign up plenty of customers if you ask after they pay.
Baymard calls this delayed account creation: offer the account on the confirmation page, where the shopper only has to add a password because the rest is already saved.
Baymard found 42% of sites still ask for the account before or during checkout.
A practical setup that follows the research:
- Show "Guest Checkout" or "Continue as Guest" as a button, not a text link, at the top of the account-selection step and in the first mobile screen.
- Don't ask for an email before showing the choice, and let guests continue even if their email matches an existing account.
- Tell guests up front that they can create an account after checkout.
- On the confirmation page, list 3-5 concrete benefits, such as order tracking, faster reorders and rewards, next to a single password field.
- Offer express wallets so returning buyers get saved details without signing in.
How to test guest checkout on your store
If you already offer guest checkout, the test isn't "guest vs no guest."
Test the presentation: button vs link, the order of options, labels, and an email-first step vs a choice-first step.
The Lancôme and GANNI results show these changes can move transactions on their own.
Measure completed orders and revenue per visitor, not clicks on the account-step buttons.
A layout that pulls more people into "create account" is only a win if more of them finish paying.
Track new account sign-ups as a secondary metric so you can see the trade-off.
Segment the results. Returning visitors with an existing account and first-time visitors react differently to the same login step, and mobile shoppers are more likely to miss an option that sits below the first screen.
A change that helps one group and hurts another can look flat in the total.
Checkout tests often have smaller samples than product page tests, because only part of your traffic reaches checkout.
Use the significance calculator before calling a winner.
For the wider context, see our guides to checkout flow optimization and cart abandonment, or browse every checkout flow test in the test database.