Icons next to sign-up form fields: +13.1% free trial sign-ups
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding an icon beside each field on the free trial sign-up form lifted Teamleader's sign-up rate from 32.84% to 37.11%, a 13.1% relative gain.
Teamleader, a CRM, invoicing and project planning platform for small businesses, ran the test on its main website.
It was published as a VWO case study.
- Free trial sign-up conversion rate: 32.84% on control vs 37.11% on the variant.
- That is a 13.1% relative lift, or about 4.3 percentage points.
- Sample size, test length and confidence level were not shared.
The change
Only the form changes: each field gets an icon beside it.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The free trial sign-up form used plain input fields with no icons.
Variant
The same form with a small icon placed next to each field. Nothing else on the page was reported as changed.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Icons can make each field faster to recognise, so the form feels quicker to scan.
- A more finished-looking form may signal care and lower doubt about the product.
- The baseline was already high, so visitors were motivated; small polish can tip the ones who are close.
Caveats: The case study does not share sample size, duration or significance, and the result is vendor-published. Treat the lift as directional.
Who ran it
Teamleader ran this test and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Teamleader →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we add a recognisable icon beside each sign-up field, then more visitors will finish the form because it will feel easier and quicker to complete.
- Primary metric
- Free trial sign-up completion rate
- Guardrails
- Trial-to-paid conversion
- Form error rate
- Time to complete the form
- Who should test it
- SaaS teams with a short trial sign-up form and enough traffic to detect a few points of change. It is unlikely to matter much if your form is already one or two fields, or if the real drop-off happens elsewhere.
Questions
Do icons in form fields improve conversions?
They can. In this test, icons beside each field lifted free trial sign-ups by 13.1%, but the source did not share sample size, so test it on your own form.
Which fields should get icons?
Common choices are name, email, phone and company, where a familiar symbol makes the field instantly clear.
Keep the label too, since icons alone can be ambiguous.