# Exit rate vs bounce rate, and finding leaky checkout steps

Source: https://analyzine.com/explained/exit-rate/  
Author: Sadiq Ahmed  
Updated: 2026-11-02

Quick answer

Exit rate is the percentage of a page's views that were the last page in a visit. If a page was viewed 1,000 times and 300 of those views ended the visit, the figure is 30%. Unlike bounce rate, it counts visits that started anywhere on your site.

## What the number tells you

Every visit ends somewhere. When someone closes the tab, types a new address or simply stops clicking until the visit times out, the last page they looked at records an **exit**.

The metric takes those exits for a page and sets them against how often the page was viewed. It answers a simple question: of all the times people saw this page, how often was it the end of the road?

That makes it most useful on pages that sit in the middle of a path you want people to follow, such as basket, checkout, booking form or course sign-up. If people reliably reach a step and then stop, that step's share of exits goes up. On pages that are meant to be the end, a high figure is exactly what you want, which we'll come to.

## How to calculate exit rate

Exit rate = exits from the page ÷ pageviews of the page × 100

Note the bottom of that sum is [pageviews](https://analyzine.com/explained/pageview/), not visits. A page viewed twice in one visit counts twice.

Say the "Book a class" page on a yoga studio's site had 2,400 views last month. In 600 of those views, it was the last page the person saw before leaving.

600 ÷ 2,400 × 100 = 25%

So a quarter of the views of that page were followed by nothing. Whether that's good or bad depends on what happens after a successful booking: if the booking form sends people to a confirmation page, those 600 aren't bookings, they're people who stopped short.

## How it differs from bounce rate

These two get mixed up constantly, so here's the difference in one line each:

- **Bounce rate** looks only at visits that *started* on a page, and asks how many ended there without going anywhere else.
- **Exit rate** looks at *every* view of a page, however the visitor got there, and asks how many were the last view of the visit.

A worked example makes it clearer. Imagine a tiny candle shop with five visits in a day:

1. Visit A: Home, then Product, then Basket. Leaves from Basket.
2. Visit B: Product only. Leaves.
3. Visit C: Home, then Product. Leaves from Product.
4. Visit D: Basket (from an abandoned-basket email), then Home. Leaves from Home.
5. Visit E: Home only. Leaves.

Here's how the two metrics come out for each page:

| Page | Views | Exits | Exit % | Visits started here | Bounces | Bounce % |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Home | 4 | 2 | 50% | 3 | 1 | 33% |
| Product | 3 | 2 | 67% | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| Basket | 2 | 1 | 50% | 1 | 0 | 0% |

The product page has a 100% bounce rate, which sounds dreadful, but it's based on one visit. Its 67% exit figure uses all three views and is a fairer picture. The basket has no bounces at all, yet half its views were the last stop. Five visits is far too few to act on, of course; the point is how differently the two sums treat the same behaviour.

A bounce is always an exit too (the visit's only page is also its last), but most exits aren't bounces. For more on the single-page side of this, see [bounce rate](https://analyzine.com/explained/bounce-rate/).

## Pages where most views should be the last

Some pages exist to finish the visit. On these, a high figure is a sign things are working:

- **Thank-you and order-received pages.** Once a WooCommerce order goes through, there's nothing left to do. Most people leave.
- **Booking or enquiry confirmations.** "Thanks, we'll be in touch" is the natural last page.
- **Download pages.** Someone came for the PDF price list, got it and went.
- **Contact and opening-times pages.** The visitor has the number and is off to ring you.
- **Pages full of outbound links.** A "where to buy" page or an affiliate review sends people elsewhere by design.

If your order-received page had *few* exits, it would be worth asking why so many people kept clicking around after paying. Perhaps they couldn't see a confirmation, or the page looked like an error.

So what's a good figure? There isn't a single one. It depends entirely on the page's job. Judge each page against its purpose and its own trend, not against a number from somewhere else.

## Using it to find leaky steps in checkout or signup

This is where the metric really earns its keep. Lay out the steps of a process in order and compare each step's exits with its views.

Say your LearnDash course has a three-page signup:

| Step | Views | Exits | Exit % |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Course sales page | 3,000 | 2,100 | 70% |
| Checkout | 900 | 450 | 50% |
| Enrolment confirmation | 450 | 430 | 96% |

The sales page losing most people is expected; plenty of visitors are only browsing. The confirmation page exits are a good thing. The step to worry about is checkout: half the people who reached it, already decided enough to click "Enrol", left without finishing.

Once you've found the leaky step, work out why:

1. **Go through it yourself on a phone.** Use your payment gateway's test mode or a 100% discount coupon. Most checkout problems are obvious the moment you try.
2. **Look for surprises.** Shipping costs that only appear at checkout, forced account creation and a long list of required fields are common reasons people stop.
3. **Check for errors.** A payment gateway that fails for some cards, a form plugin clash or a cookie notice covering the "Pay" button will all push exits up.
4. **Split by device and source.** If mobile visitors leave checkout far more often than desktop ones, you've narrowed it down a lot.
5. **Read some real paths.** Analyzine shows full visitor journeys inside wp-admin, and reading a handful of visits that ended on the checkout page often explains a number faster than the number itself.

One limit to know: the metric works per URL. A WooCommerce checkout or a multi-step Fluent Forms form usually sits on a single page, so you can see that people leave, but not which field stopped them. For that, tracking each step as an event, or simply watching a few people use the form, tells you more. [Cart abandonment rate](https://analyzine.com/explained/cart-abandonment-rate/) is the companion figure for shops.

## Mistakes to avoid when reading it

- **Treating low-traffic pages as meaningful.** A page with 15 views a month can swing from 20% to 80% by chance.
- **Forgetting that every visit ends somewhere.** Reducing exits on one page usually just moves them to another. What you want is for the final page to be a better one, such as the confirmation page.
- **Counting reloads as progress.** Someone refreshing a checkout page that won't load adds views without adding real visits, which can make a broken page look healthier.
- **Ignoring timeouts.** A tab left open overnight still ends with an exit on whatever page was showing. That's normal and evens out over enough visits.

The useful habit is to check exits on your money pages after any change to them, and then look at [conversion rate](https://analyzine.com/explained/conversion-rate/) to see if fewer people leaving actually turned into more orders.

## Frequently asked questions

### What does exit rate mean on a website?

It's the share of a page's views that were the final page of a visit. A high figure means people often stop there, which is fine for a thank-you page and worth looking into for a checkout or booking form.

### What's the difference between bounce rate and exit rate?

Bounce rate only counts visits that started on the page and left without seeing another page. Exits are counted against every view of the page, from any route, so the question is how often it was the last. Every bounce is an exit, but not every exit is a bounce.

### What is a good exit rate for a website?

There isn't one universal figure, because it depends on the page's purpose. Confirmation and contact pages should be high. Steps in the middle of a checkout or signup should be as low as you can get them, and the best comparison is the same page's history.

### How do I see exits in GA4?

GA4 offers an Exits metric that you can add to an exploration alongside views for each page. Divide exits by views and multiply by 100 to get the percentage. Check the date range and filters match before comparing pages.

### How do I stop people leaving at checkout?

Go through checkout yourself on a phone, remove surprise costs and unnecessary fields, offer guest checkout and fix any payment or plugin errors. Then compare exits by device and traffic source to see who is still dropping out.