The carts you lose,and what they're worth.
Most started carts never make it to checkout — and that isn't a vanity stat, it's a number with a dollar figure attached. This tells you your real abandonment rate, the revenue walking out the door, and how much you'd claw back with a recovery flow.
Your numbers
How many shoppers added at least one item and started a cart in the period.
How many of those carts turned into a paid order.
Revenue per completed order. Use net of discounts for a true number.
Share of abandoned carts you could win back with email + retargeting. 5–15% is realistic for a well-built flow.
The verdict
Abandonment rate
70.0%
Lost revenue
$56,000
Recoverable revenue
$5,600
At a 10% recovery rate.
Orders you could recover
70
Carts abandoned
700
Cart conversion rate
30.0%
Where the carts go
You vs. the ~70% average
Reverse-solve · hit a target rate
Extra orders needed
100
Revenue that unlocks
$8,000
Pulling abandonment from 70.0% down to 60% on the same 1,000 carts means 100 more completed orders — about $8,000 in new revenue. That's the prize a checkout fix and a recovery flow are chasing.
Sensitivity · what recovery is worth
Every point of recovery, in dollars
| Recovery rate | Carts recovered | Revenue recovered |
|---|---|---|
| 5% | 35 | $2,800 |
| 10% | 70 | $5,600 |
| 15% | 105 | $8,400 |
| 20% | 140 | $11,200 |
| 25% | 175 | $14,000 |
| 30% | 210 | $16,800 |
You have 700 abandoned carts worth $56,000. Each percentage point of recovery is roughly $560 — which is why an email flow that lifts recovery a few points pays for itself fast.
Your move
You've found the leak. I'll help you plug it.
70.0% cart abandonment on 1,000 carts → $56,000 lost, $5,600 recoverable at 10%.
Send me your store. In the first 30 minutes I'll tell you whether the bigger win is fixing checkout or building the recovery flow — and exactly which emails, offers, and checkout changes I'd ship first. Free, and yours to keep whether you hire me or not.
Plain English
Abandonment is a rate. The loss is the point.
Cart abandonment rate is the share of started carts that never become orders. If 1,000 people build a cart and 300 check out, 700 abandoned — a 70% abandonment rate. The long-running Baymard average across ecommerce is ~70%, so a high number alone doesn't mean you're broken. What matters is the revenue behind it.
Every abandoned cart is a shopper who wanted your product enough to add it, then bailed before paying. Multiply those carts by your average order value and you get the revenue sitting unclaimed. For most stores it's the single largest pool of recoverable money they own — and the cheapest to reach, because these people already raised their hand.
That's why this calculator doesn't stop at a percentage. It puts a dollar figure on the carts you're losing, then models what a recovery flow — abandoned-cart emails, browse retargeting, an SMS nudge — would actually bring back at a realistic recovery rate. You see the leak and the size of the patch in the same view.
The formula
Abandonment rate = (Carts created − Completed orders) ÷ Carts created × 100
1,000 carts, 300 orders → 700 abandoned = 70% abandonment. At an $80 AOV that's $56,000 in lost cart revenue. Recover just 10% of those carts (70 orders) and you bank $5,600 — from people who already chose your product.
What normal looks like
Cart abandonment is high everywhere — the question is whether you're at or above the pack, and what device mix is dragging you. Long-running averages across ecommerce (lower is better):
| Context | Avg abandonment |
|---|---|
| All ecommerce | ~70% |
| Mobile | ~76% |
| Desktop | ~73% |
Source: Cart abandonment statistics (Baymard Institute) · 2025
Your rate came back high. Now what?
Abandonment above ~80%.
Something in checkout is actively scaring people off. The usual suspects: surprise shipping costs, a forced account signup, or too many form steps. Show total cost early and offer guest checkout before you touch anything else.
Rate near the ~70% norm, but big absolute loss.
You're normal, but normal is still leaving five figures on the table. This is a recovery-flow problem, not a checkout problem. Abandoned-cart emails and retargeting are the highest-ROI thing you can build this quarter.
Mobile far worse than desktop.
Your mobile checkout is the leak. Tiny tap targets, slow load, and clumsy forms kill phone conversions. Add a wallet (Apple Pay / Shop Pay), autofill, and a one-page checkout.
Carts high, completed orders flat.
You're driving traffic that adds to cart but won't pay — often a pricing or trust gap. Test the offer, surface reviews and guarantees near the buy button, and make the return policy obvious.
Ten ways to recover lost carts
01Abandoned-cart email flow
A 3-email sequence (1 hour, 24 hours, 72 hours) recovers 5–11% of carts on its own. It's the highest-ROI automation in ecommerce — build it first.
02Show total cost upfront
Surprise shipping is the #1 stated reason people abandon. Put shipping and tax on the cart page, not three steps into checkout.
03Offer guest checkout
Forcing account creation kills conversions. Let people buy first and create an account after, if at all.
04Add wallets and express pay
Apple Pay, Shop Pay, and PayPal skip the form entirely. They lift mobile conversion the most, where abandonment is worst.
05Retarget browsers and abandoners
A dynamic retargeting ad showing the exact item they left recovers carts email can't reach (no email captured yet).
06Capture email earlier
An exit-intent or pre-checkout email capture means you can email a cart even when they never finished — the whole flow depends on it.
07Trim the form fields
Every extra field costs conversions. Ask only for what you must, autofill the rest, and use a single-page checkout.
08Add a time-boxed incentive
A small recovery discount in email 2 or 3 converts the fence-sitters. Keep it modest so you don't train people to abandon for a coupon.
09Surface trust at the buy button
Reviews, a return guarantee, and security badges near checkout calm the hesitation that causes silent abandonment.
10Speed up the page
Slow load and layout shift on mobile checkout silently bleed orders. Every second of delay is carts you'll never see again.
The vocabulary
- Cart abandonment rate
- Share of started carts that never become paid orders: (carts − orders) ÷ carts. Lower is better.
- Abandoned cart
- A cart a shopper built (added items) but left without completing checkout.
- Recovery rate
- Share of abandoned carts you win back via email, SMS, or retargeting. 5–15% is typical for a solid flow.
- AOV
- Average order value: revenue ÷ number of orders. The multiplier that turns lost carts into a dollar figure.
- Conversion rate
- Completed orders ÷ carts created (cart-level). The mirror image of abandonment.
- Checkout abandonment
- A narrower cut: shoppers who reached the checkout page specifically, then left. Usually lower than overall cart abandonment.
Cart abandonment questions, straight answers
Below ~70% is good — that's the cross-industry benchmark, so anything meaningfully under it puts you ahead of the pack. High-intent niches and repeat-purchase stores can get into the 50s–60s; impulse and high-ticket categories run higher. Don't chase 0% — chase below your category average, and recover the rest with email.
Keep going
A calculator tells you what. A call tells you what to do about it.
Send me the account behind these numbers. I'll tell you straight where the money's leaking and what I'd fix first — free, and you keep it whether you hire me or not.