SaaS onboarding redesign · 18 to 36 months in · B2B SaaS
Acquisition works. Activation does not. We find the step where users stall, put a revenue figure on it, then redesign the path to first value.
Book a 30-minute callSignups are up again this month. Marketing has a good slide.
Then someone opens the funnel. Of every hundred people who signed up, most never reached the moment the product was built for. They created an account, looked at an empty screen and left. The cohort chart looks the same as last quarter, only taller.
The usual answer arrives quickly: we need the feature the sales team keeps asking for. It goes on the roadmap. The chart does not change.
Adding features is the natural instinct, because features are what the team knows how to ship. But users who never reached first value never saw the features you already have. One more feature adds one more thing between them and the moment that matters.
More features rarely close the gap. Less friction usually does.
A broken activation step does not stay the same size. It grows with your traffic.
Compare a month with 1,000 signups and a month with 2,000. The step is identical in both. Only the number of people walking into it went up.
That is why “let’s revisit in Q3” is a decision with a price. The price is the gap, multiplied by every month until Q3.
The product asks users to connect, import or invite before it shows them anything. Those who leave never see what they signed up for.
Nothing tells the user what “done” looks like on day one, so most stop before they get there.
The dashboard was designed for an account full of data. New accounts have none.
Sometimes the onboarding is fine and the audience is wrong. Redesigning the flow will not change who is in it.
Users are asked to commit before they have reached the moment that justifies the price.
Card-required and no-card trials convert at very different rates. That difference can move the number more than any design choice.
Compare your rate with a benchmark for the same kind of trial, from a named source, with its date. Otherwise the gap you are trying to close is not real.
Illustrative inputs, so swap in your own:
signups a month
% reach first value today
An illustrative category figure of %
% of activated users become customers
$ a year per customer
We plan for closing 30 to 50% of the gap, not all of it, which gives a target of 28% to 30%.
3 to 5 points × 2,000 = 60 to 100 more activated users a month
At 20% activated-to-paid: 12 to 20 new customers a month
12 to 20 × $3,000 = $36,000 to $60,000 in new ARR a month
Over twelve months: $432,000 to $720,000
If Q3 is six months away, waiting costs $216,000 to $360,000 in ARR you never added.
Annual gap = (target rate − current rate) × monthly volume × value per unit × 12
Run your own funnel in the conversion gap calculator.
Do you know what share of this month’s signups reached first value, and what “first value” means in your product?
Is your benchmark for a card-required trial or a no-card trial?
Do users who activate still leave at the pricing page?
Then the problem may be pricing, not onboarding, and redesigning the onboarding first would spend the budget on the wrong step.
Bring this month’s signups and the share that reached first value. A principal tells you where they would look first.
With read-only access to your analytics, we map where users stall, compare the rate with a sourced benchmark, and rank every fix by effort with a conservative ARR figure on each. €5,500 to €8,500, with a written guarantee.
We redesign the path to first value: flows, structure, UI and the design system behind them. Each sprint ends with one finished, implementable output and a recorded walkthrough, and your engineers can start building the day it ends.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Signups grow, activation stays flat | You know the step where people stall, and what it costs |
| The fix is “one more feature” | The fix is ranked by revenue figure and effort |
| New accounts land on an empty screen | New accounts see a first result before setup asks for more |
| “Let’s revisit in Q3” | A monthly cost you can put next to the decision |
The two principals on your first call do the work. There is no junior team behind them.
Co-founder, Head of Product Strategy and Design
MSc in computer engineering, 10+ years in systems and product design.
Co-founder, Design and Communication Principal
20+ years designing for startups and scale-ups, across product design, UX strategy and front-end.
Your funnel data stays with you. A mutual NDA comes before any sensitive conversation, and we never publish client work. How that works.
Partly. CRO tests the page. We start one step earlier: which page is worth testing, and what moving it is worth in ARR.
An internal designer is usually fully booked with feature work. We bring a measured, senior push on one problem and work alongside them. More on that choice.
Work runs in two-week sprints, and the number of sprints depends on scope. The Sprint report sets the scope, so you know the count before the redesign starts.
Read-only access to your product analytics, such as Mixpanel, Amplitude or GA4. Without it we can still audit the product, but the revenue figures cannot be guaranteed.
The Clarity Sprint costs €5,500 to €6,500, or €8,500 with a technical architecture review. The fee is credited in full if you continue within 90 days.
Bring this month’s signups and the share that reached first value. We will tell you whether design can move it.