How to Calculate Your Website Conversion Rate

Your conversion rate is the single most important metric on your website. It tells you, bluntly, how well your site turns visitors into customers. Yet most website owners have no idea what theirs is — or what it should be.

The Formula

Conversion rate = (Number of conversions ÷ Number of visitors) × 100

Example: 50 purchases from 2,000 visitors = 2.5% conversion rate. Simple. The hard part is knowing what to do with that number.

What Counts as a Conversion?

A conversion is any action you want a visitor to take. It could be a purchase, a form submission, a phone call, a free trial signup, or a newsletter subscription. Define your primary conversion goal before you measure anything.

Industry Benchmarks

E-commerce

Average sits between 1% and 3%. Top performers hit 4-5%. If you're below 1%, your product pages, checkout flow, or trust signals need urgent work.

SaaS

Free trial signups typically convert at 2-5%. Paid plan conversions from free trial users average 15-25%. If your free-to-paid rate is under 10%, your onboarding is broken.

B2B Services

Lead generation pages (contact forms, quote requests) average 0.5-2%. High-trust industries like accounting or law can reach 3-4% with strong social proof.

What's a "Good" Conversion Rate?

The honest answer: better than last month. A 0.5% improvement compounded over 12 months is transformational. Don't compare yourself to industry averages — compare yourself to your past performance.

Tools to Measure It

The Most Common Mistake

Sending more traffic to a low-converting page. If your conversion rate is 0.5% and you double your ad spend, you'll double your revenue — but you'll also double your wasted spend. Fix the page first. Then scale the traffic.

For a quick diagnosis of what's holding your rate back, check our guide on 7 signs your website is killing conversions and our intro to A/B testing for beginners.