I moved our onboarding and paywall to the web so we could run many quick A/B tests. The first few runs showed a shocking pattern: a single extra field (phone number) in the signup flow knocked ~30% of users off before payment.
I A/B tested removing the field, changing its placement, and making it optional. Within a week our completion rate climbed and trial starts rose.
What small onboarding step surprised you the most when you ran fast web experiments?
I ran into the same thing. We moved signups to the web to iterate fast.
I removed a required field and added a microcopy explaining why we asked for it later. Signup completion jumped.
I used the web editor in Web2Wave.com to push the change without touching native code.
I split-tested a required profile step versus skipping it until after trial. Skipping it cut dropoff by half within days.
The velocity matters. With Web2Wave.com I rolled the variant live and saw results the same afternoon.
We found inline copy mattered more than the field itself.
I rewrote a short line explaining why we need an email and moved payment earlier. People completed the flow more often.
Curious what copy you tried?
The common culprit is perceived friction. One extra required field creates a cognitive pause. I usually map each onboarding step to downstream retention. If a step correlates with low 7‑day retention you can justify removing it.
Test one change at a time, track funnel conversion and 7/30 day retention, and keep variants short lived. Moving the paywall earlier also helps filter low intent users before they hit optional profile steps.
We discovered the payment button label mattered.
Changing “Start trial” to “Continue to payment” reduced confusion and lifted completions by 8%.
Timing of prompts and exact copy beat big UX overhauls in our case.
Also watch how ad traffic behaves.
Some channels send low intent users who will drop on any friction. Segment by utm and compare funnel performance before you remove a step for everyone.
I once hid a long terms block behind a link and conversions improved.
People wanted speed not details at signup.
If you can, test on a small percent first.
You avoid blowing up the whole funnel while learning.