Checkout survey questions: 30 examples by friction type
Checkout survey questions organized by friction type, with response options, completion rate benchmarks, and timing guidance to boost response rates.
Checkout surveys are one of the most direct ways to find out where your purchase flow breaks down. But they only work if you ask the right thing at the right moment. Too many questions and completion rates fall off a cliff. Generic questions and you get data that doesn't tell you what to fix.
The 30 questions below are organized by the type of friction they diagnose, with response options included so you can drop them straight into a survey. There's also guidance on timing, length, and what to do with the answers.
Checkout survey questions by friction type
The most useful checkout surveys don't ask about everything. They ask about one specific problem at a time. Here are questions organized by the friction point they're designed to surface.
Checkout friction and ease questions
These questions measure how hard your checkout process is to complete. They feed directly into Customer Effort Score (CES) data and tell you where to focus a redesign.
- How easy was it to complete your purchase today?
- Rating scale: 1 (very difficult) to 5 (very easy)
- Did you run into any problems during checkout?
- Yes, a payment error or declined card
- Yes, the page timed out or wouldn't load
- Yes, a coupon or promo code didn't work
- Yes, I got confused by a required field
- No problems
- Other (please specify)
- Were there any steps in the checkout process that felt unnecessary?
- Yes (please describe)
- No, the steps made sense
- How many steps did checkout take compared to what you expected?
- Fewer steps than expected
- About what I expected
- More steps than expected (it felt too long)
- What one thing would make our checkout process easier?
- Open-ended text field
Payment experience questions
Payment friction is one of the most common reasons customers abandon at checkout. These questions identify whether the issue is trust, options, or technical failure.
- Were your preferred payment options available?
- Yes, I found what I needed
- No, I wanted to pay with a method that wasn't listed
- I wasn't sure which options were accepted
- Did you feel confident that your payment information was secure?
- Very confident
- Somewhat confident
- Not confident (I had concerns)
- I didn't get to the payment step
- Was there any moment during payment where you almost abandoned your order?
- Yes, when I saw the payment form
- Yes, when I entered my card details
- Yes, when I saw an unexpected charge or fee
- No, the payment step was fine
- Did the payment process take longer than you expected?
- Yes, it felt slow
- No, it was fast
- I abandoned before completing payment
Trust and security questions
These questions surface doubts visitors have about your site's credibility. These doubts often go unspoken because visitors just leave instead of asking.
- Before completing your purchase, did you have any concerns about our site?
- Yes, I wasn't sure the site was legitimate
- Yes, I was unsure about the returns or refund policy
- Yes, I couldn't find enough customer reviews
- No concerns
- Other (please specify)
- Was there enough information on the checkout page to feel confident about your purchase?
- Yes, everything I needed was there
- I wanted to see more customer reviews
- I couldn't find the return or refund policy easily
- I wasn't sure about shipping guarantees
- Other (please specify)
- What would have made you feel more confident completing your purchase today?
- Open-ended text field
Shipping and pricing questions
Unexpected shipping costs are the most frequently cited reason for cart abandonment. These questions tell you whether pricing is the problem or whether it's a communication gap.
- Were you surprised by the shipping cost at checkout?
- Yes, it was higher than I expected
- No, the shipping cost was what I expected
- I qualified for free shipping
- I decided not to complete my order because of the shipping cost
- How did our shipping options compare to your expectations?
- More options than I expected
- About what I expected
- Fewer options than I expected
- I wanted an option that wasn't available (please specify)
- Was the estimated delivery timeframe acceptable?
- Yes, it worked for my needs
- No, I needed it faster
- No, I needed a specific delivery date that wasn't available
- Delivery timeframe wasn't shown clearly
- Did the total at checkout match what you expected when you added items to your cart?
- Yes, it matched my expectation
- No, there were extra charges I didn't expect
- I'm not sure (I didn't check before adding to cart)
Conversion rate optimization questions
These questions target the gap between "I want this" and "I bought it." They're designed to surface the last-minute hesitations that kill conversions.
- What was the main reason you almost didn't complete your purchase today?
- Price was higher than my budget
- I found a better deal elsewhere
- I decided to wait and come back later
- I had an unresolved question about the product
- A technical issue slowed me down
- I completed my purchase without hesitation
- Other (please specify)
- Was there anything about the checkout page layout that was confusing?
- Yes (please describe)
- No, the layout was clear
- Did you need to find any additional information before completing your purchase?
- Yes, I looked for the return policy
- Yes, I wanted to verify product details
- Yes, I looked for coupon codes
- No, I had everything I needed
- Would you describe our checkout process as simple?
- Yes, it was simple
- Mostly simple, with one or two rough spots
- No, it was complicated
- I didn't complete checkout
Post-checkout experience questions
These go on the order confirmation page right after a completed purchase. They capture sentiment while the experience is fresh and give you satisfaction data you can track over time.
- How would you rate your overall checkout experience today?
- Rating scale: 1 (very poor) to 5 (excellent)
- Was there anything about your checkout experience that surprised you in a good way?
- Open-ended text field
- How likely are you to return and purchase from us again?
- Very likely
- Likely
- Not sure
- Unlikely
- Is there anything else we should know about your experience today?
- Open-ended text field
- How did you first hear about us?
- Search engine (Google, Bing, etc.)
- Social media
- Friend or family recommendation
- Email or newsletter
- Online ad
- I've purchased from you before
- Other (please specify)
Mobile checkout questions
Mobile checkout has its own friction points: small tap targets, slow page loads, and auto-fill failures that don't show up in desktop testing. If your traffic skews mobile, these questions belong in a dedicated survey.
- Did you complete checkout on a mobile device?
- Yes, on a smartphone
- Yes, on a tablet
- No, I used a laptop or desktop
- Did you encounter any issues with the mobile layout during checkout?
- Yes, some buttons or links were hard to tap
- Yes, the page loaded slowly
- Yes, text was too small to read comfortably
- No mobile issues
- I didn't use a mobile device
- How easy was it to enter your information on your mobile device?
- Rating scale: 1 (very difficult) to 5 (very easy)
- Did auto-fill work correctly on your device?
- Yes, auto-fill worked
- Partially (I had to correct some fields)
- No, auto-fill didn't work
- I didn't use auto-fill
- What one thing would improve the mobile checkout experience?
- Open-ended text field
Turn these into a checkout survey in minutes
The post-purchase survey template gives you a pre-structured starting point you can customize with any of the questions above. Add your friction-type questions, set the trigger to fire on your order confirmation page, and you're collecting data that day.
Three things that make checkout surveys worth setting up:
- Question logic routes customers past questions that don't apply to them. A customer who completed checkout without issues doesn't need to answer abandonment questions.
- Confirmation page timing catches customers at peak recall. They just finished the experience and the details are fresh.
- Built-in response dashboards aggregate answers automatically so you can see your top friction points without exporting to another tool.
The purchase experience use case page covers how to build a feedback program across the full buying journey, not just checkout.
Why each checkout question type matters
Checkout questions aren't interchangeable. The format you choose determines what kind of data you get and how quickly you can act on it.
Ease rating questions
A single "How easy was checkout?" question on a 1-to-5 scale gives you a Customer Effort Score for your checkout flow. Low scores flag friction without requiring a follow-up question. High scores confirm what's working and shouldn't be touched during a redesign.
- Metric alignment: Customer Effort Score, checkout abandonment rate
- Bias control: Use consistent scale anchors across all your surveys. "1 (difficult)" and "1 (very difficult)" produce different distributions on the same five-point scale. Lock in your anchors and don't change them.
- Data utility: Average CES scores by device type, traffic source, and browser. A checkout flow that works on desktop and fails on mobile is a specific, fixable problem.
Multiple-choice friction questions
Multiple-choice questions like "What stopped you from completing your purchase?" produce ranked data you can share with your development or design team as a prioritized fix list. They outperform open-ended questions on checkout surveys because customers who have just completed a transaction are in click-not-type mode.
- Metric alignment: Conversion rate, page-specific abandonment rate
- Bias control: Include "Other" in every multiple-choice list, and keep choices mutually exclusive. If customers frequently write the same thing in "Other," that answer should become a standard option in your next survey version.
- Data utility: Track frequency changes over time. A friction point that spikes after a site update is almost certainly caused by that update.
Open-ended questions
Ask one open-ended question per checkout survey, placed at the end and marked optional. These capture edge cases your multiple-choice options don't cover and often surface product or policy issues that weren't on your radar.
- Metric alignment: Qualitative insight, product roadmap, policy gaps
- Bias control: Keep the question specific and neutral. "What would make checkout easier?" gets different responses than "What went wrong?" Choose the one that fits your goal.
- Data utility: Read batches of 50 to 100 responses. Look for repeated phrases. Three customers independently mentioning that the coupon field is hard to find is more actionable than one customer's detailed narrative.
Checkout survey question categories
The table below maps categories to the moment they work best.
| Category | Research goal | Best timing | Recommended length | Key metric |
| Checkout ease | Measure friction in the checkout flow | Order confirmation page | One question | Customer Effort Score |
| Payment experience | Find out why customers hesitated at payment | Order confirmation page | Two questions | Payment abandonment rate |
| Trust and security | Surface doubts that caused hesitation | Exit intent on checkout page | One or two questions | Trust score |
| Shipping and pricing | Understand whether cost surprises caused abandonment | Exit intent on cart page | Two questions | Unexpected cost abandonment rate |
| Post-checkout satisfaction | Capture overall sentiment | Order confirmation page | Two to three questions | Customer Satisfaction Score |
| Mobile checkout | Diagnose friction specific to small-screen checkout | Order confirmation (mobile only) | Two questions | Mobile conversion rate |
Frequently asked questions about checkout survey questions
- When should a checkout survey appear?
- What's the difference between a checkout survey and a post-purchase survey?
- Which checkout questions get the highest response rates?
Ready to set up your first checkout survey?
SurveyMonkey surveys make it easy to add the friction-type questions above to an order confirmation page and start collecting data the same day.
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