How one button almost killed our conversions
Happy Monday, Indie Hackers! I’m Kate — building migroot.io, a platform that simplifies document prep and relocation for digital nomads.
Quick story on how one button nearly tanked our freemium experiment.
When we first launched the free DIY visa tracker, our signup button said:
👉 “Continue to checkout”
Guess what?
Zero conversions. People didn’t click it. At all.
We changed it to:
👉 “Create Account”
…and boom — people started signing up.
Here’s the twist:
The auth tool we use only offered “Con” as a default. No idea why — it’s literally a blocker for freemium users. Wild.
Moral of the story?
Words matter. Especially on buttons.
Tiny details can kill or save your funnel.
Have you had something similar happen? Would love to hear your UX horror stories 👀👇
What a great post! Thanks for sharing this. It is so important to look at every aspect of a site and what it does, how it feels, how it functions, who is it for and how it makes them feel. So, true what you said. "Words matter. Especially on buttons."!
I was QA manager for an automotive glass manufacturer years ago and not only did we focus on the specs, we focused on the message as well. I find it incredibly interesting that there isn't a big push to help indie developers do QA for their products.
I'm about to change that.
Thanks again for this. Very encouraging.
Wow! this is such a powerful reminder of how small tweaks can make a massive difference. Love how transparent you are with the lesson too. Definitely rethinking my own CTA buttons now!
This post is gold. It’s crazy how something as small as a button can silently sabotage conversions — and we don’t even realize it until we dig deep. Really appreciate how openly you shared the problem and the fix. It’s a reminder that in product-building, even the tiniest details carry weight. Loved the clarity in your breakdown — learned a lot!
2 years ago I was running an AB test, to check if changing such button label from “create account” to “create free account” would make a difference.
Inconclusive!
That's a fact. Psychology is what it's all about, and most of it is super subtle.
Button size, shape, color, font, and text are all factors that will affect how many ppl click it.
Keep tweaking things!