What is form abandonment, and what to do about it

Facts checked on October 11, 2026, each against its source. Every number links to where it came from.

Measuring it

Two counts: people who started (answered at least one question) and people who sent it. Analytics tools offer the same split; Google Analytics records a form_start and a form_submit event, so you can compare how many started a form with how many submitted it¹.

Count people, not page loads, and decide what "started" means before you look. Wunderly's definitions are on how we count; when a case is unclear, it counts less.

We don't quote an industry abandonment rate here: we didn't find one measured in a way we could check.

What helps

• Ask for less. Every question you cut is one fewer place to stop.
• Break long forms into steps, and say how many. The W3C's accessibility tutorials suggest dividing long forms into steps, saying how many steps follow, and showing progress².
• Never ask twice. WCAG 2.2's Redundant Entry criterion asks that information already given in a process is filled in or offered, not typed again³.
• No time limits. If one is unavoidable, let people extend it².
• Save as people type. Leaving shouldn't mean losing what they wrote, and coming back should land them where they stopped (how Wunderly does it).
• Show the price before asking for an email. Asking for an address first makes people pay to see the number. Wunderly never asks before the price.

After they leave

Look at who left and where. If most stop at the same question, that question is the problem. If they left an email and said a reminder was fine, one short email can bring them back; more than one is nagging. Wunderly sends one, ever, and only to people who were told first⁴.

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