Exit Rate
Exit rate is the percentage of pageviews on a specific page that were the last in a user's session, measuring how often a particular page is the final one viewed before leaving.
Also known as: page exit rate, exit percentage
Formula
(Exits from Page / Total Views of Page) x 100
Why It Matters
Exit rate helps you identify where users are dropping out of your site experience. Unlike bounce rate, which only applies to landing pages, exit rate applies to every page and considers users who arrived from other pages on your site. This makes it valuable for identifying weak points in multi-page flows like checkout processes or onboarding sequences.
A high exit rate is not always bad. Your "thank you" page after a purchase should have a near-100% exit rate. Your order confirmation email page will naturally have a high exit rate. The metric becomes actionable when a page that should drive users forward - like a cart page or a product comparison page - has an unexpectedly high exit rate.
By comparing exit rates across pages in a flow, you can pinpoint exactly where the friction is. If your checkout flow shows exit rates of 15%, 12%, 45%, and 8% across four steps, the third step clearly has a problem worth investigating.
How to Calculate
Exit rate for a page is calculated by dividing the number of times that page was the last in a session by the total number of views that page received. If a pricing page was viewed 2,000 times and was the last page in 600 sessions, its exit rate is 30%.
Exit Rate Calculator
(Exits from Page / Total Views of Page) x 100
Industry Applications
A furniture retailer identifies that their shipping information page has a 58% exit rate during checkout. By moving shipping cost estimates earlier in the flow, they reduce the exit rate to 22% and increase completed orders.
A SaaS product finds a 40% exit rate on the credit card entry step of their signup flow. Adding a "start free trial without a card" option reduces the exit rate to 15% and triples trial signups.
How to Track in KISSmetrics
In KISSmetrics, use funnel reports to see where users exit multi-step flows. The funnel visualization shows drop-off rates at each step, which is effectively the exit rate for each stage of the process. For individual pages, analyze user paths to see what percentage of visitors leave the site after viewing a specific page.
Common Mistakes
- -Confusing exit rate with bounce rate - bounce rate only applies to sessions that start on a page, while exit rate applies to all pageviews of that page.
- -Treating high exit rates as universally bad without considering whether the page is a natural endpoint.
- -Looking at exit rate in isolation instead of comparing it within the context of a flow or user journey.
- -Not segmenting exit rates by traffic source, which can reveal that the problem is audience mismatch rather than page quality.
Pro Tips
- +Create a list of pages that should NOT be exit points (cart, checkout steps, pricing) and monitor their exit rates as a health metric.
- +When a page has a high exit rate, examine what users do on the page before leaving - scroll depth, click patterns, and error encounters can reveal why.
- +Compare exit rates between desktop and mobile for the same pages to identify device-specific UX issues.
- +Use exit rate trends over time rather than absolute numbers to detect when changes (redesigns, new copy) positively or negatively impact user flow.
Related Terms
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions in which a user lands on a page and leaves the site without triggering any additional page loads or tracked events.
Funnel Analysis
Funnel analysis is a method of visualizing and measuring how users progress through a defined sequence of steps toward a goal, identifying where they drop off and quantifying conversion rates between each stage.
Pageview
A pageview is a single instance of a page being loaded or reloaded in a browser, counted each time a user views a page regardless of whether they have visited it before.
Session
A session is a group of user interactions with a website or application that take place within a defined time window, typically ending after 30 minutes of inactivity.
Path Analysis
Path analysis is a visualization technique that maps the actual sequences of pages, screens, or events users take through a product, revealing common navigation patterns, unexpected detours, and the most frequent routes to conversion or drop-off.
See Exit Rate in action
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