If you've ever wondered whether this audit is worth your time, start here. This page covers what we look at, why each thing matters, and what you get back.
The four things every landing page has to do
A landing page has one job: turn a stranger into a customer. To do that, it has to do four things well. If any one of them breaks, you lose visitors who would have signed up.
- Explain what the product does in plain language.
- Give the visitor a reason to trust you.
- Give the visitor a reason to act now.
- Make the visitor feel something.
Most pages we audit are strong on one of these and weak on three. We check all four, name what's broken, point at the actual line on your page, and tell you which fix to ship first.
The next four sections cover each one.
1. Can a visitor tell what your product does in five seconds?
Open your page. Read only the headline and the line below it. Could you explain to someone who has never heard of you what your product does?
Most pages fail this test.
When we audited 10 SaaS landing pages, the average score was 36 out of 100. A pattern across most of the ten: headlines that named the company instead of the product. Stripe's said "Financial infrastructure for the internet." That tells the reader nothing about why they should care.
We check:
- Whether the headline names the product or just the company
- Whether the page uses words a non-customer wouldn't know
- Whether a visitor can guess what they're being asked to do
- Whether the product's value survives a 5-second scan
- Whether the most important information sits at the top of the page where visitors see it first
Visitors decide in the first few seconds whether the page is for them. If they can't tell, they leave.
2. Has the page given the visitor a reason to trust you?
People don't buy from pages that could belong to anyone. Trust comes from proof you can see:
- Real customer logos (with permission)
- Testimonials with full names, roles, and companies
- Reviews with a visible count
- The founder's photo and name
- Press mentions
- A track record someone can check
We look at what proof is on the page, whether it's specific or vague, and whether the proof matches the size of the ask. A free trial signup needs less proof than a $99-a-month subscription.
We flag these as weak trust:
- Stock-photo testimonials
- Star ratings with no review count
- "Used by thousands" with no source
- Round numbers like "10,000+ users" that look made up
A visitor who isn't sure you're real won't type in their email, no matter how good the product is. We saw this in the audit study: Framer, a design company, scored 0 out of 10 on trust. Their own design wasn't enough. Visitors needed proof that other people use the product. Our guide to building landing page trust covers the specific signals that matter most.
3. Is there a reason to act today instead of "later"?
If a visitor reads your page, agrees with everything, and bookmarks it, you lost them. They won't come back.
Your page needs to give people a reason to act now. Not fake pressure. A real reason. That can be:
- A real deadline (a launch sale, a bonus that ends Friday)
- A limit on spots (only 100 open)
- A current event (the new tax year, the holiday rush)
- A free offer worth trying right now (a free trial, a free audit, a free first month)
- A pain the visitor is already feeling
We check whether the page gives the visitor any of these, and whether the reason is believable. Fake countdown timers and "only 2 left!" tricks lose trust faster than they build it. Our urgency guide covers this in more detail.
The most expensive moment on your site is the visitor who agreed but didn't act. Most of them never come back.
4. Does the page make the visitor feel something?
Logic alone doesn't sell. The pages that get signups have a feeling attached to them: relief, hope, a moment of "yes, finally."
We don't expect every landing page to read like a movie trailer. But we look for whether the page connects with the visitor's real situation. A few checks:
- Does the text name the visitor's actual problem in words they'd use?
- Is the result you promise concrete enough for the visitor to picture?
- Does the page show real people (photos of customers, the founder, a team)?
- Does the writing sound like a person wrote it, or like a template?
A page that's too polished often reads like spam. A founder writing in their own voice gets more signups than a marketing agency writing in nobody's. Our landing page psychology guide covers the research behind why this works.
What's in your report
Every audit returns the same things, in the same order.
A score. A single number, 0 to 100, based on how your page does on the four things above. It's a starting point, not a final grade.
What's working. Things to keep and not break. Most page changes backfire because the founder fixed the wrong thing. We tell you what to leave alone.
What's broken. Specific issues, with quotes from your page. We point at the actual line, not "your headline could be stronger."
Fixes, in order. The fixes are ranked by what we'd ship first. Some are 5-minute wins. Some are bigger. Start at the top.
Text rewrites (paid only). Three of your most important lines, usually the headline, the subheadline, and the main button, rewritten in several ways, with notes on why each version works.
What might backfire (paid only). Some "best practice" changes hurt your specific page. We flag those before you ship them.
What we leave out on purpose
The audit is better because of what it skips:
- Page speed. Use Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix for that. We compared our audit to Lighthouse if you're wondering which to use when.
- Accessibility. Use axe or WAVE.
- Search ranking. Different problem, different tools. Ahrefs and Semrush handle this.
- Code quality. That's between you and your developer.
- A/B testing. We tell you what to change. The test confirms whether it worked.
If a tool says it does all of these, it does none of them well. We picked one job and tried to be good at it.
What this audit won't replace
It won't replace talking to your actual users. We can estimate what visitors think based on what's on the page. Talking to real customers tells you for sure. The audit is faster and cheaper. Use it as a starting point, then talk to customers when you can.
It won't replace testing. We tell you what's likely broken and what's worth changing. Whether your numbers move is what the test answers.
And it can't guarantee a specific result. We can't predict your signup rate after you ship a fix. Nobody can. What we can tell you is what's likely costing you sales right now, and which fix to ship first. Our self-audit checklist is a good companion to this report if you want to go deeper on your own.
How to read the report
Treat the score as a starting point. A 70 is decent. A 40 means you're losing visitors on basics. Focus on shipping the fixes. The score follows.
Start with the top fix. We ranked them for a reason. Some founders skim the list and pick the easiest one. The top fix is usually the highest-impact one, even when it's harder.
Re-run the audit after you ship the change. The score should move. If it didn't, the change wasn't the right one. Try the next fix on the list.
Why we built this
When a founder hires someone to review their landing page, the first 30 minutes of that person's work is exactly what this tool does: open the page, look at it with fresh eyes, and write down what's broken and what to fix first.
We've automated the parts that can be automated. This doesn't replace someone who'll spend a week with your team digging into your entire sales process. It does the work they'd do in that first session, for $7 during beta.
If your page is losing visitors and you don't have the budget to hire someone to tell you why, run a free audit and see what comes back.
Try it
Paste your URL on the home page and you'll have a report in about a minute.