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Guide 50 · Ecommerce · GA4 + Tag Manager

Read the Checkout journey funnel: begin checkout to purchase, and which checkout step loses buyers

Checked 11 November 2026 · Verification: reference file checked in Python (figures recomputed from the worked example) · Steps traced to Google's developer docs and Analytics Help, opened 11 November 2026 · 5-minute read

The Checkout journey is the four-step funnel inside checkout — begin checkout, add shipping, add payment, purchase — fed by the three checkout events and the purchase.

Expected signal

After the events flow, Reports, then Life cycle, then Monetization, then Checkout journey shows all four steps. In the worked funnel below, 96 checkouts become 41 purchases — 42.7 percent overall — for 2,954.05 in purchase revenue at 72.05 per order.

Download the reference: the checkout-journey-funnel reference (JSON) (678 bytes, MD5 c57460153a8fb1c20c3888c456d75c97). It holds the event parameters, the worked example, and the recomputed figures.

What you need

  • The three checkout events and the purchase. Begin checkout needs begin_checkout, add shipping needs add_shipping_info, add payment needs add_payment_info, and purchase needs purchase. A missing event leaves its step empty.
  • One worked funnel to read against. The counts below are the worked example's inputs, labelled as such; the rates and the revenue are recomputed from them.

The trace

  1. Open the report in the Life cycle collection. In Analytics, click Reports on the left, then Life cycle, then Monetization, then Checkout journey. The report is a funnel report that shows the number and percentage of users who start the checkout process and then complete each following step.
  2. Read the four steps in order. The steps are Begin checkout, Add delivery, Add payment, and Purchase. In the worked funnel, 96 users begin checkout, 71 add shipping, 58 add payment, and 41 purchase. The report shows the count and the abandonment rate under each step.
  3. Read the step rates, not just the counts. Add shipping keeps 71 out of 96, or 74.0 percent. Add payment keeps 58 out of 71, or 81.7 percent. Purchase keeps 41 out of 58, or 70.7 percent. The overall rate is 41 out of 96, or 42.7 percent. The weakest step in the worked funnel is the last one: nearly three in ten buyers who reach payment never complete the order.
  4. Turn the final step into revenue. The 41 purchases at the worked order value of 72.05 come to 41 × 72.05 = 2,954.05 in purchase revenue. The 55 checkouts that did not finish are the gap the funnel exists to measure.
  5. Fix the empty step at its event, not in the report. The Add delivery step is fed by add_shipping_info alone, and the Add payment step by add_payment_info alone. A checkout journey with an empty second step means the shipping event is missing; an empty third step means the payment event is missing. The steps in these reports cannot be customized.

Dead ends

DEAD END — THE EMPTY SECOND STEP. A checkout journey with no Add delivery step is telling you add_shipping_info is not being sent. Shopify's native integration, for example, does not send it by default. The funnel cannot be fixed in the report; the event has to be implemented.

DEAD END — READING THE FUNNEL AS OPEN. Both journey reports are closed funnels by default: a user must pass through the earlier steps to count in a later one. A purchase that arrived without a recorded add_shipping_info does not count in the purchase step of this funnel, even though the order exists in the revenue reports.

DEAD END — BLAMING THE LAST STEP FIRST. The last step is usually the weakest in absolute terms, but the biggest loss in the worked funnel is between payment and purchase only after the earlier steps are read. Compare the step rates before deciding which step to fix: the shipping step loses 26.0 percent of checkouts, and the payment step loses 29.3 percent of the rest.

End state

The Checkout journey reads as four counts — 96, 71, 58, 41 — with step rates 74.0, 81.7, and 70.7 percent, an overall rate of 42.7 percent, and 2,954.05 in purchase revenue at 72.05 per order. The funnel is fed by begin_checkout, add_shipping_info, add_payment_info, and purchase; a missing event leaves its step empty.

Sources

Checked 11 November 2026. The report structure above is the one in Analytics Help and Google's ecommerce guide, both opened 11 November 2026. The worked funnel's counts are the example's stated inputs; the rates and revenue were recomputed in Python: 71 out of 96 is 74.0 percent, 58 out of 71 is 81.7 percent, 41 out of 58 is 70.7 percent, 41 out of 96 is 42.7 percent, and 41 × 72.05 = 2,954.05. No step was run inside a live Analytics property, because that needs a Google sign-in and this site does not sign in as anyone.