CHK-001Checkout · structureCritical

Guest checkout offered as first-class option (no account wall)

Guest checkout is offered as a first-class option at the account-selection step.

Check my store for this rule →Cite this

Free · no card · runs all rules at once · judged on 39 stores · updated 23 Sep 2026

3%of the audited stores we could judge fail this rule

34 pass4 partial1 failPublished audits · September 2026

Stores judged

of 40 published audits

Score weight

2.0pts

of the 100-point score

Page share

50%

of the score is the checkout

What earns each verdict

Same outcomes on every UXFix rule · how verdicts work

✓ Pass34

Guest option visible without scrolling AND presented as equal-or-greater prominence vs sign-in.

~ Partial4

Guest option exists but is buried below fold, small text link, or requires expanding a section (Baymard's '62% fail prominence' case).

✕ Fail1

No guest option; forced account creation.

not assessable is recorded when the rule applied but the store could not be judged on it (bot protection, a region lock, a step we could not reach), and not applicable when the store has nothing for the rule to judge. Those stores are left out of every number on this page, never guessed. Why we do that

Why it matters

Guest checkout is missing or buried; the checkout pushes shoppers to sign in or register first.

Forced account creation is the #2 reason for checkout abandonment in Baymard's research, right after surprise costs.

That sentence is the one a failing store sees in its own UXFix report.How rules are weighted and scored →

39 audited stores, one dot each

1 fail

PassPartialFail

Every published UXFix audit this rule could be judged on, as of 23 Sep 2026. A count of real stores, not a simulation of yours.

How we test it

Scripted walk, fresh signed-out browser · the full walk

1Fresh browserSigned out, cookies cleared, desktop and mobile viewports, the store's live theme.
2Open a productA real, in-stock product page, found the way a shopper finds one.
3Add to cartDefault variant, quantity one, then the cart page itself.
4Walk the checkoutFrom the cart to the payment step. Nothing is ever bought.
5Judge this ruleAgainst the standard above, on what a shopper can see.
6Record the verdictPass, partial or fail, saved with the screenshot it was judged on.

What the agent looks for

Guest checkout is offered as a first-class option at the account-selection step.

Confidence

The rulebook rates this check’s confidence High. When the agent is not sure, the rule is recorded as not assessable rather than guessed.

Not judged

1 of 40 published audits: the rule did not apply or could not be judged. Dropped, never guessed.

The numbers behind the rule

Published UXFix audits · more statistics

Published audits failing this rule

1Ladounladoun.com41

No pictures here yet: none of the audits above saved a marked area for this rule.

34 stores that do it right →All published audits

Where this rule sits among 103 UX rules

Most-failed rank

#74

Score weight rank

Fail rate

Score weight: a fail costs 2.0 pts of of the 100-point score; a partial costs half that. Most-failed rank is among the 79 rules with enough published audits to report a rate.

The fix

The same steps a failing store sees in its report

A pass means: Guest option visible without scrolling AND presented as equal-or-greater prominence vs sign-in.

Severity

Critical

Score gain

+2.0pts

Page

Checkout

Score gain is roughly what a fail-to-pass change adds; rules that could not be judged are left out, which can move it a little. Re-run a free audit after the change ships to confirm the verdict moved.

Checklist for the pass

0 of 3

Tick each step as you ship it. The audit judges the live store, so re-run it once all of them are done.