Does your store force customers to create an account?
Free check. A real browser adds one product to the cart, opens your checkout signed out, and tells you whether a shopper can pay without creating an account.
A real browser walks your store
Signed out, like a first-time shopper: it finds a product, adds it to the cart and opens checkout. The same walk our full audit makes, with the same care: nothing is ever ordered or paid.
It reads the first checkout step
Whether the page demanded a sign-in, whether it reached the step as a guest, and whether that step asks for an email only or for a password as well.
Pass, partial or fail, with what it saw
If the walk cannot reach your checkout, we say so and judge nothing. The same walk also answers the shipping check, shown with your result.
What we check: rule CHK-001 in three parts
Full rule page ›The rule requires that a shopper can pay without creating an account. The verdict comes from the same detector the full audit runs: guest access with an email only passes, guest access that also shows a password field is a partial, and a sign-in wall fails.
| Rule | What we check | Passes when |
|---|---|---|
| CHK-001 · aNo sign-in wall | When the checkout opens, it does not stop the shopper at a sign-in or registration screen. | ✓ pass the checkout opened without an account. |
| CHK-001 · bAn email is enough | The first step asks for an email address to continue, the way a guest checkout does. | ✓ pass an email field was on the first step. |
| CHK-001 · cNo password on the first step | A password field beside the email pushes shoppers toward registering before they have paid. | ✓ pass no password field on the first step. |
Best practices any store should adopt
Each point comes with the reason it matters and the research it rests on. Most of it is a checkout setting, not a rebuild.
A shopper who wants to buy once should not have to become a member first. Put guest checkout beside sign-in, at the same size.
An email alone lets you send the receipt and recover an abandoned order. A password at this point asks for commitment before the shopper has seen the total.
On the thank-you page, creating an account is one click: you already have the email and the address. That is when shoppers say yes.
Returning customers want their saved address. A small sign-in link serves them without blocking everyone else.
Three stores that get it right
All 34 passing stores ›
Related articles
Resources ›
Will this place a test order?
No. The walk stops at the checkout form and never submits payment. Nothing is ordered and nothing is written to your store beyond the one item in a cart that is then abandoned.
My checkout needs a CAPTCHA first. What happens?
If the walk cannot get through, the result says so and judges nothing. We never guess past a wall.
Is this the same as the full audit?
It is one of its 115 rules, from the same walk. The full audit runs all of them, including the other checkout rules, and is free for the score.
This is one rule. The full audit runs 115.
Product page, cart and checkout, scored for human shoppers and for AI shopping agents, with a revenue band on every failing issue.