About 4 minutesGet your cart URL
Open your own site, add anything to the cart, then go to the cart page and copy the address bar. You only need the slug — the part after your domain, starting with the slash. GA4 stores pages that way, so searching the full URL returns nothing.
https://yourstore.com/cart?step=1
/cart
Drop the domain and anything after a ? or #.
Open GA4 and set the window to 12 months
In Google Analytics 4, walk this path in the left rail, then change the date range in the top right. Twelve months smooths out your seasonal swings, so the rate you get is the one you actually run on.
No GA4 access? Anyone on your team with Viewer rights can pull these four numbers in the same four minutes.
Search the cart slug and read active users
Under the graph there is a search box above the table. Paste /cart in it. The table filters to your cart page — take the number in the Active users column, not views. Views count reloads; active users count people.
Repeat for the first checkout step
Go back to your site, click through from the cart to the next screen, and copy that slug too. Search it in the same table and read active users again. This one is optional, but it tells you whether people are quitting at the cart or in the middle of paying — two very different problems.
Repeat for your confirmation page
Same table, one more slug: the page people land on after they pay. Active users there is your completed order count. If your platform reports orders for the same 12 months, that number works just as well — use whichever you trust more.
Add your average order value
Last number. Your platform reports it, or in GA4 it is under Reports → Monetization → Ecommerce purchases. This turns a percentage into a dollar figure, which is the version your finance team will care about.
Typical range for
68% to 75%
Across DTC and retail carts, roughly 7 of every 10 filled carts never get paid for. Anything under 65% is genuinely good.
A rate on its own does not recover anything.
Find out where they quit
If most of the drop is cart to checkout, the problem is usually shipping cost or a forced account. If it is inside checkout, it is friction, fields and payment options.
Follow up with the ones who left
Fixing checkout takes a quarter. Emailing and texting the people who already showed intent starts recovering orders in the first week, on traffic you already paid for.
Re-run it next quarter
Save the four numbers. Pull them again in 90 days and you have a before and after that does not depend on anybody's dashboard or attribution model.
Where this number is solid, and where it's an estimate.
Why active users and not sessions or views?
One person reloading the cart four times is still one lost cart. Active users keeps the ratio to people, which is what a recovery email talks to.
My cart lives in a modal with no URL.
Then use the first checkout step as the top of the funnel instead, and read the rate as checkout abandonment. Same math, slightly kinder number.
Should I use orders from GA4 or from my platform?
Your platform, if the 12-month window matches. GA4 undercounts purchases when consent banners or ad blockers get in the way.
Does this include people who never made a cart?
No, and that is deliberate. This measures intent that got most of the way there — the audience worth following up with.
How much of the abandoned value can I get back?
That depends on your vertical and how many abandoners can be identified, which is what the ROI calculator works out. Take your rate there and it does the rest.