Quick Answer
- Email signup: 3-5% is healthy · 5-10% is excellent · <1% means broken.
- Free trial: 1-3% from cold paid traffic · 3-7% from warm traffic.
- Paid trial / direct paid: 0.5-2% on cold traffic · 2-5% on warm.
- The headline drives 80% of variance. Test it before anything else.
- Warm traffic converts 3-10× better than cold. Don't compare your cold-paid numbers to a competitor's referral numbers.
A good SaaS landing page conversion rate depends on the action and the traffic source. Rough benchmarks: 3-5% to email signup is healthy; 1-3% to free trial; 0.5-2% to paid trial; 0.1-0.5% to paid annual contract on cold traffic.
Conversion benchmarks by action and traffic source
| Action | Cold paid traffic | Warm traffic | Referral / WOM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email signup | 2-5% | 5-12% | 10-25% |
| Free trial (CC-free) | 1-3% | 3-7% | 8-15% |
| Free trial (CC required) | 0.5-1.5% | 1.5-4% | 4-8% |
| Paid trial / "buy" | 0.5-2% | 2-5% | 5-10% |
| Annual contract | 0.1-0.5% | 0.5-2% | 2-5% |
Email-signup conversion zones (cold paid)
The headline drives 80% of variance
If your conversion rate is below 1%, don't redesign the button colour or restructure the page. The headline is wrong — change it. The headline alone accounts for ~80% of landing-page conversion-rate variance.
Why traffic source matters so much
Warm traffic (newsletter sponsorships, partnership intros, customer referrals) converts 3-10× better than cold paid traffic. The visitor arrives with context, trust, and intent that cold paid traffic can't replicate.
"Our competitor converts at 8% to free trial" usually means their traffic is mostly warm (newsletter, referrals, organic). If you're running 100% cold paid ads at 2.5%, you're not behind — you're measuring a different funnel.