Onboarding Audit.

A free audit of everything between signup and first real value, and what it costs you.

No call attached. Results land by email. Run by Michael Berliner, who led product growth at MasterClass and built product-led growth at Calm.

A step-by-step teardown of your signup flow through the first session. We walk what you send us, count what each screen asks and what it gives back, and mark where first value actually lands relative to every account, payment, and permission ask in front of it.

Activation is a lens inside this audit rather than a separate product. The same walkthrough that shows the steps shows whether the moment you call activation is reachable, so we read both in one pass.

The one rule that shapes it: we only make claims about steps we were shown. Anything the walkthrough does not cover gets named as unobserved rather than inferred, which is why the audit tells you what to go capture as often as it tells you what to change.

What you get back

The observed step table, with what each step asks and returns
The prioritized changes, ordered by what has to run first rather than by score
Your onboarding benchmarks, pulled from the cut matching the surface you actually showed us
An activation lens and the full ICE-ranked backlog in the appendix

It starts the moment you submit. Results usually land in your inbox within a couple of hours.

What it looks like

SampleKettlebrook· fictional sample, built to show the format

Fictional sample app. Kettlebrook is invented, and its twelve screens were built to illustrate the format. The method, the benchmarks and the sourcing are the real ones.

Eight asks stand between install and the first workout this app is sold for, and the 12-week block those asks build is never shown before the price list. The four questions do real personalization work and the app spends it on a loader: the screen straight after is three prices and a Save 56% badge. Start by putting the block on screen between those two, built from the bell weight and the training days the user just gave you.

The flow we observed (excerpt)

#	Step	Asks	Gives
2	Create account	Email and password, Continue disabled until both filled	Nothing
3	Notification permission	iOS system dialog, Allow or Don't Allow	Nothing
8	Loader	Nothing	Building your 12-week block, segment 5 of 5
9	Paywall	Plan choice, annual $79.99 preselected, trial toggle off	Three prices and a Save 56% badge
12	Workout detail	One tap: Start workout	Week 1 Day 1, three named exercises, live Start button

Request yours

Everything below is what the audit actually needs to run. Nothing extra.

What the product isTwo or three lines, plain language. What it does and who for.What "activated" means here (optional)Optional. The first-session moment where a new user gets real value, in your words. Leave it blank and the audit names a candidate from the observed flow and labels it a proposal, not a confirmed definition.Category / verticalBe specific. The category narrows the benchmark after the profile axes below.

Access model

The biggest single swing. A gated free tier with an early paywall is still freemium.

Hard paywall (no free path)Freemium / soft (a free path exists)

Is the AI the product?

Not whether you use AI — nearly every app does now. We mean whether the AI is the thing being sold. AI-native apps start trials at about half the rate, so they get their own column, and an app with an AI feature in it does not belong there.

Yes — the AI is the product. Take it out and there is nothing to sellNo — AI is a feature, or there is none

Where do most of your subscribers convert?

Answer with the store your walkthrough actually shows. This audit covers app onboarding: we have no web platform benchmark to read, and we will not quietly substitute app-store rows for a browser signup flow.

iOSGoogle Play

The one outcome this audit should pay offIn your terms. It becomes the spine of the audit, and every judgment call gets decided against it.Notes on your screens (optional)Optional. The screens themselves go in the upload at the bottom of this form, and that is what we rate. Use this box for anything that helps us read them: what order they are in, where signup ends and the first session begins, and a recording link if you have one. A recording on its own is not enough, because we only rate steps we can actually see.Your nameWhere should we send the results?

Your flow, screen by screenThis is the audit. Every step in order, from the first signup screen through the first real session, including permission prompts and any paywall that fires inside the flow. File names sort, so number them if the order matters. Images and PDFs only -- we cannot read a video file, so if you have a recording, screenshot it and send the frames.

We only use your email to send your results and to ask a follow-up question if the audit needs one. No list, no sharing. Anything you upload is stored privately, used for your audit, and deleted on a schedule.