Test demand with a landing page before you build

When does it fit?

• You want to stop a weak idea cheaply, before building: Eric Ries notes that a simple ad-driven smoke test would have shown how bad one concept was.^[1]
• You will follow up with every signup: a waitlist tool maker on Indie Hackers says a 3% signup rate where half write back is more promising than 15% of silence.^[8]

When should you skip it?

• You need proof that people will pay: Lenny Rachitsky reports waitlist-to-paid conversion of 5% to 25% in founders' experience.^[5]
• You can only get a few dozen visitors: small samples give wide ranges, and Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro show 7 of 10 to be compatible with anything from 39% to 90%.^[6]

How do you run it?

1. Write one page

   Your one-liner, who it is for, what it does, and one email form. No product needed.

2. Bring cold traffic from your segment

   Communities you take part in, or a small ad budget aimed at your segment. Friends and existing followers inflate the rate.

3. Count by source

   Keep warm and cold traffic apart: email traffic converts far higher than ads.

4. Write to every signup

   Ask one question about their problem. Replies tell you more than the signup count.

5. Ask for a stronger commitment

   A call booked, a pre-order or a deposit, counted separately from emails.

6. Decide on enough data

   A few hundred cold visits give a usable rate; a few dozen do not.

What usually happens?

• Median rates are modest: Unbounce reports a 6.6% median across industries, from over 41 thousand landing pages, and 3.8% for software pages.^[2][3][4]
• The channel matters: on Unbounce's software pages, Instagram traffic converted at a 9.2% median and Facebook at 3.5%.^[4]

Who has done it, and what happened?

Each case is one team's own report: what happened to them, not a typical result.

• Martynas Kadiša, testing an idea for automated weekly email reports2022, Negative result

  Ran waitlist experiments for two months: paid ads on Google, Twitter and Facebook, a BetaList feature, and posts in Reddit, Slack and Discord communities.

  Martynas Kadiša reports 7 signups in total and dropped the idea before building it.^[9]

  No visits, spend or signup rate reported, so the result cannot be compared with a benchmark.

• Brent G, validating a micro-SaaS idea2023, Mixed result

  Spent about $10 a day on Google Ads for 4 days, pointing to a "Coming Soon" page with an email form.

  Brent G reports 136 clicks from about 1.6K impressions and about 17 emails.^[7]

  A tiny sample over 4 days with no later outcome, and a reply in the same thread doubts that an email proves demand.

• Preston Chin, launching a cohort program2025, Mixed result

  Built a waitlist for five weeks across social platforms, ran a free preview course, then emailed the waitlist daily during the sale.

  Preston Chin reports that 442 people joined the waitlist and only 9 bought.^[10]

  A course sold to a warm audience rather than software tested on cold traffic, and automatic additions inflated the waitlist.

What does the evidence say against it?

• The benchmark flatters itself: Unbounce excludes pages with fewer than 50 visitors or no conversions from its data.^[3]
• An email is a cheap signal: one reply in the Indie Hackers thread says signing up out of curiosity is easy, and another founder saw beta signups who never used the product.^[7]

How do you read the result?

What to count

Cold visits by source, signups, replies to your follow-up, and any stronger commitment

When to read it

After a few hundred cold visits

How to decide

Build only if cold visitors from your segment sign up and some of them reply or commit to more. A waitlist tool maker on Indie Hackers reads 2 to 5% of cold traffic as a sign it might have legs, and north of 10% as a nerve hit or warm traffic.^[8]

What goes wrong?

• Counting warm visitors: Unbounce reports email traffic converting at a 16.9% median on software pages, far above paid traffic.^[4]
• Padding the list: Preston Chin warns that adding people automatically through a link trigger over-inflates a waitlist.^[10]
• Dropping links into communities: Reddit asks members to participate authentically where they have a personal interest.^[11]
• Waiting too long to follow up: Lenny Rachitsky reports waitlist conversion around 20% when access comes within a month, and below 10% after three months.^[5]

How was it graded?

Evidence

C. Limited evidenceThe method is recognised and vendor data give base rates for landing pages, but no dataset links a pre-test signup rate to later paying demand, and the recent cases are few, small and point in different directions.

Verdict

SituationalUseful to stop a weak idea cheaply when you can bring cold traffic from your segment. A signup is interest: look for replies and stronger commitments before building.

How the grades and verdicts are decided

Sources

1. 1
   Minimum Viable Product: a guide (opens in a new tab)Startup Lessons Learned, Eric Ries. August 2009. Method.

   At a minimum, a simple AdWords smoke test would have revealed how utterly bad the concept was.

   Read on October 20, 2026.
2. 2
   Conversion Benchmark Report (opens in a new tab)Unbounce. 2024. Vendor data, from a seller of what it measures.

   The median conversion rate across all industries is 6.6%.

   Read on October 20, 2026.
3. 3
   Conversion Benchmark Report: Methodology (opens in a new tab)Unbounce. 2024. Vendor data, from a seller of what it measures.

   The benchmarks are derived from over 464 million unique visitors which resulted in 57 million conversions across over 41 thousand different landing pages.

   Pages with fewer than 50 visitors or no conversions were excluded.

   Read on October 20, 2026.
4. 4
   SaaS conversion rate benchmarks (opens in a new tab)Unbounce. 2024. Vendor data, from a seller of what it measures.

   The median conversion rate for SaaS landing pages is 3.8%-42% lower than the 6.6% baseline for all industries.

   In fact, Instagram (9.2%) is converting almost 3x better than the next best channel, Facebook (3.5%), when looking at median conversion rates.

   Email is far outpacing paid traffic at a median conversion rate of 16.9%.

   Read on October 20, 2026.
5. 5
   What is good waitlist conversion (opens in a new tab)Lenny's Newsletter, Lenny Rachitsky. March 1, 2022. Analysis.

   For converting to a paid account, conversion rates range from 5% to 25% ... averaging around 20% if you get people off the waitlist in under a month and falling below 10% if you wait over three months.

   Read on October 20, 2026.
6. 6
   A New Formula for Quantitative UX Decision Making (opens in a new tab)UX Magazine, Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro. August 7, 2012. Method.

   For the example of 7 out of 10 users successfully completing a task, an adjusted-Wald interval set to 95% confidence ranges from about 39% to 90%.

   Read on October 20, 2026.
7. 7
   Whats a good signup rate on an idea validation landing page? (post and replies) (opens in a new tab)Indie Hackers, Brent G. March 24, 2023. Founder report.

   I really don't think that is solid validation. I would easily pop my name down if I was curious about the space and happened to stumble on it.

   I was wondering about this because many people signed up in the beta of my product, but then never actually used it after I released it.

   So right now I have ~$10/day spend on Google ads pointing to a super simple landing page with "Coming Soon", some basic benefits and "get notified" email capture. For the last 4 days its avg. a ~8.5% CTR (136clicks, ~1.6K impr.) and ~17 emails submitted.

   Read on October 20, 2026.
8. 8
   Reply by the maker of Lighthouse, a waitlist tool, in the same thread (opens in a new tab)Indie Hackers, rouzbeh. June 3, 2026. Vendor data, from a seller of what it measures.

   A 3% signup rate where half of them write back paragraphs is more promising than a 15% rate of total silence.

   Rough numbers I've seen: 2-5% of cold traffic signing up is a normal "this might have legs" signal, and north of 10% usually means you've hit a nerve (or your traffic was already warm).

   Read on October 20, 2026.
9. 9
   Rundown: Automated weekly email reports to SaaS customers (product milestones) (opens in a new tab)Indie Hackers, Martynas Kadiša. January 1, 2022. Founder report.

   Tried bunch of things over the span of 2 months - paid ads in Google, Twitter and Facebook, getting featured on BetaList, reaching out to communities on Reddit, Slack and Discord. The result was 7 signups.

   Read on October 20, 2026.
10. 10
    My "Failed Cohort Launch" Made $7,773 (Here's What I Learned) (opens in a new tab)Side Hustle Stories, Preston Chin. June 29, 2025. Founder report.

    I also probably won't automatically add people to waitlists using a link trigger. That over-inflates the actual number of people on your waitlist.

    442 people joined that waitlist, but only 9 converted.

    Read on October 20, 2026.
11. 11
    Reddit Rules (opens in a new tab)Reddit. Undated. Platform rules.

    Participate authentically in communities where you have a personal interest, and do not spam or engage in disruptive behaviors (including content manipulation) that interfere with Reddit communities.

    Read on October 20, 2026.