Payments onboarding
Summary
As the Senior Product Designer for Quickbooks Payments, my team and I wanted to improve Quickbooks payments adoption among our customers, SMBs (small to mid sized businesses). We helped Quickbooks onboarders discover and adopt payments by repositioning it as a fundamental business capability and making pricing transparent upfront.
Summary
As the Senior Product Designer for Quickbooks Payments, my team and I wanted to improve Quickbooks payments adoption among our customers, SMBs (small to mid sized businesses). We helped Quickbooks onboarders discover and adopt payments by repositioning it as a fundamental business capability and making pricing transparent upfront.
Summary
As the Senior Product Designer for Quickbooks Payments, my team and I wanted to improve Quickbooks payments adoption among our customers, SMBs (small to mid sized businesses). We helped Quickbooks onboarders discover and adopt payments by repositioning it as a fundamental business capability and making pricing transparent upfront.
Customer problem
Despite the fact that 90% of SMBs rely on online payment solutions in their daily operations, only 19% of Quickbooks SMBs adopted Quickbooks payments. After mapping entry points for payments signup and their respective adoption rates, I found that only 6% adopted payments in the initial onboarding experience, the lowest adoption rate of any other entry point.
This meant Quickbooks SMBs were left cobbling together separate payment solutions outside of QuickBooks, adding complexity to their financial workflows when integration was already available to them.
Business problem
This large gap between market adoption and our product adoption represented a massive missed revenue opportunity for Intuit. With every SMB that failed to activate payments, we were losing both revenue and the opportunity to deepen customer engagement with our platform. The business impact extended beyond direct payment processing fees to include reduced customer lifetime value and increased likelihood of customers seeking alternative solutions outside our ecosystem.
Customer problem
Despite the fact that 90% of SMBs rely on online payment solutions in their daily operations, only 19% of Quickbooks SMBs adopted Quickbooks payments. After mapping entry points for payments signup and their respective adoption rates, I found that only 6% adopted payments in the initial onboarding experience, the lowest adoption rate of any other entry point.
This meant Quickbooks SMBs were left cobbling together separate payment solutions outside of QuickBooks, adding complexity to their financial workflows when integration was already available to them.
Business problem
This large gap between market adoption and our product adoption represented a massive missed revenue opportunity for Intuit. With every SMB that failed to activate payments, we were losing both revenue and the opportunity to deepen customer engagement with our platform. The business impact extended beyond direct payment processing fees to include reduced customer lifetime value and increased likelihood of customers seeking alternative solutions outside our ecosystem.
Customer problem
Despite the fact that 90% of SMBs rely on online payment solutions in their daily operations, only 19% of Quickbooks SMBs adopted Quickbooks payments. After mapping entry points for payments signup and their respective adoption rates, I found that only 6% adopted payments in the initial onboarding experience, the lowest adoption rate of any other entry point.
This meant Quickbooks SMBs were left cobbling together separate payment solutions outside of QuickBooks, adding complexity to their financial workflows when integration was already available to them.
Business problem
This large gap between market adoption and our product adoption represented a massive missed revenue opportunity for Intuit. With every SMB that failed to activate payments, we were losing both revenue and the opportunity to deepen customer engagement with our platform. The business impact extended beyond direct payment processing fees to include reduced customer lifetime value and increased likelihood of customers seeking alternative solutions outside our ecosystem.
Goal
Help initial QuickBooks onboarders feel confident that QuickBooks is the best Payments tool for them.
Team
Core team:
1 PM
1 engineer lead
1 data analyst
External stakeholders:
Onboarding team
Pricing team
VP Product
Invoicing team
Compliance
Marketing
Platform
Responsive web
Project duration
2 months
My responsibilities
Research
Interaction design
Visual design
Content design
Alignment with external stakeholders on the design
Goal
Help initial QuickBooks onboarders feel confident that QuickBooks is the best Payments tool for them.
Team
Core team:
1 PM
1 engineer lead
1 data analyst
External stakeholders:
Onboarding team
Pricing team
VP Product
Invoicing team
Compliance
Marketing
Platform
Responsive web
Project duration
2 months
My responsibilities
Research
Interaction design
Visual design
Content design
Alignment with external stakeholders on the design
Goal
Help initial QuickBooks onboarders feel confident that QuickBooks is the best Payments tool for them.
Team
Core team:
1 PM
1 engineer lead
1 data analyst
External stakeholders:
Onboarding team
Pricing team
VP Product
Invoicing team
Compliance
Marketing
Platform
Responsive web
Project duration
2 months
My responsibilities
Research
Interaction design
Visual design
Content design
Alignment with external stakeholders on the design
Understand
Existing data
Awareness gap: 3/4 of new subscribers had no idea QuickBooks even offered a payments solution. We had assumed customers knew about our full feature set, but in reality, payments was getting lost in the complexity of our onboarding experience.
Onboarder characteristics and mentalities: Most onboarders were business owners, with about 1/3 being open to exploring payment tools for their business.
Invoicing: Most onboarders were familiar with and intended to use Quickbooks Invoicing, which fell under the Payments umbrella.
Competitive analysis
I used an LLM to generate a competitive analysis of our payments competitors, identifying our own payments strengths, weaknesses, and best-fit use case: SMBs already intending to use Quickbooks for other services.
Understand
Existing data
Awareness gap: 3/4 of new subscribers had no idea QuickBooks even offered a payments solution. We had assumed customers knew about our full feature set, but in reality, payments was getting lost in the complexity of our onboarding experience.
Onboarder characteristics and mentalities: Most onboarders were business owners, with about 1/3 being open to exploring payment tools for their business.
Invoicing: Most onboarders were familiar with and intended to use Quickbooks Invoicing, which fell under the Payments umbrella.
Competitive analysis
I used an LLM to generate a competitive analysis of our payments competitors, identifying our own payments strengths, weaknesses, and best-fit use case: SMBs already intending to use Quickbooks for other services.
Understand
Existing data
Awareness gap: 3/4 of new subscribers had no idea QuickBooks even offered a payments solution. We had assumed customers knew about our full feature set, but in reality, payments was getting lost in the complexity of our onboarding experience.
Onboarder characteristics and mentalities: Most onboarders were business owners, with about 1/3 being open to exploring payment tools for their business.
Invoicing: Most onboarders were familiar with and intended to use Quickbooks Invoicing, which fell under the Payments umbrella.
Competitive analysis
I used an LLM to generate a competitive analysis of our payments competitors, identifying our own payments strengths, weaknesses, and best-fit use case: SMBs already intending to use Quickbooks for other services.
Interviews
I conducted interviews with 10 recent Quickbooks onboarders, where I discovered the following key insights:
"I only know invoicing".
Onboarders were unfamiliar with Quickbooks Payments primarily because only invoicing was highlighted in their onboarding experiences.
"What are the fees?"
The Quickbooks payments pricing structure was complex and confusing because it was displayed in different ways in product and marketing.
“Why should I choose Quickbooks?"
Onboarders were most concerned about 1) pricing, 2) features and flexibility, and 3) integration when evaluating a payment tool.
Interviews
I conducted interviews with 10 recent Quickbooks onboarders, where I discovered the following key insights:
Typical invoicer
Small-Mid sized businesses that work in personal services, professional services or the construction industry
Primarily (75% + of the time) invoice their customers to get paid.
Have 2-10 W2 employees, an annual revenue more than $100K and have been in business for 3 years or more.
Needs
Make it easy for my customers to pay me
Save me time
Help me stay on top of my cash flow
Help me feel professional, confident, supported
Pain points
Time - Are busy running a small business. They are often juggling the responsibilities of running a business, accounting, and getting paid
Money - Are cost sensitive.
Support and confidence - Are new business owners, are looking for help to know they’re making the right decision.
Interviews
I conducted interviews with 10 recent Quickbooks onboarders, where I discovered the following key insights:
"I only know invoicing".
Onboarders were unfamiliar with Quickbooks Payments primarily because only invoicing was highlighted in their onboarding experiences.
"What are the fees?"
The Quickbooks payments pricing structure was complex and confusing because it was displayed in different ways in product and marketing.
“Why should I choose Quickbooks?"
Onboarders were most concerned about 1) pricing, 2) features and flexibility, and 3) integration when evaluating a payment tool.
Define
If we reposition payments as the primary capability (vs. invoicing add-on) and increase pricing transparency in the onboarding flow, then open-minded onboarders will understand Quickbooks payments is the best payments tool for their business, resulting in higher adoption.
I defined our hypothesis, which rested on two key insights from my research:
SMBs' mental model of running a business centered on getting paid—when we positioned payments as secondary to invoicing, we were working against their natural thinking.
SMBs actually wanted pricing transparency and simplicity. The instinct to hide pricing behind progressive disclosure and use a complicated percentage + fixed number of cents model per payment method was backfiring; it created friction and distrust.
Success: Increase payments onboarding GNA by at least 5%.
Define
If we reposition payments as the primary capability (vs. invoicing add-on) and increase pricing transparency in the onboarding flow, then open-minded onboarders will understand Quickbooks payments is the best payments tool for their business, resulting in higher adoption.
I defined our hypothesis, which rested on two key insights from my research:
SMBs' mental model of running a business centered on getting paid—when we positioned payments as secondary to invoicing, we were working against their natural thinking.
SMBs actually wanted pricing transparency and simplicity. The instinct to hide pricing behind progressive disclosure and use a complicated percentage + fixed number of cents model per payment method was backfiring; it created friction and distrust.
Success: Increase payments onboarding GNA by at least 5%.
Define
If we reposition payments as the primary capability (vs. invoicing add-on) and increase pricing transparency in the onboarding flow, then open-minded onboarders will understand Quickbooks payments is the best payments tool for their business, resulting in higher adoption.
I defined our hypothesis, which rested on two key insights from my research:
SMBs' mental model of running a business centered on getting paid—when we positioned payments as secondary to invoicing, we were working against their natural thinking.
SMBs actually wanted pricing transparency and simplicity. The instinct to hide pricing behind progressive disclosure and use a complicated percentage + fixed number of cents model per payment method was backfiring; it created friction and distrust.
Success: Increase payments onboarding GNA by at least 5%.
Create and test
Then, in an ideation workshop I facilitated with my core team, we came up with the following ideas.
We prioritized the four high-impact, low-effort ideas (quick wins) with plans to explore the two high-impact, medium-effort ideas. I explored solutions through user flows and low-fidelity wireframes that varied in two key dimensions: how we showed payment capabilities to communicate features and flexibility, and how we presented pricing information.
Pricing visibility
Since we wanted to show both payments fees up-front and a pricing comparison between Quickbooks payments and competitors' payments fees, I ideated how we might show each part in the onboarding flow.
CTAs
I explored the number of tertiary CTAs we should include on the payments introduction screen to balance simplicity with helping onboarders discover enough information (i.g. about pricing comparisons and payments capabilities) to make a decision.
Customize content based on business information
I investigated how we might customize the payments features and flexibility communicated in the onboarding flow based on the business' industry.
Pricing model
The Pricing team and I negotiated how we might balance business revenue with simplifying our pricing model so it's less confusing for SMBs. The team initially resisted any changes, concerned that simplification would reduce revenue from high-volume transactions. Our existing model usually charged a percentage + fixed cents per transaction, which maximized revenue but confused customers.
I proposed a flat percentage model to improve clarity, but financial analysis revealed we couldn't absorb the fixed costs from third-party processors. We compromised on testing four simplified pricing tiers shown as flat percentages, each optimized for different processor costs. We planned on including it on our A/B test to see if we could model how increased volume from improved conversions could offset the perceived revenue risk.
Content and visuals
There are several benefits for businesses that choose to use Quickbooks payments. However, we wanted to capitalize on what we thought might be the most compelling value proposition so as not to overwhelm onboarders. I explored content and visuals based on three potential value propositions.
I tested the concepts with 10 recent onboarders to understand usability and refine the value proposition, where I discovered Concept 2: "Books are easier to manage" was the messaging that resonated the most with onboarders.
Create and test
Then, in an ideation workshop I facilitated with my core team, we came up with the following ideas.
We prioritized the four high-impact, low-effort ideas (quick wins) with plans to explore the two high-impact, medium-effort ideas. I explored solutions through user flows and low-fidelity wireframes that varied in two key dimensions: how we showed payment capabilities to communicate features and flexibility, and how we presented pricing information.
Pricing visibility
Since we wanted to show both payments fees up-front and a pricing comparison between Quickbooks payments and competitors' payments fees, I ideated how we might show each part in the onboarding flow.
CTAs
I explored the number of tertiary CTAs we should include on the payments introduction screen to balance simplicity with helping onboarders discover enough information (i.g. about pricing comparisons and payments capabilities) to make a decision.
Customize content based on business information
I investigated how we might customize the payments features and flexibility communicated in the onboarding flow based on the business' industry.
Pricing model
The Pricing team and I negotiated how we might balance business revenue with simplifying our pricing model so it's less confusing for SMBs. The team initially resisted any changes, concerned that simplification would reduce revenue from high-volume transactions. Our existing model usually charged a percentage + fixed cents per transaction, which maximized revenue but confused customers.
I proposed a flat percentage model to improve clarity, but financial analysis revealed we couldn't absorb the fixed costs from third-party processors. We compromised on testing four simplified pricing tiers shown as flat percentages, each optimized for different processor costs. We planned on including it on our A/B test to see if we could model how increased volume from improved conversions could offset the perceived revenue risk.
Content and visuals
There are several benefits for businesses that choose to use Quickbooks payments. However, we wanted to capitalize on what we thought might be the most compelling value proposition so as not to overwhelm onboarders. I explored content and visuals based on three potential value propositions.
I tested the concepts with 10 recent onboarders to understand usability and refine the value proposition, where I discovered Concept 2: "Books are easier to manage" was the messaging that resonated the most with onboarders.
Create and test
Then, in an ideation workshop I facilitated with my core team, we came up with the following ideas.
We prioritized the four high-impact, low-effort ideas (quick wins) with plans to explore the two high-impact, medium-effort ideas. I explored solutions through user flows and low-fidelity wireframes that varied in two key dimensions: how we showed payment capabilities to communicate features and flexibility, and how we presented pricing information.
Pricing visibility
Since we wanted to show both payments fees up-front and a pricing comparison between Quickbooks payments and competitors' payments fees, I ideated how we might show each part in the onboarding flow.
CTAs
I explored the number of tertiary CTAs we should include on the payments introduction screen to balance simplicity with helping onboarders discover enough information (i.g. about pricing comparisons and payments capabilities) to make a decision.
Customize content based on business information
I investigated how we might customize the payments features and flexibility communicated in the onboarding flow based on the business' industry.
Pricing model
The Pricing team and I negotiated how we might balance business revenue with simplifying our pricing model so it's less confusing for SMBs. The team initially resisted any changes, concerned that simplification would reduce revenue from high-volume transactions. Our existing model usually charged a percentage + fixed cents per transaction, which maximized revenue but confused customers.
I proposed a flat percentage model to improve clarity, but financial analysis revealed we couldn't absorb the fixed costs from third-party processors. We compromised on testing four simplified pricing tiers shown as flat percentages, each optimized for different processor costs. We planned on including it on our A/B test to see if we could model how increased volume from improved conversions could offset the perceived revenue risk.
Content and visuals
There are several benefits for businesses that choose to use Quickbooks payments. However, we wanted to capitalize on what we thought might be the most compelling value proposition so as not to overwhelm onboarders. I explored content and visuals based on three potential value propositions.
I tested the concepts with 10 recent onboarders to understand usability and refine the value proposition, where I discovered Concept 2: "Books are easier to manage" was the messaging that resonated the most with onboarders.
Iterate
I focused each iteration on strengthening the clarity of the value proposition. Before launch, we structured the rollout as an A/B test. By converting the onboarding experience from being invoicing-centric to being more payments-centric, making pricing more transparent, uncomplicated, and competitive, we intended to remove the biggest friction points that had been preventing SMBs from adopting Quickbooks payments.
We rolled out two variants in the A/B test: The existing onboarding experience and a new proposed onboarding experience.
Key differences between the previous and new payments onboarding experiences
Iterate
I focused each iteration on strengthening the clarity of the value proposition. Before launch, we structured the rollout as an A/B test. By converting the onboarding experience from being invoicing-centric to being more payments-centric, making pricing more transparent, uncomplicated, and competitive, we intended to remove the biggest friction points that had been preventing SMBs from adopting Quickbooks payments.
We rolled out two variants in the A/B test: The existing onboarding experience and a new proposed onboarding experience.
Key differences between the previous and new payments onboarding experiences
Iterate
I focused each iteration on strengthening the clarity of the value proposition. Before launch, we structured the rollout as an A/B test. By converting the onboarding experience from being invoicing-centric to being more payments-centric, making pricing more transparent, uncomplicated, and competitive, we intended to remove the biggest friction points that had been preventing SMBs from adopting Quickbooks payments.
We rolled out two variants in the A/B test: The existing onboarding experience and a new proposed onboarding experience.
Key differences between the previous and new payments onboarding experiences
Results
After increasing GNA (+6%) within the A/B test, we refined the design and aligned with external stakeholders further prior to launch:
We implemented customized content, surfacing the top 2-3 payments capabilities in the onboarding flow based on the business' industry.
The increased GNA offset the revenue risk with a flat pricing model, which we implemented across onboarding experiences.
We launched the new payments onboarding experience to all Quickbooks onboarders, which helped us improve sign up and GNA.
19%
Increase in the percentage of onboarders who started the payments application
Increase in payments onboarding GNA (adoption)
6%
Results
After increasing GNA (+6%) within the A/B test, we refined the design and aligned with external stakeholders further prior to launch:
We implemented customized content, surfacing the top 2-3 payments capabilities in the onboarding flow based on the business' industry.
The increased GNA offset the revenue risk with a flat pricing model, which we implemented across onboarding experiences.
We launched the new payments onboarding experience to all Quickbooks onboarders, which helped us improve sign up and GNA.
19%
Increase in the percentage of onboarders who started the payments application
Increase in payments onboarding GNA (adoption)
6%
Results
After increasing GNA (+6%) within the A/B test, we refined the design and aligned with external stakeholders further prior to launch:
We implemented customized content, surfacing the top 2-3 payments capabilities in the onboarding flow based on the business' industry.
The increased GNA offset the revenue risk with a flat pricing model, which we implemented across onboarding experiences.
We launched the new payments onboarding experience to all Quickbooks onboarders, which helped us improve sign up and GNA.
19%
Increase in the percentage of onboarders who started the payments application
Increase in payments onboarding GNA (adoption)
6%
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