Signup flow testing: find the step that loses people

Most signup problems are invisible from the inside. The team knows which field is optional and what the verification email says, so the flow feels obvious. New visitors do not. Teams usually discover the friction through support tickets and a dip in the funnel chart, after the launch has already paid for it.

• AI agents use your live sign-up in real browsers: they click, scroll, type and fill in your forms.
• Each one has an email address with a working inbox, so a verification code or link reaches it.
• See how far each agent got, step by step, and where and why it stopped, in its own words.
• Fix it, then send the same agents through again with the same task, and see who gets further.

A signup flow can fail in three broad ways. It can be confusing: the next step is not obvious, a field label is ambiguous, or an error message does not say what to fix. It can ask too much: a credit card before any value, a long form, a phone number with no reason given. Or it can break a promise: the page said free and the flow asks for payment.

In a run, each of these shows up where it happens: the step where agents stopped, what they did last, and what they said about it. Clicks and form entries also record whether they moved the agent on, changed nothing, or failed, so a button that does nothing when clicked stands out.

Each agent acts as a new user with a profile: an age, a job, a country, and how comfortable they are with technology. At every step it sees its screen and decides what to do next: click, scroll, type, fill in a form, go back, wait, check its email, or give up.

They fill in your forms with their own details, which are made up, since they are simulated: a name from their profile, an email address of their own on a Mimiq domain, and a password Mimiq sets for them. That inbox works, so when your sign-up sends a verification code or link, they can check their email and use it.

A session ends when an agent says it is done, gives up, or gets blocked by the site. At the end it says whether it did the task, and it counts as finished only when its own last steps show it done.

The summary at the top says how many finished and how many gave up. Under it are the counts: finished, got partway, gave up. A grid shows how far each agent got, one square per step, and a list shows where everyone who did not finish stopped, with its last step and why, in its own words.

Then come the issues, ranked by how many agents raised them, each with a suggested fix. Ask those agents about it, or interview any one. Each agent's journey lists every step in words, with screenshots along the way, and a shared report carries the journey in words only.

A run needs a site the agents can open. With paid credits, agents can sign in with a test account you give them and open protected previews (a Vercel bypass secret or a site password). The secrets are filled in only in the browser and deleted when the run ends. Test accounts and protected previews come with paid credits: the $9 Starter or a plan from $19 a month.

Without paid credits, start from a public page, such as a staging site or a preview with its protection turned off.

It does not predict your sign-up rate. Every agent in the report is simulated, and a run shows where agents like your visitors can get stuck and what breaks, not how many real visitors will finish. For the rate, ship and measure.

They sign up with an email address, not with Google or another account, and a CAPTCHA or bot check can stop them. Any agent stopped by one is marked as blocked by the site, and if it stops every agent, the run fails and nothing is charged. A staging or preview address without bot protection works, as long as it is public or you give access.

Keep the task to one path, such as a sign-up and the first screens after it, not a long setup. A run usually takes a few minutes, more when runs queue for capacity, and uses 5 credits an agent.

They really submit your forms, so each agent that gets through your sign-up leaves a test account on your site. Mimiq finds functional bugs and confusing signup steps by trying the flow in real browsers. It complements scripted end-to-end tests, which provide deterministic checks for known requirements.

Before you run a test, check the basics yourself. Ask only for what you need at this moment, and explain anything unusual, such as a phone number or a company size field. Tell people up front whether a card is required.

Make errors specific. A message that says which field is wrong and how to fix it keeps people moving. A generic failure message sends them back to the start or out the door.

Keep the promise from the page. If the landing page says free, the flow should not open with a payment form. If it says two minutes to set up, count the steps. A mismatch between what the page promised and what the flow asks for is a classic reason people quit.