With 696 million downloads, Instagram was the most downloaded app worldwide in 2023, supporting its more than 2 billion monthly active users in 2025. Given that the app is around a $70.9 billion U.S. annual advertising revenue stream (meaning app revenue is an estimated $35 per user according to my calculations), if Instagram were to lose a quarter of users during onboarding, it could cause almost $6 billion in lost potential revenue – (174 million users multiplied by $35). In other words, a loss of users at this early stage harms not only revenue, but also the overall value of Instagram’s network by restricting user interactions, content sharing, and user engagement needed for growth.
https://metricool.com/important-instagram-statistics/#b6fa58d2-abe0-4ecd-88ed-d1bf074032cd
Notion
Notion’s approach to productivity onboarding thrives on custominazatio and personal organization. By providing the user with a brief questionnaire regarding their role and objectives (when you start an account), it increases productivity on the first day by more than 50% in the workspace templates provided. The business stakes are different: nearly 90%, of Notion’s annual $500 million revenue, comes from enterprise subscriptions (CNBC, 2025) which indicates to me that while individual user friction affects engagement and productivity it doesn’t affect their bottom line profitability.
Venmo
Venmo cleverly postpones bank verification by first exposing users to its offering of basic peer-to-peer payments and social feed. Fintech businesses know that identity verification is among the largest steep drop-offs in financial applications. In an observational study assessing 50 live fintech onboarding flows, it was captured that 35% of new sign-ups drop-off due to identity verification. Venmo boasts a user base of 97.1 million and brought in $1.62 billion in transaction fee revenue in 2025, meaning it makes approximately $16.68 per user that year. Research has shown that, on average, 35% of all fintech app signups abandon the process during identity verification alone. Venmo’s identity verification is a delayed process, occurring only after users begin experiencing basic functionality.
https://coinlaw.io/venmo-statistics/
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/29/venmo-revenue-grows-as-paypals-monetization-push-gains-traction.html
Other references:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-analyzed-50-live-fintech-onboarding-flowsheres-d2vpc/
https://resolvepay.com/blog/12-statistics-connecting-buyer-kyc-friction-to-cart-abandonment
