9-Day Funnel Report

May 18–27, 2026 · Generated May 27, 2026 · Sources: PostHog, Neon, Stripe

Top of Funnel: Traffic

DayPageviewsUnique VisitorsDemo StartsTrial StartsPurchases
May 18 (Sun)7459810
May 19 (Mon)70767311800
May 202502031950
May 212472291320
May 222802473162
May 232802302161
May 243443013191
May 254003174185
May 263292052042
May 273412041943
Total3,2523214514
May 19 spike (707 PVs): The 274 institutional email blast. Massive top-of-funnel, 118 demo starts. Zero trials, zero purchases. Admins and SBA contacts looked but didn't convert. The wave took a day to reach students.
May 25 peak conversion day: 400 PVs, 41 demos, 8 trials, 5 purchases. Best revenue day of the period. This was the day after the rules map Reddit post and during the Study Buddy email blast.

Traffic Sources

SourcePageviews% of Total
Direct / no referrer2,19567%
Reddit (web + app)49315%
Google organic1304%
Internal (shepbarprep.com)1535%
Facebook (all domains)551.7%
GitHub571.8%
Stripe checkout (return)260.8%
Bing50.2%
Reddit is the #1 acquisition channel. 493 pageviews, consistently 40–60/day since the rules map post went up May 24. Most Reddit clicks come without UTM tags — the referring_domain is what catches them.

The Funnel

Stage9-Day TotalConversion
Pageviews3,252
Pricing viewed1434.4% of PVs
Demo started3219.9% of PVs
Demo submitted185.6% of demos
Trial started45
Checkout viewed29
Purchase completed1431% of trials
The demo completion bottleneck is the biggest leak. 321 people started the demo. 18 submitted. That's a 94% drop-off. Students open the essay prompt and leave. BAR-406 (first-essay activation prompt) directly targets this.
Trial-to-purchase conversion is excellent at 31%. For a self-serve product at $129, this is 3.5x the industry median of 8.9% (Kyle Poyar, Growth Unhinged 2026). The product converts once people use it. The problem is getting them to the first essay.

Account Signups (Neon)

DaySignupsNotable
May 204Kaylyn, Tenaya, Monica
May 212Ethan, Emily
May 226Madison, Julie, Chelsea, Artemio, Anthony +1
May 235Rachana, Ryan, Taylor, Emily B, Njabulo
May 244Eli, Miranda, Mike, Caroline
May 259Jonathan, Dylan, Alexcia, Shea, Alyss, Zack, Eric, Yanissa, Thomas Palmer IV
May 268Hovsep, Abby (Pacific), Ernesto, Molli, Carlos, Angelo, Carlotta, Kate
May 274Baylynne, Sheba (USF), Olatokunbo, Gulay
Total~42

Essay Activity

DayEssays SubmittedTrend
May 189
May 196
May 2013
May 2114
May 227
May 2311
May 246
May 2520Study Buddy email day
May 2627
May 2727
Total140

Essay volume nearly tripled over the period. The Study Buddy launch and email campaign (May 25–27) drove a clear engagement spike.

Key Insights

1. The demo completion bottleneck is the biggest leak

321 people started the demo. 18 submitted. That's a 94% drop-off. Students open the essay prompt and then leave. The demo asks people to do the hardest thing (write a timed essay) before they've committed to anything.

2. Trial-to-purchase conversion is excellent at 31%

14 purchases from 45 trials. The 2026 industry median is 8.9% (Kyle Poyar). The product converts once people actually use it. The bottleneck is getting them into the trial, not converting them once they're in.

3. Reddit is producing real revenue

The rules map post (May 24) drove sustained traffic that converted into the May 25 peak (5 purchases in one day). Reddit alone accounts for 15% of traffic, and the conversion-day correlation suggests it's higher-quality traffic than institutional emails.

4. The institutional email blast was awareness, not conversion

707 pageviews and 118 demo starts on May 19 produced zero purchases. The traffic quality from institutional admin emails is low. They look, they don't buy. The value of that channel is getting on administrators' radar for institutional deals, not D2C conversion.

5. Essay engagement is accelerating

27 essays/day on both May 26 and 27, up from single digits. The Study Buddy is working as a retention mechanism. Students are coming back and writing more.

6. Data integrity gap

PostHog shows 14 purchases, but the Neon billing_subscriptions table has no new records in 9 days (last entry is from April). Purchases are flowing through Stripe but not syncing to the DB.

7. Facebook is not a meaningful channel

55 total pageviews. Incidental traffic from the CA bar exam group posts.

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