What the Friction Index actually measures.
Every report we sell, at every price point, traces back to the same instrument. Here is what it is, what it checks, and why it exists.
A feeling isn't evidence. A score is.
Most businesses feel that their site is leaking customers before they close. Nobody could tell you where, or what it was costing, without guessing. The Friction Index replaces the guess with a fixed, repeatable set of publicly observable signals, scored the same way every time, so the answer isn't an opinion. It's a number you can act on.
Four categories, one score.
Every signal is something a real prospect could actually run into. Nothing theoretical, nothing internal-only. If it's not visible to a buyer, it's not on the list.
Website & Conversion Friction
Everything standing between an interested buyer and a completed action: broken flows, missing rate or price information, dead ends, and steps that make someone stop and leave.
ADA & Accessibility Compliance
Whether the site actually works for every visitor, checked against the WCAG 2.1 AA baseline: alt text, keyboard navigation, color contrast, form labels, and screen reader compatibility. This is also the exposure most businesses in these industries don't know they're carrying, since web accessibility lawsuits target exactly this kind of site.
Trust & Legitimacy
The signals a buyer checks before they hand over money or personal information on a high-consideration purchase: credibility markers, compliance basics, and the things their absence quietly costs you.
Social & Discovery
Whether a prospect can actually find and verify you before they ever land on your site: reviews, listings, and the digital footprint that either backs up your claims or leaves them for someone else to find.
Score it. Price it. Show the fix.
Score the signals
We run the fixed signal set against your live site and public presence, the same way for every business, so the result is comparable and repeatable.
Price the leak
Friction alone doesn't move a board or a budget. A dollar figure does. Every flagged signal gets tied back to what it's plausibly costing you, monthly and annually.
Show the fix
A score without a path is just criticism. Every report points to the exact next step, from a $149 preview to a working prototype of the fix.
Same methodology. Different name, tuned to what actually costs you a customer.
What people ask before they buy the first report.
What is the Friction Index?
It's the diagnostic behind every report we sell. We score a business's publicly observable digital presence against a fixed set of signals across four categories: website and conversion friction, ADA and accessibility compliance, trust and legitimacy, and social and discovery. Every signal is something a real prospect could hit and abandon over. The output is a Friction Index Report, priced at $149, and it's step one on the path to everything else we build.
How is the Friction Index different from a regular website audit?
A design audit tells you the site looks dated. The Friction Index tells you where a qualified buyer actually stopped and left, and what that's costing you in dollars per month. It's built for trust-dependent, high-consideration purchases, banking, luxury beauty and wellness, self-pay healthcare, and local service businesses, where the buying decision is deliberate and the revenue at stake per lost customer is high.
Does the Friction Index check ADA and accessibility compliance?
Yes. It's one of the four signal categories, scored against the WCAG 2.1 AA baseline: alt text, keyboard navigation, color contrast, form labels, and screen reader compatibility. Beyond the customers an inaccessible site quietly turns away, web accessibility lawsuits specifically target the industries we work in, so this category covers a conversion problem and a legal exposure problem at the same time.
How much does a Friction Index Report cost?
$149. Its one job is to prove the leak exists. It's the lowest-risk way to see, in writing, exactly where your site is losing qualified buyers before you decide how far to take the fix.
Does the Friction Index apply to my industry?
It runs under a different name depending on who it's scoring. The Borrower Friction Index covers banks and credit unions. The Client Friction Index covers luxury beauty, wellness, and coaching brands. The Patient Friction Index covers self-pay and elective healthcare practices. A general version applies to local service businesses through Main Street Service Biz. Same instrument, tuned to what actually costs each industry a customer.
What happens after I get my Friction Index Report?
You decide how far to take it. The Report is step one of a five-step ladder: Friction Index Report to prove the leak, Revenue Leak Report to price it, Customer Walkthrough Audit to locate the gaps, Presentation + Prototype to show the fix built, and the Experience Review, which bundles all four and is the qualifying gate for the full operating system. Nobody buys the system first. You earn your way to it, one proven step at a time.
See your own score before you decide anything else.
The free preview scan takes seconds and costs nothing. The full Friction Index Report is $149 and proves exactly where the leak is.