Afterpay: Merchant onboarding
Unifying a fragmented merchant world
team
Block - Cash App Afterpay
Role
Senior Product Designer
As the sole product designer for the Afterpay Merchant Experience vertical, I partnered with product, engineering, legal, compliance and data teams across 4 markets to unify a fragmented Merchant Onboarding experience into one cohesive journey.
I led the end-to-end redesign, from acquisition and onboarding to payment integrations to growth in the Afterpay Business Hub. I operated across the full stack of the organization: from pixel-level decisions to legal negotiation to engineering consolidation.
+5.49%
↑ 48.01% → 53.50%
Form completion rate
+4.89%
↑ 27.85% → 32.74%
30-Day Integration Rate
+3.45%
↑ 17.82% → 21.27% (AU)
30-Day Activation (AU)
-50%
↓ Mandatory fields halved
Field Reduction
Streamlined sign up flow with -50% less mandatory fields
(Before) Log in
(After) Sign Up
Refreshed Afterpay Business Hub aligned with Cash App design system
(Before) Afterpay Business Hub
(After) Afterpay Business Hub
PROBLEM & opportunity
A fractured experience hiding an opportunity
Signing up as an Afterpay merchant meant navigating three separate platforms with three different login credentials. The form was full of questions that weren't actually required, nearly half had nothing to do with KYB or compliance. And until everything was approved by our internal legal teams, merchants couldn't access the Business Hub, set up payment integrations, or do anything to move the needle in their business.
And none of it was aligned to Cash design system, making every update a manual effort across fragmented codebases.
The pressure wasn't just felt by merchants. Ops and Customer Service teams were spending nearly half their time fielding onboarding questions – a direct symptom of a process that was too complex and too opaque.
The opportunity was clear: one platform, one login, on design system - and a streamlined experience that gets merchants from sign-up to active as fast as possible.
80%
DROP-OFF RATE
of merchants abandoned sign up before completing their application
<50%
INTEGRATION RATE
of merchants completed integration within the first week of approval
30%
activation rate
of fully integrated merchants completed a transaction within 12 months
(Before) Onboarding user flow
(After) Onboarding user flow
A sandbox-esque experience that turns sign-up into a preview
Business Details (Before)
Business Details (After)
impact
design strategy that compounds
As the sole product designer, I aligned three engineering teams, product, legal, compliance, and senior leadership towards a single direction – negotiating nearly ~50% reduction in mandatory fields, consolidating three platforms into one, and establishing Cash design system as the shared foundation.
The result was a merchant experience that was faster to complete, easier to maintain, and significantly less reliant on customer service to hold merchants' hands through the process.
+5.49%
↑ 48.01% → 53.50%
Form completion rate
+4.89%
↑ 27.85% → 32.74%
30-Day Integration Rate
+3.45%
↑ 17.82% → 21.27% (AU)
30-Day Activation (AU)
-50%
↓ Mandatory fields halved
Field Reduction
Afterpay: Merchant onboarding
Unifying a fragmented merchant world
team
Block - Cash App Afterpay
Role
Senior Product Designer
As the sole product designer for the Afterpay Merchant Experience vertical, I partnered with product, engineering, legal, compliance and data teams across 4 markets to unify a fragmented Merchant Onboarding experience into one cohesive journey.
I led the end-to-end redesign, from acquisition and onboarding to payment integrations to growth in the Afterpay Business Hub. As the sole designer, I operated across the full stack of the organization: from pixel-level decisions to legal negotiation to engineering consolidation.
+5.49%
↑ 48.01% → 53.50%
Form completion rate
+4.89%
↑ 27.85% → 32.74%
30-Day Integration Rate
+3.45%
↑ 17.82% → 21.27% (AU)
30-Day Activation (AU)
-50%
↓ Mandatory fields halved
Field Reduction
Refreshed Afterpay Business Hub aligned with Cash App design system
Streamlined sign up flow with -50% less mandatory fields
(Before) Log in
(After) Log in
(Before) Afterpay Business Hub
(After) Afterpay Business Hub
PROBLEM & opportunity
A fractured experience hiding an opportunity
Signing up as an Afterpay merchant meant navigating three separate platforms with three different login credentials. The form was full of questions that weren't actually required, nearly half had nothing to do with KYB or compliance. And until everything was approved by our internal legal teams, merchants couldn't access the Business Hub, set up payment integrations, or do anything to move the needle in their business.
And none of it was aligned to Cash design system, making every update a manual effort across fragmented codebases.
The pressure wasn't just felt by merchants. Ops and Customer Service teams were spending nearly half their time fielding onboarding questions – a direct symptom of a process that was too complex and too opaque.
The opportunity was clear: one platform, one login, on design system - and a streamlined experience that gets merchants from sign-up to active as fast as possible.
80%
DROP-OFF RATE
of merchants abandoned sign up before completing their application
<50%
INTEGRATION RATE
of merchants completed integration within the first week of approval
30%
activation rate
of fully integrated merchants completed a transaction within 12 months
(After) Onboarding user flow
(Before) Onboarding user flow
(Before) Business details
(After) Business details
A sandbox-esque experience that turns sign-up into a preview
impact
design strategy that compounds
As the sole product designer, I aligned three engineering teams, product, legal, compliance, and senior leadership towards a single direction – negotiating nearly ~50% reduction in mandatory fields, consolidating three platforms into one, and establishing Cash design system as the shared foundation.
The result was a merchant experience that was faster to complete, easier to maintain, and significantly less reliant on customer service to hold merchants' hands through the process.
+5.49%
↑ 48.01% → 53.50%
Form completion rate
+4.89%
↑ 27.85% → 32.74%
30-Day Integration Rate
+3.45%
↑ 17.82% → 21.27% (AU)
30-Day Activation (AU)
-50%
↓ Mandatory fields halved
Field Reduction
Afterpay: Merchant onboarding
Unifying a fragmented merchant world
team
Block - Cash App Afterpay
Role
Senior Product Designer
As the sole product designer for the Afterpay Merchant Experience vertical, I partnered with product, engineering, legal, compliance and data teams across 4 markets to unify a fragmented Merchant Onboarding experience into one cohesive journey.
I led the end-to-end redesign, from acquisition and onboarding to payment integrations to growth in the Afterpay Business Hub. As the sole designer, I operated across the full stack of the organization: from pixel-level decisions to legal negotiation to engineering consolidation.
+5.49%
↑ 48.01% → 53.50%
Form completion rate
+4.89%
↑ 27.85% → 32.74%
30-Day Integration Rate
+3.45%
↑ 17.82% → 21.27% (AU)
30-Day Activation (AU)
-50%
↓ Mandatory fields halved
Field Reduction
(After) Afterpay Business Hub
Streamlined sign up flow with -50% less mandatory fields
Refreshed Afterpay Business Hub aligned with Cash App design system
(Before) Afterpay Business Hub
(Before) Log in
(After) Log in
PROBLEM & opportunity
A fractured experience hiding an opportunity
Signing up as an Afterpay merchant meant navigating three separate platforms with three different login credentials. The form was full of questions that weren't actually required, nearly half had nothing to do with KYB or compliance. And until everything was approved by our internal legal teams, merchants couldn't access the Business Hub, set up payment integrations, or do anything to move the needle in their business.
And none of it was aligned to Cash design system, making every update a manual effort across fragmented codebases.
The pressure wasn't just felt by merchants. Ops and Customer Service teams were spending nearly half their time fielding onboarding questions – a direct symptom of a process that was too complex and too opaque.
The opportunity was clear: one platform, one login, on design system - and a streamlined experience that gets merchants from sign-up to active as fast as possible.
80%
DROP-OFF RATE
of merchants abandoned sign up before completing their application
<50%
INTEGRATION RATE
of merchants completed integration within the first week of approval
30%
activation rate
of fully integrated merchants completed a transaction within 12 months
[NEED TO UPDATE TO A VIDEO]
(Before) Business details
(After) Business details
(Before) Onboarding user flow
(After) Onboarding user flow
A sandbox-esque experience that turns sign-up into a preview
impact
design strategy that compounds
As the sole product designer, I aligned three engineering teams, product, legal, compliance, and senior leadership towards a single direction – negotiating nearly ~50% reduction in mandatory fields, consolidating three platforms into one, and establishing Cash design system as the shared foundation.
The result was a merchant experience that was faster to complete, easier to maintain, and significantly less reliant on customer service to hold merchants' hands through the process.
+5.49%
↑ 48.01% → 53.50%
Form completion rate
+4.89%
↑ 27.85% → 32.74%
30-Day Integration Rate
+3.45%
↑ 17.82% → 21.27% (AU)
30-Day Activation (AU)
-50%
↓ Mandatory fields halved