Optional funnel steps not adding up

Hello Annabel,

My name is Yosimy from Amplitude Support, happy to help!

The behavior you're observing might be due to how Amplitude handles optional steps in a funnel. When you mark a step as optional in a funnel, Amplitude creates two versions of the funnel - one with the step and one without the step. The conversion take-aways and breakdown table will also reflect these two scenarios. This might explain why you're seeing a higher number of users after the optional step, as it could be counting users who took both paths.

However, there are some limitations to marking a step as optional:

- It is available for Conversion and Conversion Over Time only.
- Only one step can be optional at a time.
- Only middle steps can be optional. First and last steps can never be optional.
- Optional events cannot be reordered.
- Events with a group-by cannot be optional.
- Events comparing multiple events cannot be optional.

You can find more information about this in the Amplitude Help Article.

I hope this helps clarify the situation. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

Best,
Yosimy


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