Are dismissible banners acceptable UI for purchase confirmations?

Question

Here's some context:

A user on a Free account is editing a draft in our text editor. To be able to publish the draft (they get auto-saved), they need to purchase a plan.

When they click on the "Upgrade" button, they are taken to the Checkout flow. After Checkout completion, what is the best way to confirm their purchase?

1. A screen that says "Purchase was successful" with a CTA that will take them back to the editor?

2. Or take them back to the text editor, but append a banner notification up top that says their purchase was successful?

I would think Option 1 would be the best way to go about it. IMO, a purchase is a big deal/big decision, hence a warrants its own single page instead of just a banner?

Answer 1

Yeah, if you're already interrupting their work with a payment workflow, a proper success screen would be great. Though, making it as seamless as possible is important: ideally the whole payment flow happens in one screen (with something tracking progress), so that the Success message can just appear, without a screen change.

This seamlessness is extra important specifically because you're interrupting their work, and the more times the site does a hard load of a new screen, the further away that work will feel. It's also important that the "Upgrade" button has concise text surrounding it that clarifies their work is saved and can be returned to upon completion. And the CTA upon Success should repeat this messaging.