Authorization rates
An authorization rate is the percentage of successful authorizations compared with total authorization attempts. In Reveal Transactions, it is a primary signal of checkout health: how often payment attempts and purchases succeed for the selected period and filters.
Reveal measures authorization rates in two ways—by count and by volume—and at two levels—transaction and order. Read Understand payment performance first if you need the difference between transactions and orders.
To open these charts, select Transactions, open Performance in the left navigation, then select the Auth Rate tab. Toggle between count and volume on the chart controls when you want to compare attempt frequency with value at risk.
Transaction-level authorization rates
Transaction-level rates treat every payment attempt as one unit, regardless of whether it belongs to an order that later recovered.
By count
Definition: The percentage of individual transactions that are approved.
Calculation: (Number of approved transactions ÷ Total number of transaction attempts) × 100
Why it matters: Shows how often attempts succeed, independent of amount. Use it to spot systemic approval problems that affect many small transactions as well as large ones.
By volume
Definition: The percentage of transaction value that is approved.
Calculation: (Total value of approved transactions ÷ Total value of all transaction attempts) × 100
Why it matters: Weighs each attempt by monetary value so a few high-value declines move the rate more than many low-value ones.
In the Auth Rate tab, the transaction-level chart is labeled Attempt Success on Chargebee-connected sites (tooltip prefix Auth Rate).
Order-level authorization rates
Order-level rates measure whether purchases complete. An order can include multiple transactions; Reveal counts the order as authorized when it is fully approved and captured.
By count
Definition: The percentage of orders that are fully approved and captured.
Calculation: (Number of fully approved and captured orders ÷ Total number of order attempts) × 100
Why it matters: Shows how many customer purchases succeed, regardless of how many payment attempts were needed.
By volume
Definition: The percentage of order value that is successfully approved and captured.
Calculation: (Total value of approved and captured orders ÷ Total value of all order attempts) × 100
Why it matters: Shows how much potential revenue you are actually capturing at the purchase level.
On Chargebee-connected sites, order-level charts often use invoice labels such as Invoice Success. The underlying metric is still order-level authorization (paid / completed purchases).
Example: why transaction and order rates diverge
A merchant processes three orders in a day:
| Order | Attempts | Outcome | | --- | --- | --- | | A ($50) | 1 approved | Captured | | B ($200) | 1 declined, then 1 approved | Captured after retry | | C ($30) | 1 declined | Not captured |
- Transaction count auth rate: 2 approved ÷ 4 attempts = 50%
- Order count auth rate: 2 successful orders ÷ 3 order attempts = 67%
Order-level success looks healthier because Order B recovered. Transaction-level success shows the cost of the failed attempts. Use both when you decide whether to fix first-attempt quality, recovery strategy, or both.
How to use authorization rates in Reveal
- Start on Auth Rate with no extra segments so you have a baseline for the selected date range, currency, and Gateway Account filters.
- Compare count versus volume. If volume is much lower than count, high-value attempts are declining more often.
- Compare transaction-level (Attempt Success) with order-level (Invoice Success / order auth). A large gap often means retries are recovering purchases after first-attempt friction.
- Segment further using Drill down into auth and decline rates.
- When rates drop, move to Decline rates and Error analysis to find why.
Was this article helpful?