Authorization rate

Also called approval rate, auth rate, acceptance rate

The share of attempted card payments that the player's bank approves, which measures how many willing buyers your checkout turns into completed sales.

Authorization rate is approved card authorizations divided by attempts. Each decline is a player who wanted to pay and didn’t. The sale never happens, so declines never appear in refund or dispute reports, and they have to be measured on purpose.

The player’s issuer makes the call, but the checkout shapes it. In the EEA, online card payments need strong customer authentication unless an exemption applies. The PSP can request the low-value exemption for payments of €30 or less, until the running total passes €100 or five payments since the last check, and the issuer may still require the 3-D Secure challenge (RTS 2018/389). A player who abandons that step is a lost sale.

Card testing distorts the figure too. Fraudsters run batches of stolen card numbers through a checkout, and Visa monitors it as “enumeration”, with thresholds of a 20% ratio and 300,000 transactions (Stripe).

Track the rate by country, card type and payment method, and ask a provider for its figures by market before you switch. See KPIs.