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Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Payment Gateway

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At a glance

Total amount that successfully flowed through Afterpay as Pay-in-4 BNPL in the period, gross of refunds and Afterpay’s merchant fee. Afterpay (Square/Block-owned since 2022) pays the merchant the full amount upfront and assumes consumer credit risk on the four interest-free instalments.

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Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Afterpay data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

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Worked example

An Australian DTC homewares brand (“Banksia Living”, Sydney-based, ships AU/NZ/US) on Shopify with Afterpay enabled. 30 days ending 02 May 26. What the merchant should notice:
  1. Afterpay pays Banksia Living the full amount upfront (less ~5% merchant fee). Afterpay assumes credit risk on the 4 instalments.
  2. AU/NZ AOV ~25% above Banksia’s card AOV (typical Afterpay lift).
  3. No instalment-financing variants. Afterpay is Pay-in-4-only; if Banksia wants longer terms, Klarna integration would be needed.
  4. Afterpay’s 5% merchant fee is meaningfully higher than 2-3% card processing. The AOV lift (25-30%) and conversion lift (10-15%) typically more than compensates.
  5. Square/Block ownership. Operationally unchanged for merchants; Afterpay continues under its own brand and APIs.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look: portal.afterpay.com → Orders with date filter and status “Captured”, or Reports → Sales for aggregate. Why our number may differ: Cross-connector reconciliation:

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Does Afterpay pay me upfront? Yes. Afterpay pays full amount (less merchant fee) on standard payout schedule (1-3 business days). Afterpay assumes consumer credit risk; if customer never pays the 4 instalments, that’s Afterpay’s loss. No credit check, how does Afterpay underwrite? Internal risk model based on customer’s payment history with Afterpay. New customers start with low limits (typically AUD 600 / USD 600); limits grow with on-time payment. This is the structural difference from Klarna’s Slice it (which does a credit check). Pay in 4 only, why no longer terms? Afterpay’s product philosophy: simplicity. Pay in 4 interest-free is universal. Klarna offers Pay in 4, Pay in 30, Slice it; Afterpay deliberately offers only Pay in 4. Block/Square ownership, operational change? None for merchants. Afterpay continues under its own brand. Block-side integrations (Cash App, Square POS) gradually expanding but Afterpay-as-checkout-method unchanged. Late fees on customer, do they affect me? No. Customer late fees go to Afterpay; merchant is unaffected. Customer returned items, refund flow? Merchant initiates refund via Afterpay API. Afterpay refunds paid instalments and cancels remaining. Standard 7-30 day refund window. Afterpay merchant fee vs Klarna? Afterpay: 4-6% plus per-transaction flat. Klarna: 2-7% depending on product. Afterpay is generally on the higher end of card-processing-plus.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Total Volume is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Afterpay and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.