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Card class: Non-HeroCategory: Payment Gateway

At a glance

The breakdown of card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, Diners, JCB) and payment types (card vs eCheck.Net ACH) by transaction count and volume share. Reveals which network drives the merchant’s revenue and where interchange-optimisation gains hide.
What it countsGROUP BY accountType + cardType (Visa / Mastercard / Amex / Discover / Diners / JCB / eCheck) for transactionStatus = settledSuccessfully, ordered by share.
API endpointgetTransactionListRequest, with the cardType field.
CurrencyCurrency-neutral by count; per-currency by volume.
RefundsExcluded.
DisputesExcluded.
eCheck.Net (ACH)Counted as a separate “method” (not a card network); typically 3 to 15% share for B2B-heavy merchants, near zero for pure-B2C.
Apple Pay / Google PayThese are encrypted-tokenised card transactions; tokens decrypt to underlying network (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) and count under the underlying network.
Authorize.Net Visa Click to Pay (formerly Visa Checkout)Tagged as Visa with a Click to Pay flag; counted under Visa.
Time window30D.
Rolesowner, finance

Calculation

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

Worked example

“Heartland Hardware Co.”, 30 days ending 02 May 26.
Network / MethodCountVolumeAOVVolume share
Visa1,420USD 698,400USD 491.8337.4%
Mastercard884USD 412,200USD 466.2922.1%
American Express392USD 482,800USD 1,231.6325.9%
Discover154USD 78,400USD 509.094.2%
eCheck.Net (ACH)98USD 184,200USD 1,879.599.9%
Diners / JCB16USD 9,800USD 612.500.5%
Total2,964USD 1,865,800USD 629.49100%
What the merchant should notice:
  1. Amex 25.9% volume share on 13.2% transaction count. Amex skews high-AOV B2B (USD 1,232 AOV vs USD 491 on Visa). Amex interchange is materially higher (typically 2.5 to 3.5% vs Visa’s 1.7 to 2.2%), so Amex traffic costs more per dollar processed. CFO calculation: 25.9% of volume at +1pp interchange = roughly USD 4,800/month “Amex tax” vs an all-Visa world.
  2. eCheck.Net (ACH) at 9.9% volume share on AOV USD 1,880. ACH is the cheapest rail (typically USD 0.30 to 1.00 per transaction flat, no percentage) but slowest (3 to 5 day settlement). Heartland’s B2B portal customers prefer ACH for large orders; growing this from 10% to 20% of volume saves roughly USD 2,000/month in interchange.
  3. Visa + Mastercard combined 59.5% volume. The “core” rail. Decline-rate, success-rate, AVS-mismatch, and 3DS performance optimisation efforts should focus here for maximum impact.
  4. Discover at 4.2%. Discover-issued cards are heavily US-domestic; share is roughly the network’s US market share. Underperformance suggests merchant is outside Discover’s target demographic; over-performance suggests strong loyalty-program tie-ins.
  5. Diners / JCB at 0.5%. Tail networks; almost certainly Asia-pacific tourist orders. Don’t chase optimisation here.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

CardWhy pair it with Top Payment Methods
aut_total_volumeThe total being broken down.
aut_avg_transactionAOV by network reveals customer-segment gaps.
aut_decline_rateNetwork-specific decline patterns.
aut_chargeback_rateAmex chargebacks behave differently from Visa/MC.
Stripe stripe_top_payment_methodsCross-PSP comparison.

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in the Authorize.Net Dashboard: account.authorize.netReports → Transaction Statistics with grouping by Card Type. Or Reports → Settled Transactions with CSV export and pivot. Why our number may differ:
ReasonDirectionWhy
Apple Pay / Google Pay attributionWe attribute under underlying network; Dashboard sometimes shows as separate rowAffects Visa / Mastercard counts upward in our view.
Time zoneBoundary days offPacific batch cut-off vs UTC.
Cross-connector reconciliation:
ComparisonExpectedWhy
aut_top_payment_methods ↔ commerce-platform payment-method breakdownDifferent namespacesCommerce shows “Authorize.Net” as one row; this card splits within it.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why is Amex so over-represented in volume but under in count? Amex cardholders index higher on premium and B2B spend. Amex commercial cards (corporate purchasing cards) are over-indexed in B2B distribution. The classic ratio is 12 to 18% count, 22 to 30% volume. If the merchant’s B2B portal is heavily commercial-card-driven, Amex AOV runs 2 to 3x the blended. Should I drop Amex to reduce interchange? Rarely a good idea. Amex cardholders have higher disposable income and B2B purchasing-card status. Dropping Amex typically loses 15 to 25% of revenue from those customers (they often don’t carry a backup card on their corporate purchasing accounts). Better strategy: ensure Level 2 / Level 3 data submission to drop Amex commercial-card interchange by 50 to 100bps. eCheck.Net (ACH) growing share, good or bad? Generally good for B2B (cheaper, larger transactions, lower chargeback risk). Bad for B2C (slow settlement, higher return risk). Watch the ACH return rate (NACHA codes); above 1% return rate signals quality issues with the customer base. Apple Pay / Google Pay, where do they show? Under the underlying network. An Apple-Pay-tokenised Visa transaction shows as Visa. The wallet itself doesn’t get a separate row in this card. Discover plus Diners is strange, are they the same? Discover bought Diners Club and JCB has a partnership with Discover for US acceptance. They’re processed through similar acquirer rails but different network IDs. We split them by cardType field; Diners and JCB are typically tail volume. Visa Click to Pay (Visa-owned, recently rebranded from Visa Checkout) on Authorize.Net? Yes, Authorize.Net supports Visa Click to Pay with the clickToPay integration. Volume counts under Visa. Click to Pay reduces friction and lifts conversion 5 to 12% on supported devices. B2B purchasing card, how to spot? Authorize.Net returns a cardCode flag indicating commercial vs consumer; B2B purchasing cards are flagged. Heartland Hardware’s commercial-card share runs roughly 35 to 45% on the B2B portal. Track separately for interchange-optimisation focus.

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Top Payment Methods is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Authorize.net 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.