Revenue by Payment Gateway, BigCommerce

Card class: Non-Hero • Category: Ecommerce Platform

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At a glance

Revenue split by payment gateway / processor (Stripe, PayPal, BigCommerce Payments, Cybersource, Adyen, Square, etc). Materially more important on BigCommerce than on Shopify because BC supports 70+ external gateways alongside its own BigCommerce Payments offering, the gateway split can be the single most consequential financial decision the merchant makes.

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Calculation

Calculated automatically from your BigCommerce 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

A US homewares brand on BigCommerce Pro using a mixed gateway stack, last 30 days from 14 Mar 26 to 12 Apr 26. What’s interesting:

1. 53.8% on Stripe is healthy concentration. Stripe is rate-competitive (2.9% + $0.30), feature-rich (Radar fraud, 3DS adaptive, Apple/Google Pay native), and handles ~95$1M/year processed.
2. 27.8% on BigCommerce Payments is strategically interesting. BC Payments (powered by PayPal) is at 2.59% + $0.49, the per-transaction fee is higher than Stripe's$0.30. For a store with $90 AOV the effective rate is 3.13$50.** Below that, Stripe is cheaper per dollar.
3. PayPal Express at 12.4% is the most expensive shelf in the mix. 3.49% on $42k =$1,469/month; if the merchant could route those orders through Stripe instead, they’d save ~$250/month. The reason to keep PayPal as a button: a meaningful fraction of customers will not enter a credit card, they’ll only buy if they can use their PayPal balance. Removing PayPal typically loses 5-10% of orders. Trade-off worth measuring per store.
4. Square POS at 4.4% is fine. Square is the standard POS choice; rate is competitive. If POS were a bigger share (>15%), worth comparing against BC POS Payments.
5. B2B Manual / Phone Order at 1.6% carries no gateway fee. Healthy structural cost-saving for B2B stores; the operational cost is in invoice management, not in payment processing.

The strategic playbook for gateway mix:

1. Audit blended effective rate. Multiply per-gateway revenue by per-gateway fee, divide by total. Most BC stores blend 2.6-3.1%; above 3.1% suggests a gateway mix-shift opportunity.
2. Compare Stripe vs BC Payments vs Adyen quotes. For stores processing >$2M/year, all three offer custom volume pricing; the savings can be 30-80 bps.
3. Test removing PayPal as a button in a 4-week A/B (50% of traffic see PayPal, 50% don’t). Most stores find PayPal contributes 5-10% of orders that wouldn’t otherwise convert; the math is whether incremental orders × margin > PayPal fee differential.
4. Audit decline rate per gateway. A gateway with 0.8% decline rate vs another’s 2.1% can be the difference between two campaigns that look identical on this card. Pair with BC Decline Rate split by paymentMethod.
5. For B2B-heavy stores, audit ACH vs card mix. ACH (BC supports via Plaid integration) is typically 0.8-1.2% vs 2.6-3.5% on card; pushing B2B to ACH saves real money on high-AOV invoices.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel: Settings → Payments shows the active gateways and their configuration but not revenue by gateway. Analytics → Sales on Plus / Pro / Enterprise has a “Revenue by payment method” tile that closely mirrors this card. For per-gateway financial reconciliation, use the gateway’s own dashboard:

• Stripe Dashboard → Reports → Sales summary
• PayPal Business → Activity → Reports
• BigCommerce Payments → embedded BC report
• Square Dashboard → Reports
• Adyen → Customer Area → Reports

Why our number may legitimately differ from each gateway’s report: Cross-connector reconciliation: Same-metric documentation cross-reference:

• shopify.gateway_revenue (planned)
• adobe_commerce.gateway_revenue (planned)

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Should I switch from Stripe to BigCommerce Payments? Run the math, don’t switch on assumption. BC Payments is 2.59% + $0.49; Stripe is 2.9$0.30. The crossover AOV is around $50, above$50 AOV BC Payments wins; below it Stripe wins. Most stores process at multiple AOV bands; the right answer is whichever weighted average is lower. Also factor in feature parity, Stripe Radar fraud is generally better than BC Payments’ equivalent. Why is PayPal so expensive at 3.49%? PayPal Express’s fee is structurally higher than card-rails because it includes the PayPal-balance routing premium and PayPal’s risk-bearing. The acceptance value is real (5-10% of customers will only buy with PayPal balance). Don’t optimise PayPal away on margin alone; measure incremental order contribution first. Can I run Stripe AND BigCommerce Payments at the same time? Yes. BC supports multiple gateways simultaneously; the storefront can route based on customer region, currency, payment method, or A/B test logic. Common pattern: Stripe for cards, BigCommerce Payments / PayPal for digital wallets, Square for POS, ACH for B2B. My gateway revenue report shows 5% less than my Stripe dashboard, why? Several normal reasons. (1) Refund treatment: this card is gross; Stripe may show net. (2) Settlement timing: this card uses order-time; Stripe may use settlement date. (3) Currency: multi-currency stores see FX-conversion differences. (4) Subscription / recurring: recurring charges may flow through a different gateway integration than retail. Reconcile day-by-day to identify the cause. Should I worry about a 10% concentration on a single gateway? Concentration is a feature, not a bug, up to a point. 50-70% on a primary gateway is normal and economically efficient. Above 80% concentration creates outage risk: if Stripe has a 4-hour outage, you lose 80% of revenue for the duration. Most stores keep a 15-30% secondary as a fallback for exactly this reason. Does BC support Klarna / Afterpay / Affirm? Yes via integration apps. BNPL providers typically charge 4-6% (higher than cards) but can lift conversion by 10-25% on AOV-above-$100 categories. The fee differential is justified if the incremental orders × margin > the BNPL fee differential. The right BNPL test is a 4-week A/B with vs without; many stores find BNPL is not net-positive on smaller AOV. My B2B gateway shows up as “Manual / Phone Order”, what’s that? B2B Edition’s invoice flow. Customer orders, you generate an invoice, customer pays via ACH / wire / cheque, you mark the order paid manually. Zero gateway fee, slow cash conversion. Many B2B stores prefer this because invoice billing matches B2B accounting workflows. Can I see fee data on this card? Not directly; this card is gateway revenue, not gateway cost. For fee data combine this card with each gateway’s own fee report. We are working on a “blended cost of payment processing” derived card; track the V2 backlog. Why does my marketplace channel show one aggregated gateway value? Because marketplaces (Amazon Pay, eBay Managed Payments) handle their own processing and report a single payout to BC. The order-level gateway is “Marketplace Pay” or similar, with no further breakdown. To analyse marketplace cost, look at the marketplace seller dashboard. Should I migrate from Cybersource to a newer gateway? Often yes, but with care. Cybersource is enterprise-grade but its fee schedule has structural costs (gateway + processor + acquirer separately) that can stack to 3.5-4.5% blended. Modern flat-fee gateways (Stripe, Adyen) are usually cheaper for sub-Enterprise volume. Cybersource is still strong for global multi-currency and high-volume Enterprise; for typical mid-market BC stores, simpler gateways win on cost.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Revenue by Payment Gateway is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across BigCommerce 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.