Skip to main content
Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Payment Gateway

​
At a glance

Klarna’s mean order value in the period. Klarna AOV is structurally 30 to 45% higher than card AOV because customers feel comfortable buying larger baskets when payments are spread. The single most important commercial metric for justifying Klarna’s higher merchant fee.

​
Calculation

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

​
Worked example

“Helle Mode”, 30 days ending 02 May 26. Helle Mode’s card AOV (Stripe) for the same period is EUR 102. Klarna AOV is 47% higher. That’s the “Klarna lift” justifying the 3.5% merchant fee vs 2.0% card fee. What the merchant should notice:
  1. Slice it AOV at EUR 575 dominates the blended figure. Slice it is 4.6% of count but 17.6% of volume; including it lifts the blended AOV by 15-20%.
  2. Pay in 4 AOV (EUR 135) marginally higher than Pay in 30 (EUR 127). Pay in 4 customers know they’re spreading; basket sizes lift slightly.
  3. A 10% drop in blended AOV likely means Slice it adoption dropped. Slice it requires a credit check; if the customer-facing UX deteriorates (a checkout-page redesign mistake), Slice it conversion drops sharply.
  4. The Klarna AOV lift is the commercial justification. A 47% AOV lift on 35% of orders translates roughly to 16% revenue uplift attributable to Klarna integration; well above the 1.5pp incremental fee cost.

​
Sibling cards merchants should reference together

​
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look: portal.klarna.com → Reports → Sales with average-order-value computed (volume divided by count) per period. Why our number may differ: Cross-connector reconciliation:

​
Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why is Klarna AOV so much higher than card AOV? Two reasons: (1) BNPL psychology lets customers commit to bigger baskets when payments spread, (2) Slice it (long-instalment) deliberately targets higher-value purchases. The blended Klarna lift is typically 30-45% on the same store. A 10% AOV drop, what to investigate? First check the product mix. Slice it AOV is 4-10x other Klarna products; if Slice it conversion dropped (UX issue, credit-check friction increased), blended AOV drops sharply. Second check is Pay-in-30 vs Pay-in-4 mix; Pay-in-4 has slightly higher AOV but Pay-in-30 is the volume driver. Is the Klarna lift sustainable, or do customers eventually return to card AOV? Sustainable. Multi-year studies show the BNPL AOV lift persists; customers continue to use Klarna for larger purchases over years. The lift narrows slightly (40% in year 1, 35% in year 3) as customers become accustomed. Slice it median vs mean, do they differ? Yes substantially. Slice it has heavy right-tail (some customers finance EUR 2,500+ purchases). Median is typically half of mean for Slice it; this card is mean only. Klarna AOV calculation includes refunded orders? Yes the original capture is in numerator; refunds are tracked separately. A fully-refunded EUR 500 order still contributes EUR 500 to numerator and 1 to denominator. B2B Klarna orders, AOV different? Klarna B2B (Klarna for Business, available in some markets) targets SMBs ordering supplies; AOVs are EUR 800-3,000 typical. If the merchant has Klarna B2B enabled, those orders skew the blended figure.

​
Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Average Transaction is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Klarna 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.