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Card class: Non-HeroCategory: Payment Gateway

At a glance

Percentage of Klarna BNPL attempts that Klarna approved and the merchant captured. Klarna underwrites consumer credit risk; this rate primarily reflects Klarna’s risk-model decisions, not card-network availability.
What it countsCOUNT(orders captured) / COUNT(orders attempted) over the period. Numerator: status = CAPTURED. Denominator: all session-initiations including REJECTED (Klarna underwriting decline) and ABANDONED.
Healthy baselineDE/SE/NL Pay in 30: 88-94%. US Pay in 4: 80-90%. Slice it: 65-80% (consumer-credit-check friction).
Underwriting-decline driverKlarna’s risk model (proprietary) decides per attempt; thin-file consumers, recent fraud-flags, or high-risk addresses drive decline.
Time window7D vsP.
Alert trigger<90% absolute, -3pp drop vsP.
Sentiment keygauge: good>=95, warn<90
Rolesowner, operations

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” 7-day window ending 02 May 26.
Klarna productCapturedAttempted (incl declined + abandoned)Success rate
Pay in 30 days (DE)1,1031,20591.5%
Pay in 4 (DE)42147888.1%
Slice it (DE)7310271.6%
Pay in 30 days (UK)11012488.7%
Blended1,7071,90989.4%
What the merchant should notice:
  1. 89.4% blended is just below the healthy 90% line. Slice it drags the blended; without Slice it the rate would be 91.5%.
  2. Slice it at 71.6% is normal. The consumer-credit-check requirement creates 25-30% friction; customers abandon when they see “we’ll check your credit”.
  3. A drop in Pay in 30 success rate from 91% to 87% would alert. Common cause: Klarna’s risk model tightened (post-credit-event response), or merchant attracted higher-risk customers (e.g. influencer pushing to younger demographic).

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

CardWhy pair it
kla_decline_rateKlarna’s underwriting-rejection rate.
kla_top_decline_reasonsWhy Klarna declined (consumer credit signal, address mismatch, etc.).
kla_top_payment_methodsSlice it drags blended; product mix matters.
Stripe stripe_success_rateCard success on the same store; cross-rail comparison.

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look: portal.klarna.comReports → Conversion for approval rate by product. Why our number may differ:
ReasonDirectionWhy
Abandoned-vs-declined treatmentEitherSome Portal views split; we combine both as “not captured”.
Time zoneBoundary days offCEST vs UTC.
Cross-connector reconciliation:
ComparisonExpectedWhy
kla_success_ratestripe.stripe_success_rateCards typically higher (95-97%)Klarna’s underwriting adds friction.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why is Klarna success rate lower than card? Klarna underwrites consumer credit; some customers don’t qualify. Cards have universal availability (anyone with a card and funds). The 5-10pp gap is structural. Slice it at 70% is normal? Yes. The credit-check friction is intentional; Klarna avoids over-extending credit to thin-file consumers. The trade-off: lower conversion but lower default rate, which keeps Klarna’s loss ratio healthy. Klarna can a customer be approved for Pay in 30 but rejected for Slice it? Yes routinely. Pay in 30 is short-duration credit (lower risk); Slice it commits the customer for 6-24 months, requiring tighter underwriting. Approval rate dropped 5pp overnight, what changed? Likely Klarna risk-model update. Klarna periodically tightens or loosens; sudden swings affect all merchants. Check Klarna merchant communications. Can I appeal a Klarna decline? The customer can appeal directly with Klarna. Merchants cannot override; this is consumer-credit regulation. Customer denied by Klarna falls back to card, do I lose them? Klarna integrations typically present a “try a different payment method” fallback; conversion of fallback is moderate (40-60%). Helle Mode’s fallback to Stripe captures roughly half of Klarna-declined customers.

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Success Rate 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.