At a glance
Total amount that successfully flowed through PayPal in the period, gross of refunds, gross of fees, gross of disputes. Money that touched the processor, not money you kept. The PayPal twin of Stripe Total Charge Volume.
| What it counts | SUM(transaction_amount.value) for every row where transaction_event_code starts with T00 (payment) AND transaction_status = S (success). One feed, four prefixes; T00 = payment, T03 = payout, T11 = refund, T19 = dispute. Only T00 successes contribute to this card. |
| Event code filter | T00xx only. Refunds (T11) and disputes (T19) live in the same /v1/reporting/transactions feed but do not contribute. T03 payouts (PayPal disbursing to your bank) are also excluded; they’re internal money movement, not customer revenue. |
| Transaction status filter | S only. P (pending eCheque / SEPA clearance, hold-for-review) is transitional and excluded; it counts when it later flips to S. D (denied) and F (failed) are excluded. V (reversed) and T (in-transit) also excluded. |
| Currency | Multi-currency without FX. Each transaction is summed in its own transaction_amount.currency_code. A GBP store taking GBP + EUR + USD payments will see arithmetic GBP + EUR + USD with no conversion. Use PP Revenue by Currency for the per-currency breakdown. |
| Fees / processing cost | Gross. PayPal fees (fee_amount.value, stored as negative per transaction) are NOT deducted. See PP Net Revenue for the post-fee + post-refund figure. PayPal fees are exact (unlike Stripe estimates) because they come from the API directly. |
| Refunds | NOT deducted. A fully refunded 100 to this card. T11 refund events are not subtracted. See PP Refund Value or PP Net Revenue. |
| Disputes / chargebacks | NOT deducted. A successful payment later disputed (T19) still counts here. See PP Dispute Value for the at-risk amount. |
| Failed / declined payments | Excluded (status D / F). PP Decline Rate tracks the rest. PayPal’s “decline” includes both PayPal-side denials AND bank-side issuer declines for card payments routed through PayPal. |
| Pending status (P) handling | Excluded. PayPal’s P status covers eCheque clearance, SEPA debits (~3 days), and risk-review holds. When the hold resolves to S, the transaction starts contributing on the next refresh; if it resolves to D, it never contributes. |
| Seller Protection | Coverage tracked separately (see PP Seller Protection Coverage). Eligibility does not change whether revenue counts here, only whether you’re protected against future chargeback losses on it. |
| Page cap | 10,000 transactions per /v1/reporting/transactions call; 31-day window cap per call (engine pages across longer windows). Merchants doing > 10k transactions in a single 31-day page will see truncated data. |
| Time window | T/7D/30D vsP (default 30D vs prior 30D). |
| Alert trigger | drop > 15% vsP, sentiment key revenue_trend. |
| Roles | owner, finance |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your PayPal data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US-based fashion brand running PayPal alongside Stripe. PayPal carries the higher-risk traffic (younger demographics, international guests, customers without credit cards). The 7-day window covers 06 Apr 26 to 12 Apr 26. The transactions feed returns 1,420 rows for that window:| Event code prefix | Status | Count | Sum (USD subset) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T00 (payment) | S (success) | 1,140 | $98,420.50 | Counts here |
| T00 (payment) | D (denied) | 78 | $0 | Excluded, see PP Decline Rate |
| T00 (payment) | F (failed) | 14 | $0 | Excluded, network errors / 3DS abandon |
| T00 (payment) | P (pending) | 22 | $0 | eCheque clearing + 8 risk-holds; will count later if S |
| T11 (refund) | S | 47 | -$3,810.00 | Excluded, see PP Refund Value |
| T19 (dispute) | various | 4 | -$520.00 | Excluded, see PP Dispute Value |
| T03 (payout) | S | 7 | -$94,000.00 | Excluded, internal money movement |
- The decline + failed bucket (92 rows, ~7.6% of T00 attempts) is meaningfully higher than a card-only Stripe store would see. PayPal carries international shoppers and bank-funded payers; both groups skew higher decline. The headline volume looks fine but the yield (success ÷ attempts) is the better north-star here. Compare against PP Success Rate.
- 22 pending payments worth ~$1,900 are sitting in
P. Most are SEPA / eCheque clearing on a 3-business-day cycle; a handful (8 rows) are risk-review holds on suspicious-looking high-value orders. They’ll either resolve to S (and start counting) or D (and never count). Don’t include them in revenue forecasts; track them via PP Pending Rate. - The 4 dispute events (T19) are NOT deducted from this card but they represent real exposure ($520). PayPal disputes include both PayPal-buyer-protection cases and bank-initiated chargebacks routed through PayPal. The dispute rate of 0.35% (4 ÷ 1,140) is healthy but worth watching, PP Dispute Rate alerts at 0.9% (90% of the Visa/Mastercard 1.0% cap).
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with PP Total Transaction Volume |
|---|---|
| PP Net Revenue | Same metric minus refunds and minus exact PayPal fees, the closest to a P&L view PayPal can give you. |
| PP Revenue by Currency | The unambiguous per-currency breakdown when this card sums multiple currencies. |
| PP Refund Value | The amount to subtract for a net-of-refunds figure. |
| PP Dispute Value | The amount tied up in chargebacks (not deducted here). |
| PP Avg Transaction | The denominator-aware view (total ÷ successful_payments). |
| PP Revenue Trend | Same metric trended daily for visual anomaly spotting. |
| PP Revenue by Country | Geographic breakdown using payer_info.country_code. |
| Stripe Total Charge Volume | The Stripe twin (same metric on a different processor). Multi-processor merchants run both side-by-side. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in PayPal Business: Closest comparable is PayPal Business → Reports → Financial summary for the same date range. The “Gross sales” line on that report maps to this card. Other useful screens:- Activity → All Transactions, the row-level view filtered to “Payments received”.
- Reports → Activity download for a CSV export to reconcile row-by-row.
- Reports → Sales transactions groups by item and excludes refunds/disputes the way this card does.
- “Net amount received” on the Financial summary already nets fees and refunds; that maps to PP Net Revenue, not this card.
- “Money in” on the Activity summary tile includes received-friend-payments and personal transfers if your account has both personal and business activity blended.
- “Settled to bank” is a payout view (T03), not a payment-received view.
| Reason | Direction of divergence | What to do |
|---|---|---|
Page cap (10,000 transactions per /v1/reporting/transactions call). High-volume PayPal merchants doing > 10k transactions in a 31-day window see truncated single-page totals. | Vortex IQ may be lower | Use shorter windows (7D / 1D) where each page stays inside 10k, or wait for the warehouse-backed view (rolling out separately). |
| Time zone. PayPal Business uses your account-configured timezone (Settings → Business profile → Time zone). Vortex IQ runs on UTC by default. | Boundary days differ | Largest impact on “today” / “yesterday”; for 7D / 30D the drift averages out. |
Event-code interpretation drift. PayPal’s T00xx sub-codes have evolved over time (older transactions may use codes since deprecated). Most engines, including ours, treat any T00 prefix as “payment” but PayPal Business has finer granularity. | Tiny drift on long historical windows | Compare equal short windows; differences usually < 0.1%. |
Pending refresh lag. Transactions in P (eCheque, SEPA, risk-review) flip to S only after PayPal clears them; Vortex IQ reflects the state at last sync. | Vortex IQ lower for the most recent 1-3 days | Wait for next refresh; SEPA debits typically clear in 3 business days. |
| Multi-currency presentation. PayPal Business converts to your account’s primary currency at the day’s FX rate; Vortex IQ sums each transaction in its own currency without FX. | Ours is arithmetically wrong as a single number, accurate per-currency | Use PP Revenue by Currency for the unambiguous view. |
| Comparison | Expected relationship | When divergence is legitimate |
|---|---|---|
pp_total_revenue ↔ stripe.stripe_total_revenue | Two independent processors, no equality expected. PayPal share is typically 15-30% of Stripe + PayPal combined for stores running both. | The split shifts with traffic mix (international, mobile, younger demographics push toward PayPal). |
pp_total_revenue + Stripe charge volume | ≈ commerce_total_revenue | The two payment volumes summed (in matching currency) should approach the commerce platform’s total minus other gateway revenue (Klarna direct, Apple Pay direct, manual bank transfer, gift cards, COD). |
pp_total_revenue ↔ shopify.total_revenue | pp ≤ shopify | Shopify total revenue includes orders paid via Stripe, Klarna, Apple Pay, gift cards, manual transfer, and any other gateway. PayPal is a subset of Shopify total. |
pp_total_revenue ↔ bigcommerce.total_revenue | pp ≤ bigcommerce | Same logic. BC supports many non-PayPal gateways (Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.net, Square, Cybersource), each one displaces PayPal revenue. |
pp_total_revenue ↔ adobe_commerce.total_revenue | pp ≤ adobe_commerce | Same logic. Adobe Commerce stores frequently use Cybersource, Braintree, or Worldpay alongside PayPal. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Reconciliation questions (“why doesn’t this match PayPal Business / my bank?”) are answered in the Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard section above. Below are the merchant questions that aren’t reconciliation.Why is my PayPal total a fraction of my Stripe total? PayPal typically carries 15-30% of combined PayPal + Stripe revenue for multi-processor merchants. Buyers default to whichever option they trust; younger US shoppers, international guests, and mobile-heavy traffic skew toward PayPal, while desktop card-on-file shoppers skew toward Stripe. The split is a strategic input for which option to feature in checkout, not a bug. Why is this higher than what arrived in my bank? Total Transaction Volume is gross of fees, refunds, and disputes. Bank deposits reflect PP Net Revenue (PayPal fees and refunds netted) minus disputes lost minus rolling reserves. Use PP Pending Balance and PP Avg Settlement Time to see what’s in flight on its way to settlement. What does “denied” actually mean for PayPal? PayPal’s
D (denied) status covers both PayPal-side denials AND bank-side issuer declines for card payments routed through PayPal. PayPal acts as a payment intermediary; from the merchant view the distinction is irrelevant (the customer didn’t pay). For finer breakdown see PP Decline Event Codes. The card excludes both equally.
Are eCheque payments counted while they’re clearing?
No. eCheque clearance puts the transaction in P (pending) for ~3-5 business days. While P it’s excluded; when it flips to S it starts contributing on the next refresh. Same for SEPA debit (~3 business days) and any payment held for risk review. Track the pending pool via PP Pending Rate.
Are disputes counted as revenue?
Yes, until and unless they’re resolved against you. A successful payment later disputed still counts in this card. PayPal’s dispute lifecycle (T19) is tracked separately on PP Dispute Value, PP Dispute Rate, and PP Buyer Protection Win Rate. PayPal aligns with Visa/Mastercard at the 1.0% chargeback monitoring threshold; we alert at 0.9%.
My multi-currency PayPal account, why does the headline number look weird?
Because we sum each transaction in its own currency without FX conversion. A store taking USD + EUR + GBP gets a sum like “$50k + €12k + £8k”, arithmetically meaningless as a single number but correct per-currency. Use PP Revenue by Currency for the breakdown, or wait for the FX-normalised version on the roadmap.
Why doesn’t my PayPal total match my commerce platform’s “PayPal” filter?
Three usual reasons: (1) the commerce platform’s “paid via PayPal” tag includes PayPal Express, PayPal Credit, Pay Later, and Venmo (all of which sum here too) but excludes any PayPal-bridged-card flows where the gateway recorded “card” instead of “PayPal”; (2) timezone differences move boundary-day orders; (3) refunds processed in PayPal but not yet synced back to Shopify (or vice versa) cause short-term drift. After 24-48 hours the two numbers converge.
Are Late Capture or Hold transactions counted?
No. PayPal’s P (pending) covers eCheque clearance, SEPA, risk holds, and authorisation-without-capture states. None contribute. When the hold resolves to S they count then.
The PayPal share of my revenue is shrinking, should I worry?
Not by itself. Successful migrations to Stripe (or Apple Pay direct) often shrink PayPal share without shrinking PayPal absolute volume. Watch absolute PP Total Transaction Volume against the previous 30 days, not the share-of-total. If the absolute number drops > 15% vs prior period the alert will fire.