At a glance
Percentage of PayPal payment attempts that succeeded. Counts only payment events (T00xx), and counts only transaction_status = S as success. The 35%-weight component of PP Payment Health Score. PayPal twin of Stripe’s success rate, but typically a few points lower because PayPal carries more high-risk traffic.
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 consumer-electronics brand running PayPal as the secondary checkout option (Stripe is primary, ~75% of revenue). PayPal carries the international + younger-demographic mix. The 7-day window covers 06 Apr 26 to 12 Apr 26. T00 (payment) rows in the window:- 90.5% is below the 92% alert threshold. A finance-team ping fires. The biggest contributors are the 78 denials (6.2% of attempts) and the 22 pending (1.7%). If the 22 pending all resolve to S over the next 3 days, the rate retroactively climbs to about 92.2% (1,162 ÷ 1,260) and the alert resolves itself. Watch PP Pending Rate for context before reacting.
- PayPal’s “denied” includes both PayPal-side and bank-side declines. The 78 D rows mix PayPal’s own risk-model rejections (typically labelled
denied_by_riskintransaction_subject) with issuer-side declines on PayPal-bridged card payments (typicallyinstrument_declined,insufficient_funds,payer_authentication_required). Open PP Decline Event Codes to see which dominates; PayPal-side denials are tunable via the merchant’s PayPal Risk settings, issuer-side aren’t. - Compare against Stripe. If the same merchant’s Stripe success rate is sitting at 96%, the 5.5-point gap is normal because PayPal carries the higher-risk slice. If the gap is larger than ~7 points, look at the traffic mix: a recent international-targeted ad campaign or a Black Friday flash sale drives more guest checkouts through PayPal, which pulls success down without the merchant doing anything wrong.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in PayPal Business: PayPal Business does not surface a single “success rate” tile, but you can derive it from these screens:- Activity → All Transactions, filter to “Payments received” and check the status breakdown count for the same date range.
- Reports → Activity download, CSV export, count rows where Status = “Completed” against the total payment-attempt rows.
- Resolution Center → Cases for context on what’s flowing through after capture (not the success rate itself).
- “Approved transactions” on PayPal’s PYMNTS / RisQ partner dashboards uses a different denominator (excludes pending entirely).
- The merchant Center “Sales summary” tile shows count of completed payments only, no denominator, no rate.
- “Account approval rate” on PayPal Business → Reports is the seller-onboarding approval rate, not transaction success.
Cross-connector reconciliation:
End-to-end: PP Success Rate is one of four components of PP Payment Health Score. The others are decline rate (×5 amplifier), dispute rate (×50 amplifier), and seller-protection coverage. When the composite drops, success rate is the first place to look (largest contributor for small movements).
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Why is my PayPal success rate lower than my Stripe success rate? PayPal carries more high-risk traffic than Stripe. Buyers without credit cards (younger US demographics, international guests in regions where PayPal is dominant, customers using PayPal’s “guest checkout” rather than logging in) skew higher decline. A 2-5 percentage-point gap between PayPal and Stripe is normal and expected; a 7+ point gap suggests a tunable issue (PayPal Risk settings too aggressive, a regional decline cluster, or a bad-traffic ad campaign). What does “denied” mean for PayPal? Is that a card decline? PayPal’sD (denied) is a catch-all that includes both PayPal-side denials AND bank-side issuer declines for card payments routed through PayPal. PayPal acts as an intermediary; from the merchant view the distinction is usually irrelevant (the customer didn’t pay). For the breakdown see PP Decline Event Codes, transaction_subject carries the underlying reason.
Are eCheque payments counted as “successful” while they’re clearing?
No. eCheque sits in P (pending) for ~3-5 business days while it clears the buyer’s bank. It counts in the denominator (it was an attempt) but not the numerator (not yet successful). When it flips to S it starts contributing to the numerator and the rate retroactively rises. Stores with heavy eCheque mix should expect this card to look depressed for a few days after weekends and holidays.
How is this different from PP Decline Rate?
They’re not exact arithmetic complements because of pending. Success + decline ≠ 100% when there are P / V / T rows in the denominator. Success rate counts only S; decline rate counts only D + F. A store with 90% success and 7% decline has 3% sitting in pending / voided / in-transit.
Why is the alert at 92%, not 95%?
PayPal’s healthy benchmark is 92-96%, lower than Stripe’s 94-97% because of traffic mix. The 92% alert ensures we’re flagging stores that are below their own peer band. Above 92% the rate is acceptable; above 95% is excellent for PayPal.
A risk hold added 8 transactions to “pending” overnight, my success rate dropped, what do I do?
Wait. Risk holds typically resolve in 24-48 hours after PayPal completes its review. If they all resolve to S, the rate snaps back. If a meaningful share resolve to D, it’s worth investigating: a single bad-actor IP attempting many high-value orders, or a sudden rule change in PayPal Risk. Open PP Fraud Velocity for the bad-actor view.
Does PayPal “Late capture” or “Authorisation hold” count?
Late captures are flagged T (in-transit, authorised but not yet captured). They count in the denominator but not the numerator until they’re captured. Most merchants capture within minutes, so this rarely moves the rate. Stores using delayed capture for fraud-review flows will see a small persistent drag here; that’s expected.
My multi-currency PayPal account, does this rate work for me?
Yes. Success rate is a count-based ratio, currency-neutral. Multi-currency PayPal accounts get a single, valid success rate that mixes USD + EUR + GBP attempts arithmetically.
The Visa/Mastercard 1% cap is for disputes, not declines, right?
Correct. Decline rate has no PayPal-imposed cap; if your decline rate spikes you’re losing revenue but you’re not in violation of any threshold. Dispute rate is the one with the regulatory ceiling, see PP Dispute Rate.