At a glance
Percentage of Square Online checkouts that hit a 3DS 2 challenge and the customer abandoned (did not complete the bank popup). NOT the same as decline (issuer rejected). Different fix: abandons need UX work; declines need issuer-side analysis. Square Online uses 3DS 2 for SCA-required EU traffic and for high-risk US traffic.
| What it counts | COUNT(status = CANCELED AND last_error_message contains '3DS') / COUNT(3DS challenges issued) * 100. |
| API endpoint | /v2/payments filtered to online (source_type = EXTERNAL); 3DS challenge state in payment metadata. |
| POS coverage | None; POS uses chip + PIN, not 3DS. This card is online-only. |
| Currency | Currency-neutral. |
| Time window | 7D vsP. |
| Alert trigger | >15% absolute on EU traffic, >10% on US. Sentiment inverse-gauge: good <=15, warn >=30. |
| Roles | owner, finance, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Square data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
7 days of Square Online for a US-EU dual-market DTC brand:| Region | Sessions | 3DS frictionless | 3DS challenged | Of challenged: completed | Of challenged: abandoned |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US (low-risk default) | 412 | 392 | 20 | 17 | 3 (15.0%) |
| EU (SCA mandatory >EUR 30) | 158 | 122 | 36 | 31 | 5 (13.9%) |
- EU 13.9% is at the alert threshold. PSD2 SCA forces 3DS challenges; abandon rates of 8, 15% are typical.
- US 15% on a small base (3 / 20) is noisy. Don’t over-react below 50 challenges per week.
- Frictionless rate matters more. 392 of 412 US sessions skipped 3DS entirely (95.1% frictionless); 122 of 158 EU did (77.2%).
- Square Risk Manager interaction. Square Risk can pre-emptively decline high-risk traffic before 3DS even fires; that suppresses both the challenge count and the abandon rate.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair |
|---|---|
squ_decline_rate | Different metric, different fix. |
squ_success_rate | Abandons depress success rate. |
squ_top_decline_reasons | If PAYER_AUTHENTICATION_REQUIRED shows up as a decline reason, it’s 3DS-failure adjacent. |
Stripe stripe_threedsecure_abandon_rate | Cross-PSP comparison. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in the Square Dashboard: Square does not surface 3DS abandon as a headline KPI. Use Reports → Transactions filtered toStatus: Cancelled and inspect failure messages. The Risk Manager dashboard shows challenge-issuance counts.
Why ours may differ:
| Reason | Direction |
|---|---|
| Definition | Some Dashboard views count “all cancellations” not just 3DS abandons; ours filters to 3DS specifically |
| Late completion | A challenge completed hours later flips Cancelled→Completed retroactively |