> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Success Rate, Square > Success Rate for Square stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Supporting Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Payment Gateway](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Percentage of attempted Square payments that succeeded. Card-present (POS chip + tap) success rates are very high (typically 98, 99.5%). Card-not-present (Square Online + Tap to Pay phone-typed) is more like 92, 96%. Cash App Pay is somewhere in between (95, 98%) because the buyer-side wallet handles auth. | | | | --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(status = COMPLETED) / COUNT(status IN (COMPLETED, FAILED, CANCELED)) * 100`. `APPROVED` (auth-only, not yet captured) excluded from both. | | **Currency** | Currency-neutral (rate, not amount). | | **Channel split** | POS card-present near-universally succeeds; online lower; the blended figure depends heavily on channel mix. | | **Cash transactions** | Counted as success (cash is always "successful" by definition). Cash inclusion inflates the blended success rate slightly. | | **3DS abandons** | A Square Online checkout where the customer abandoned the 3DS challenge counts as `CANCELED`, lowering success rate. | | **Time window** | `7D vsP`. | | **Alert trigger** | `<92%` absolute, OR `-3pp` week-over-week. Sentiment gauge: good >=95, warn \<90. | | **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-day window, blended across channels: | Channel | Successful | Failed | Cancelled | Success rate | | -------------------- | ---------- | ------ | --------- | --------------------- | | POS chip + tap | 798 | 6 | 2 | 798 / 806 = **99.0%** | | Cash drawer | 270 | 0 | 0 | 100% | | Square Online | 142 | 18 | 5 | 142 / 165 = **86.1%** | | Cash App Pay | 21 | 1 | 0 | 95.5% | | POS Apple/Google Pay | 56 | 1 | 0 | 98.2% | ```text theme={null} Blended success rate = 1,287 / 1,320 = 97.5% ``` What stands out: 1. **Online success rate at 86% is concerning.** Below the 92% alert threshold. Open [`squ_top_decline_reasons`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square/top-decline-reasons) to see whether it's `INSUFFICIENT_FUNDS`, `CARD_DECLINED` generic, or `CVV_FAILURE`. If the cancel rate (5 / 165 = 3%) is dominated by 3DS abandons, the fix is checkout UX. Track via [`squ_threedsecure_abandon_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square/3ds-abandonment-rate). 2. **POS chip + tap at 99% is excellent.** Anything in 98, 99.5% range on card-present is healthy. \<97% on POS suggests terminal connectivity or chip-reader hardware fault. 3. **Cash inflates the blended figure.** Removing cash gives 1,017 success out of 1,050 = 96.9%, the more useful "card success" rate. 4. **Cash App Pay at 95.5%.** Block has high incentive to keep the buyer-side flow smooth; declines are typically insufficient-balance on the Cash App account. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------- | | [`squ_decline_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square/decline-rate) | The complement (decline = 100 - success - cancel). | | [`squ_top_decline_reasons`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square/top-decline-reasons) | The breakdown when this rate drops. | | [`squ_threedsecure_abandon_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square/3ds-abandonment-rate) | The cancel-side companion (online only). | | [`squ_top_payment_methods`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square/top-payment-methods) | Tender mix shift moves this number. | | Stripe [`stripe_payment_success_rate`](/nerve-centre/stripe/stripe_payment_success_rate) / Viva [`viv_success_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/viva-payments/success-rate) | Cross-PSP comparison. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in the Square Dashboard:** > **Reports → Sales → Sales Summary** has tiles for "Sold" vs "Failed". Dashboard does not natively surface a "success rate" KPI; you compute it from the raw counts. **Why our number may differ:** | Reason | Direction | | ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | | Cash inclusion | Ours higher (cash is always success) | | Time zone | Boundary days | | Cancelled vs Failed taxonomy | Slight; both excluded from numerator | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** success rates differ across PSPs for the same merchant due to acquirer routing differences. A Stripe + Square multi-rail merchant typically sees Square card-present at 99% and Stripe online at 94%, the channel mix accounts for the gap. ## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **"My online success rate dropped overnight, where to start?"** Open [`squ_top_decline_reasons`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/square/top-decline-reasons) first. Most overnight drops are issuer-side (bank fraud-filter triggered for one BIN range) or 3DS-config (a recent Square Online upgrade changed the challenge flow). **"Why is POS so much higher than online?"** Card-present has chip + PIN local verification; the issuer auth is mostly procedural. Online (CNP) has the issuer + 3DS + Square Risk all evaluating; any of them can decline. The 6, 12 percentage point gap is universal. **"Cash App Pay declines, what causes them?"** Insufficient Cash App balance, expired linked card on the Cash App side, or Block's risk engine declining the funding source. Merchants don't see the underlying reason (Block protects buyer privacy). **"Tap to Pay on iPhone success rate?"** Same as POS chip + tap, near 99%. The hardware-vs-software difference doesn't materially change auth outcomes. **"My subscription rebills are the bulk of my failures, normal?"** Yes. Card-on-file rebills decline for `expired_card` (\~30% of subscription declines), `insufficient_funds` (\~25%), and `do_not_honor` (\~15%). Square Subscriptions has a built-in retry schedule. **"Multi-currency, does this work?"** Yes; rate is currency-neutral. **"Time-zone shift on the 7D window?"** Boundary days shift by your location's offset from UTC. For most US merchants this means the rate may be 0.1, 0.3pp different from a Square Dashboard equivalent on the latest day. **"Why is my Square Online conversion lower than Shopify with Stripe?"** Square Online's checkout is built for retail-extension stores (single-product impulse, brick-and-mortar with online add-on); Shopify with Stripe is built for ecom-first. The two flows have different optimisations; different success rates are normal. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Success Rate* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Square 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](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.