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Nerve Centre KPIs · Audit Profile · Sentiment Settings Stripe-specific health audit. Answers four questions: (1) is the auth rate / decline mix healthy and are soft declines being recovered; (2) are 3DS friction and Stripe Radar tuned right (not over-blocking, not under-protecting); (3) are payouts on schedule and settlement predictable; (4) are disputes responding fast enough to win, and is Early Fraud Warning being acted on before it becomes a chargeback. Cross-channel area joins decline + dispute signals to commerce-sibling checkout funnel and fulfilment status to size live revenue at risk.

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What this audit checks

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Authentication & access

  • Secret key is live-mode (not test) for production integrations
  • Restricted-key scopes cover charges, refunds, disputes, payouts, balance, radar, subscriptions
  • Webhook signing secret present and signature validation enabled
  • Stripe-Account ID detected; Connect platform vs standard correctly classified

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Transaction health

  • Authorisation success rate above 92% baseline
  • Decline reason mix - no single soft-decline reason > 25% of declines
  • Smart-Retry / Adaptive Acceptance is enabled and recovering > 25% of soft declines
  • Top declining issuers (BIN-level) identified for recovery playbook

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3DS & Radar fraud controls

  • 3DS challenge abandon rate < 25% (otherwise consider Smart 3DS routing)
  • Radar highest risk-score share < 5% of charges in the last 7 days
  • Radar block-rate not surging > 50% vsP (sudden tightening of rules can mask outage)
  • Early Fraud Warnings being refunded proactively (not converting to disputes)

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Revenue & sales volume

  • Total charge volume and transaction count trending within expected band vs prior period
  • Average transaction value stable (no silent drop signalling mix shift or test traffic)
  • Net revenue after refunds + Stripe fees reconciles against gross charge volume

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Disputes & chargebacks

  • Dispute rate below 0.9% (90% of Visa 1% cap) on a 90-day window
  • Avg dispute response time < 5 days
  • Dispute win rate at or above 35% industry baseline
  • Top dispute reason codes (fraudulent / product_not_received) flagged for prevention

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Settlement & payouts

  • Avg settlement time within Stripe’s expected schedule for the merchant’s country
  • No payout pending > 5 days
  • Payout success rate ≥ 99%
  • For Connect platforms: application fees reconcile against expected platform commission

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Subscription & recurring health

  • Recurring charge failure rate below 12%
  • Involuntary churn (failed payments) < 3% of MRR
  • Dunning recovery rate ≥ 25%
  • Stored-token expiring < 30d share < 5% of subscriber base

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Compliance & tax

  • Stripe Tax registration coverage - no country with > $10k revenue and no active registration
  • EU VAT / UK VAT / US sales-tax thresholds tracked when Stripe Tax enabled

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Cross-channel: revenue protection

  • Decline-driven checkout-funnel drop (sibling = shopify/bigcommerce/adobe.checkout_step_completion_rate falling concurrent with stripe.decline_rate spike)
  • Dispute-to-fulfilment correlation (sibling = shipbob/commerce.shipment_delayed_orders converting to product_not_received disputes)
  • Recoverable revenue forecast (soft-decline value × sibling.avg_repurchase_rate × Smart-Retry success rate)
  • Chargeback forecast (EFW count × historical EFW→chargeback rate × avg dispute amount)

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Severity thresholds

SignalWarnCritical
decline_rate68
authorization_rate92-
dispute_rate0.91.0
payout_age_days35
threedsecure_abandon_rate2540
radar_highest_risk_share35
recurring_failure_rate812
involuntary_churn_pct_of_mrr23

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Data sources

  • GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/account - Account capabilities, Connect classification, charges/payouts enabled
  • GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/balance - Live pending vs available balance
  • GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges - Charge history, outcomes, risk_level, card metadata
  • GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/disputes - Open + closed disputes with reason codes + evidence_due_by
  • GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/payouts - Payout schedule, status, failures
  • GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/subscriptions - Active / past_due / canceled subscriptions for MRR + churn
  • GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/reviews - Manual + rule-triggered Stripe Radar reviews
  • GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/radar/early_fraud_warnings - Network EFW signals - leading indicator of dispute risk
  • GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/tax/registrations - Stripe Tax registration coverage