What would you consider a normal % of declines?
 

I was wondering, for those that have access to decline stats, what do you think is a normal % of declines? And which processor, from your experience, has the less declines?

Depends on what you count as a decline. If you count everyone who hits your credit card page without joining, you'd see very different numbers than if you only count the people that actually submit credit card data.

In the later case, we see 1 decline for every 2 signups on average.

By decline/denials, I mean people that can't sign up, that are blocked from the scrub system...
If someone try to sign up, make a mitake , get a denials, refill the form correctly and then the transaction is succesful, I don't consider that a decline...

I consider a decline if the person try to sign up, get refused, then leave...

if you get 1 decline every 2 sign ups, that's extremely high I would say!

It does sound a bit high, but keep in mind those are raw transactions. A good number of declines, correct their info and turn into a valid signup.

Just to complicate things further... there are declines and there are unique declines. Some stats systems count only unique declines and some count all declines. Often a person will try to sign up and be declined 4, 5, 6 or more times - that's one unique decline but multiple raw declines.

The old CCBill system, for example, used to count every raw decline, but the new stats system throws out all but unique declines.

Last night between 8:03 and 8:15 I had some poor soul be declined 7 times ("That's what you get for having charged back asshole!"). In the old system this would have been 7 declines, now it is only counted as one.

My decline rate changed from 25 to 35% to 5 to 10% with that stats method change.

So I can confirm that I also used to see about 1 raw decline for every 2 signups, back when all my raw declines were counted. But it is considerably less than that now that only unique declines are counted.

Then to add another layer of complication... are declined rebills counted as a decline? This is where the person has moved or exceeded their limit or had a new card issued with a new expiry date. And what if, as Indeed and NetRodent said, a person is declined but then successfully signs up (they probably just screwed up entering their data the first time) - is that counted as a decline? So with all the different ways of counting, it is hard to do some quality benchmarking.

Personally, I definitely wouldn't think about it when considering a processor. There are FAR more important considerations such as reliability (see the threads on ProBilling) and customer service (see the threads on webmasters having problems get a hold of their IBill rep). Scrubbing and declines are just the cost of doing business and the small price to pay for not having to worry about chargebacks.

I see a lot of people say that CCBill scrubs like hell. I wouldn't know, I have nothing to compare to. But 5 to 10% unique declines is fine by me. I think this talk of rampant scrubbing is just myth - webmasters bitching until it becomes urban legend. Sort of like the myth that MOST chargebacks are caused by wives finding credit card charges and forcing a chargeback when a husband denies the validity of the charge - myth. There are far more common reasons for chargebacks I suspect, including plain old bold theft, but who knows really since only the acquiring banks have that data. Webmasters bitch and spread falsehoods more than a bunch of menopausal, tea-sipping old ladies.

I my experience, a 70% approval rate is about the average. I've seen as high as 85% for some site/biller combinations.
Kenny

85% is high? Damn, I'm doing better than I thought.

Kenny: The numbers you shared and the stats page on your site are a useful benchmark, thanks. Is that for new transactions AND rebills, or just new?

I went back through my last week's of stats and here are my decline/approval stats. I use CCBill. Keep in mind that this is for unique customers/surfers only, duplicate (raw) declines have not been counted. Also going through my transactions it appears to me that if the surfer does eventually successfully sign up then his prior declines are also NOT counted as a decline in the CCBill stats. So these declines are uniques who give up or never get to sign up (as near as I can figure).

With new transactions and rebills both included my decline rate is 6.7% or 93.3% approval.

With just new transactions (rebills not included) my decline rate is 14.7% or 85.3% approval.

So like I said before, I think it is a whiner's myth that "CCBill (or insert your favorite IPSP here) scrubs like hell!"

Even if CCBill severely loosened up their scrubbing and let 1/3 of those declines through it would only add maybe 4% to my revenue. But my chargeback rate would probably double or triple, and suddenly I am losing sleep because I am riding the 1% line.

Screw the surfer who has charged back or asked for a refund for a really stupid reason - scrub 'em baby! They can download a dialer.

interesting...

yes I was talking about "unique" declines and not raws

New signups only....
-K