3DS Success Rate: Why It Drops and How to Fix It
3D Secure (3DS) is now a standard part of online payments. It helps reduce fraud and shift liability to the issuer, but it can also introduce friction and kill conversion if not monitored properly.
What is 3DS success rate?
At a high level, 3DS success rate shows how many 3DS authentication attempts result in a completed, successful authentication:
3DS success rate = Successful authentications / Total 3DS attempts × 100%
Some merchants also track an “overall 3DS impact” metric – how 3DS affects the final approval rate compared to non-3DS transactions.
Frictionless vs Challenge flows
In modern 3DS, there are two main flows:
- Frictionless: issuer silently approves based on risk checks
- Challenge: customer is asked to confirm (OTP, app, biometrics)
Your 3DS success rate and user experience depend heavily on the share of frictionless vs challenge flows, and on how well customers complete the challenge screens.
Why 3DS success rate drops
- UX issues on the challenge page – layout problems on mobile, language, timeouts
- Technical errors – ACS timeouts, network problems, incorrect data in the 3DS request
- Regional patterns – some countries have low familiarity with 3DS or poor mobile coverage
- Device-specific problems – specific browsers, in-app webviews, ad blockers
How to monitor 3DS properly
At a minimum, you should split 3DS metrics by:
- Country of issuer / shopper
- Device and browser
- Frictionless vs challenge flows
- Technical failures vs user abandonment
Looking only at a global 3DS success percentage can hide the fact that, for example, one country + mobile + challenge is consistently underperforming and driving most of the losses.
How PayLens helps with 3DS monitoring
With PayLens you can:
- See 3DS success by geo, device and traffic segment
- Monitor changes over time after you roll out new 3DS settings or flows
- Use a live tail of events to debug specific failed transactions quickly
Instead of exporting multiple reports from your PSP, you get one view of how 3DS really behaves in your checkout and where exactly it hurts your approval rate.