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Real order health: watching your real orders between tests

Counts of paid and failed orders every 5 minutes, so a failing payment method shows up before the next test.

Our test order runs every 2 hours. If a payment method breaks just after one, real shoppers could be failing for a while before the next test. So every 5 minutes we also ask the Cart Lookout plugin (plugin 0.4 or newer) how your real orders went.

What we see: counts only

• Per 5 minutes and payment method: how many orders were created, paid, failed, pending, on hold or cancelled.
• The total value of the paid orders, in your currency.
• How often your checkout page was opened and submitted, and whether a submission crashed PHP. Counted on your server: nothing is added to your shop pages and no cookies are set.

We never see your customers or their orders: no order numbers, names, addresses, products or payment details. Our own test orders are never counted.

When we tell you

• Payments failing: 3 or more orders with one payment method failed in 30 minutes and none went through, when that method usually works.
• Declines jumped: in the last hour at least 30% of payments with a method were declined and that is 3 times your normal.
• Checkout errors: 3 or more checkout submissions crashed in 30 minutes and nothing was paid.
• No orders: people reached checkout as often as usual for an hour, but no order at all was created.

We learn what’s normal from your own orders over the last 14 days. A small store gets fewer of these checks: we never judge from one or two orders.

Never on one reading

When something looks wrong we first run our own test order and page check straight away. We email you only if it’s still there at the next count, 5 minutes later: two counts in a row. If our own test passes while real orders fail, the email says so: the problem is then usually the payment provider itself. It closes by itself when real orders with that method go through again.

With enough history, the email also says about how much usually comes through that method at that time of day. That’s an estimate from your own orders, never a promise of lost sales.

Switching it off

It’s on by default. To switch it off, open WooCommerce → Cart Lookout in WordPress and untick Watch real orders. Our scheduled tests carry on as before.

Didn’t help? Email hello@cartlookout.com. More help