Refunds Trend, Klaviyo

Refunds Trend for the selected period. The refunded value tied to Klaviyo-attributed orders, the deduction your revenue line never subtracts. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Email Marketing

The deduction Klaviyo’s revenue never makes. Revenue Trend is gross; this is the refund value sitting behind it that you have to subtract yourself.

At a glance

Refunds Trend plots the refunded value tied to Klaviyo-attributed orders over time. This card exists because of a structural quirk worth understanding: Klaviyo’s attributed revenue is GROSS of refunds, so Revenue Trend never subtracts a refund once it has counted the original order. This line is the missing deduction. Subtract it from Revenue Trend to approximate net Klaviyo revenue. Refunds are typically derived from Klaviyo’s Refunded Order event rather than the revenue statistic, and they lag the original sale because returns happen days or weeks after purchase. Watch the gap between gross revenue and refunds, not just the refund line in isolation.

What it counts	The refunded value associated with orders Klaviyo had attributed to email or SMS, per day. It is the money flowing back out, not the orders flowing in.
API endpoint + statistics field	Derived from Klaviyo’s Refunded Order event via GET /api/metrics and GET /api/metric-aggregates, joined to attributed orders. This is a separate event from the revenue statistic on POST /api/campaign-values-reports and POST /api/flow-values-reports.
Attribution model	Refunds inherit the attribution of the original order under Klaviyo’s default 5-day click and 1-day view model. The refund is dated to when the refund occurred, which can be well after the sale.
Email vs SMS aggregation	Combined, mirroring how the original attributed revenue was aggregated across email and SMS.
Refunds / cancellations	This card IS the refunds view. The key point: Revenue Trend does not deduct any of this, so the two together give you gross and net.
Chart type	Line (time-series, one point per day).
Time window	Selected period (default 30 days), one data point per day.
Alert trigger	A rising refund line or a widening refund-to-revenue gap versus the prior comparable period.
Roles	owner, marketing

Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Klaviyo data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

Worked example

An illustrative apparel brand on Shopify using Klaviyo, where returns are common. The 30-day window covers 14 Mar 26 to 12 Apr 26. Figures are illustrative and shown against the gross revenue line.

Week (illustrative)	Gross attributed revenue	Refunded value	Net after refunds
14 Mar to 20 Mar	£18,200	£900	£17,300
21 Mar to 27 Mar	£22,600	£1,400	£21,200
28 Mar to 3 Apr	£19,800	£2,100	£17,700
4 Apr to 12 Apr	£28,400	£3,300	£25,100
Window total	£89,000	£7,700	£81,300

Net Klaviyo revenue = gross attributed revenue - refunded value
                    = £89,000 - £7,700
                    = £81,300

Refund rate (value) = £7,700 / £89,000 = 8.7%

What’s interesting:

1. Revenue Trend would show £89,000; net is £81,300. That £7,700 gap is exactly what the gross revenue line hides. For an apparel brand with frequent returns, ignoring it overstates Klaviyo’s true contribution by nearly 9 percent.
2. Refunds lag the sale. The 4 to 12 Apr refund spike partly reflects returns on garments bought in late March. Refund peaks trail revenue peaks by days or weeks, so do not expect the two lines to move together.
3. A widening gap matters more than the level. Refund value rising from £900 to £3,300 across the window, faster than revenue grew, signals either a product-quality issue, a sizing problem, or a promotion that pulled in lower-intent buyers who returned more.
4. The order count is untouched. Orders Trend still counts every one of these orders. Refunds reduce value, not the conversion count.
5. Use the value refund rate as a sanity check. 8.7 percent here is plausible for apparel; the same figure on a consumables brand would be alarming. Read this card against your category norm, and pair it with Refund Rate for the ratio view.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Read these alongside Refunds Trend to convert gross Klaviyo revenue into a net picture.

Card	Why pair it with Refunds Trend
Refund Rate	The ratio view: refunded value as a share of attributed revenue. This card is the absolute pounds behind that rate.
Revenue Trend	The gross line. Subtract Refunds Trend from it to approximate net Klaviyo revenue.
Email-Attributed Revenue	The gross hero number. Refunds are the deduction it does not make.
Placed Orders	The order count, which refunds do not reduce. Useful for separating value loss from volume.

Reconciling against Klaviyo

Where to look in Klaviyo:

Open Analytics → Metrics → Refunded Order to see refunded order events and their value over the window. Note that Klaviyo’s headline Analytics → Performance revenue figure does NOT subtract these, which is the whole reason this card exists. To see the original sales, cross-reference Analytics → Metrics → Placed Order.

Why our number may legitimately differ:

Reason	Direction of divergence
Time zone. Klaviyo dates refunds in the account time zone; Vortex IQ defaults to UTC. A refund near midnight can land on a different day.	A daily value can shift by one day at the boundary
Refund event coverage. Refunds depend on the commerce platform sending a Refunded Order event to Klaviyo. If that integration is partial, some refunds never reach Klaviyo and so never reach this card.	This card can understate true refunds
Attribution-window changes. Refunds inherit the original order’s attribution; a changed window re-attributes both.	Small drift on changed-window accounts
Currency base. Refund value is normalised to the account base currency with no live FX, the same as revenue.	None; consistent
Gross revenue is intentional. Klaviyo carrying revenue gross of refunds is by design, not a sync error. This card supplies the deduction Klaviyo omits.	Expected; the gap is the point

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why does Klaviyo’s revenue not already subtract refunds? Because Klaviyo records the Placed Order event at order time and treats a refund as a separate Refunded Order event. The revenue statistic is gross by design. This card surfaces the refund side so you can compute net yourself.

How do I get net Klaviyo revenue? Subtract this card’s value from Revenue Trend over the same window. The worked example above shows the arithmetic.

Why don’t refunds line up with the day the revenue was earned? Returns happen days or weeks after purchase. A refund is dated to when it occurred, so refund peaks lag revenue peaks. Do not expect the two lines to move in step.

Some refunds are missing. Why? Refunds only reach Klaviyo if your commerce platform sends a Refunded Order event. If that part of the integration is incomplete, those refunds never reach this card. Check that refund events are configured on the platform side.

Does a refund remove the order from my order count? No. Orders Trend and Placed Orders still count the order. Refunds reduce value, not the conversion count.

Is a rising refund line always bad? Not on its own. If revenue grew proportionally, the refund rate is stable and the rise is just scale. Watch the refund-to-revenue gap and the Refund Rate card; a widening gap is the real warning.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Refunds Trend is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Klaviyo 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.

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