Payment Glitches Put $44.4 Billion of U.S. Sales at Annual Risk

PHILADELPHIA, PA – January 12, 2026 – A critical vulnerability at the heart of the American economy is putting $44.4 billion in retail and hospitality sales at risk each year, according to a new study. The research, a joint effort by payment technology leader FreedomPay, software intelligence firm Dynatrace, and consultancy Retail Economics, reveals that payment system outages are no longer rare mishaps but a frequent and costly operational failure, with consumer patience evaporating long before systems are restored.

The findings paint a stark picture for businesses: on average, U.S. retail and hospitality companies experience over five major payment disruptions annually. Compounding the issue, a staggering 63% of these failures strike during peak trading hours, maximizing financial and reputational damage. This recurring disruption highlights a growing chasm between customer expectations for seamless digital transactions and the fragility of the underlying infrastructure.

"Consumer-facing businesses in the U.S. are navigating an increasingly treacherous landscape," said Chris Kronenthal, President at FreedomPay, in the report's release. "From widespread outages and connectivity issues to the fragility of existing payment infrastructure, disruption has become a constant. This environment creates a perfect storm for significant revenue loss and long-term damage to customer loyalty and brand reputation."

The Seven-Minute Countdown to Lost Revenue

The study's most alarming finding is the 'patience gap'—the critical window between when a payment system fails and when a customer gives up. Consumers will wait a mere seven minutes before abandoning a purchase. In stark contrast, the average outage drags on for two hours, leaving a vast period of hemorrhaging sales.

The financial consequences escalate with terrifying speed. Once the seven-minute patience threshold is crossed, U.S. businesses begin forfeiting an estimated $1.2 billion in sales per minute between the eighth and thirteenth minute of an outage. By the time an outage hits the 23-minute mark, cumulative losses can soar to $5.3 billion, effectively wiping out 70% of all potential revenue at risk during the event.

This vulnerability is magnified by a society that has largely moved beyond physical currency. With less than 30% of U.S. consumers consistently carrying cash, the traditional fallback is no longer a reliable safety net. The research found that 15% of businesses compound this risk by lacking any form of secure digital payment backup, leaving them completely exposed when their primary systems fail.

Beyond the Balance Sheet: The Human and Brand Cost

The impact of payment failures extends far beyond immediate financial losses, inflicting deep and lasting damage on brand trust and employee morale. Each failed transaction represents a moment of friction that erodes customer confidence. Independent research corroborates this, showing that over 60% of online shoppers will abandon their cart after just two failed payment attempts, and more than half view a website's technical performance as a direct reflection of a brand's professionalism.

"The financial impact of payment outages is significant, but the erosion of consumer trust and brand loyalty can cause equally devastating damage,” warned Richard Lim, CEO at Retail Economics. He emphasized that these disruptions are not just technical problems but significant blows to the customer relationship.

This friction often boils over into direct conflict. The study reports that 60% of managers have seen an increase in verbal abuse directed at frontline staff during payment outages. Employees, who have no control over the system failure, are left to manage customer frustration, adding a significant human cost to the technical breakdown. These negative experiences, quickly amplified on social media, can tarnish a brand's reputation for years.

A System Under Strain: Why Payments Fail

The increasing frequency of outages is a symptom of the immense complexity of modern digital ecosystems. Recent history is littered with examples of catastrophic failures. A 2023 outage at payment processor Square left thousands of small businesses unable to process card payments for hours. More recently, a faulty software update from a cybersecurity firm in July 2024 triggered a global IT meltdown, disrupting major payment networks like Visa and Mastercard and freezing point-of-sale systems worldwide. An Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage in late 2025 further demonstrated the risk, as the failure of a single cloud provider cascaded across thousands of e-commerce sites and fintech platforms.

These incidents reveal that a failure can originate anywhere—from a local software bug to a third-party vendor or a major cloud provider. Identifying the root cause in these interconnected environments is a race against the clock.

“This research shows that payment disruption becomes a business problem long before it is uncovered as a technical one,” explained Philippe Deblois, Global Vice President of Solutions Engineering at Dynatrace. “When payment systems fail, time is the most expensive variable. In complex environments, delays happen when teams can’t quickly see where a problem starts or how systems are connected. Customers don’t wait for that clarity. They leave, and revenue is lost within minutes.”

The Arms Race for Resilience

In response to this volatile environment, an arms race for payment resilience is underway. The report positions advanced solutions as a critical defense. Modern payment gateways, like those offered by FreedomPay, are designed to provide flexibility and redundancy. They operate independently of specific hardware and can simplify the complex web of legacy systems. This allows for greater agility when disruptions occur.

Simultaneously, the field of AI-powered observability, where Dynatrace is a key player alongside competitors like New Relic and Datadog, has become essential. These platforms provide real-time, end-to-end visibility across the entire digital infrastructure, enabling IT teams to proactively identify potential points of failure and dramatically reduce the time it takes to resolve issues when they arise.

While there are no explicit government regulations mandating system uptime, industry standards and regulatory pressure are pushing businesses toward greater resilience. Compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requires a secure and robust infrastructure. Furthermore, oversight from bodies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which actively pursues payment processors for failing to prevent fraud and unauthorized transactions, implicitly demands reliable systems. For businesses operating in this high-stakes environment, investing in a seamless and resilient payment experience is no longer a competitive advantage but a fundamental requirement for survival.