Payment Tool Stack by Volume Tier

TL;DR

• Under $250K/month: processor built-ins plus AVS and CVV are all you need. Stripe's Radar Lite, Square's built-in screening. Don't buy a fraud platform yet.
• $250K-$1M/month: add dispute alerts. Verifi for Visa and Discover, Ethoca for Mastercard. And compare processors that publish volume bands, rather than waiting for a discount nobody advertises.
• Over $1M/month: a fraud platform, chargeback automation and a second processor start to earn their keep.
• Sift, Signifyd, Forter and Riskified publish no price and no volume minimum. Reported contract ranges do exist. They come from Vendr, a SaaS buying platform that negotiates these deals. Sift's median contract is $150,000/year, over a stated sample of 50 purchases. Sardine's is $95,333. SEON's is $56,900. Attributed, dated and worth having. Not vendor figures.
• SEON is the only fraud vendor with a published entry price. $699/month for 2,500 checks, about $0.28 a check. Use it as your anchor when a quote-only vendor finally names a number.
• Riskified gives you the only public percentage-of-GMV benchmark in the guarantee market. It comes from its own filings. Revenue over GMV works out to 0.237% in Q1 2026. Ask every guarantee vendor to quote as a percentage of GMV, so you can hold it against that.
• Chargeback alert prices are published, just not by the networks. Chargeblast is $14 per chargeback stopped. Chargeflow is $29 per deflected chargeback. Disputifier is $17 to $27.50 per alert. All three on their Shopify App Store listings. Visa and Mastercard licence into a reseller channel, and the reseller sets retail. That's why the network price is structurally unpublishable.
• Buy before the threshold and you waste money. Buy after it and you eat preventable losses. This page has the inflection points.

Most SMBs buy tools too early and waste money. Or too late, and eat the damage. This page says what to use at each volume tier, and when to upgrade. The answer turns on two numbers. Your monthly volume and your chargeback ratio.

How the prices on this page are sourced

Every figure carries a source tier. VENDOR is from the vendor's own page. REPORTED is from a named third party, with who, when, and what kind of source. DERIVED is calculated from published figures, not a company disclosure. NOT PUBLISHED means the vendor doesn't publish it, and the page says what to ask for instead. The full system.

Vendor-published figures alone would leave most of this table blank. A blank cell doesn't help anyone build a budget, and it quietly rewards the vendors that publish least. So reported ranges are in. Labelled, sources named, so you can weigh them yourself.

The main reported source here is Vendr. It's a SaaS buying and negotiation platform that publishes contract medians from deals it has worked on. Two things to hold in mind. Vendr sells negotiation services, so its "discounts achievable" figures read as achievable rather than typical. And it discloses a sample size for exactly one vendor. Sift's median is stated as based on 50 purchases. That makes it far more trustworthy than the Signifyd, Forter, SEON and Sardine medians, where no sample size is given at all.

Prices move, so treat the verified date as a shelf life rather than a guarantee.

The Question This Answers

"Should I buy [fraud tool X] at my volume?"

Wrong answer: "It depends on your business" Right answer: Specific guidance by volume and CB ratio

At $50K/month with a 0.4% CB ratio: no, use processor built-ins. At $500K/month with a 0.8% CB ratio: yes, get quotes now.

---

What's Published and What Isn't

Before any tool comparison, know which numbers exist. And which ones are somebody's guess.

Vendor	Publishes a price?	Publishes a volume minimum?
Square	Yes, full rate card	No floor. Publishes an upward threshold only: over $250,000 per year, talk to sales about custom pricing
Helcim	Yes, five volume bands plus a custom band	No floor. Bands run openly to $5M/month
Stax	Yes, three subscription tiers	Not published
PayPal / Braintree	Yes, full rate card	Not published
Stripe	Yes for card rates and disputes	Not published. No discount schedule and no negotiation threshold appear anywhere on Stripe's site
Adyen	No SMB rate card. Interchange++ plus a $0.13 processing fee, which Adyen itself calls indicative. It does publish its own company-wide take rate: 17.0 bps FY2025	Not published. There is no $10M/year minimum on Adyen's pricing page. Minimum invoice reported at $120/mo or 1,000 txns/mo
Clover	Yes. 2.3% + 10c restaurant, 2.6% + 10c entry retail, 3.5% + 10c keyed. Software $0 to $129.85. Chargeback fee not published at any tier	Not published
Toast	Partly. 2.49% Traditional and 3.09% Pay-as-you-Go are Toast's own. The + 15c is reported only. Plans $0 to $90	Not published
Lightspeed	Yes for card-present, 2.6% + 10c, plus a $15 chargeback fee. Online rate not published	Not published
Checkout.com	No. Verified: pricing page scanned twice, full 1,552-URL sitemap scanned, third-party coverage checked	Not published
SEON	Yes, $699/month Starter	Not published. Reported median contract $56,900/yr, range $3,900-$1,146,838
Sift	No. sift.com/pricing 404s	Not published. Reported median contract $150,000/yr, range $29,600-$600,000, based on a stated 50 purchases
Signifyd	Model only: a percentage of order total on approved orders, nothing on fraud declines	Not published. Reported median $4,444/yr, range $2,089-$48,889. The median is not credible for an enterprise guarantee contract
Forter	No	Not published. Reported median $8,000/yr, range $6,000-$375,000, which contradicts the same source's own segment description of "mid-six figures or higher" for enterprise
Riskified	No. But its filings give a derived 0.237% of GMV blended take	Not published
Sardine	No. sardine.ai/pricing 404s	Not published. Reported median $95,333/yr, range $15,000-$254,480
Verifi, Ethoca	No public alert rate card, and the absence is structural rather than accidental	Not published. Resellers publish: Chargeblast $14, Disputifier $17-$27.50, Chargeflow $29

Vendor sources: Square, Helcim, Stax, PayPal, Braintree, Stripe, Adyen, Checkout.com, Clover, Toast, Lightspeed, SEON, Signifyd. Reported contract ranges: Vendr, a SaaS buying and negotiation platform that publishes medians from deals it has worked on and that sells negotiation services. Derived: Riskified Q1 2026 results. All checked 2026-08-02.

Signifyd is the one partial exception among the guarantee vendors. It publishes the shape of the deal without the number. "Signifyd charges a percentage of the order total when an order is approved," varying by product, vertical, order volume and average ticket. And "there is no charge when an order is declined due to fraud." The percentage itself is never stated.

Read the reported medians with care. Vendr's Signifyd median of $4,444 a year isn't credible as a typical enterprise chargeback-guarantee contract. It almost certainly reflects small self-serve, partial-year or Shopify-tier deals. The top of its range is closer to a real mid-market contract. Its Forter median of $8,000 contradicts its own segment description on the same page, which puts mid-market at "low to mid-five figures" and enterprise at "mid-six figures or higher". Where a source contradicts itself, believe the segment description over the median.

What this means for you: at every tier below, you can budget the processor line from published rates. The fraud platform and guarantee lines can be bracketed from reported ranges. You can't budget from them. Until you have a quote in writing you don't have a budget. What you do have now is an order of magnitude to sanity-check it against.

---

Tool Stack Progression

Key insight: add tools when revenue justifies the cost. Not because they're "best practice."

---

Under $50K/Month: Processor Built-Ins Only

What to Use

Tool Category	Recommendation	Cost
Processor	Square, Free plan	2.6% + $0.15 in person, 3.3% + $0.30 online, 3.5% + $0.15 keyed or card on file. No monthly subscription
Processor alternative	Stripe	No setup fee, no monthly fee. US card rates not stated here, read them at stripe.com/pricing
Fraud detection	Radar Lite on Stripe, or Square's built-in screening	$0. Radar Lite is bundled with Stripe Payments at no extra charge
Chargeback management	Manual, via the processor dashboard	$0 in tooling. Dispute fees are separate: no per-dispute fee appears on any Square pricing page, Stripe charges $15 to receive a dispute
Analytics	Processor dashboard	$0
Refunds	Manual, via processor	$0

Sources: Square fees, Stripe pricing, Stripe dispute pricing. Verified 2026-08-02.

Total monthly tool cost: $0. Square's Free plan has "no monthly subscription costs". Stripe states it "does not charge setup fees, monthly fees, or any other hidden fees." At this tier your only real payment cost is the processing rate.

One cash-flow trap at this size: instant payouts are expensive money. Square Instant Transfer is 1.95% per transfer. Stripe's US instant payout is 1.5%, with a $0.50 minimum and a $9,999 cap. Both are a costly way to borrow from yourself. Use them weekly and that's a bigger line item than any tool on this page.

What NOT to Buy Yet

❌ Third-party fraud platform - only one SMB fraud tool here publishes a price. SEON, at $699/month for 2,500 checks. That's more than your total fraud losses at this volume.

❌ Chargeback alerts - you won't hit the 75 chargebacks/month RDR threshold anyway. Neither Verifi nor Ethoca publishes a rate, so you'd negotiate blind for something you don't need.

❌ Dedicated analytics - processor reports are enough.

❌ Manual review service - review the flags yourself. A few minutes a day.

Why

Math check. The chargeback counts below assume a low average ticket. Run these on your own transaction count, not this one.

• $50K/month at a 0.5% chargeback ratio = 8 chargebacks.
• Say an alert service quotes you $300/month. They don't publish, so you'd have to ask.
• At roughly 40% deflection, that's about 3 chargebacks avoided.
• Call a chargeback $85 all in: fee, lost product, labor. Use your own figure from the total cost model. That's $255 saved.
• Cost $300, saves $255. You're down $45 a month.

Not worth it yet. Use free tools until volume justifies paid ones.

---

$50K-$250K/Month: Add Dispute Alerts

What to Use

Tool Category	Recommendation	Cost
Processor	Square or Stripe	Square Free: 2.6% + $0.15 in person, 3.3% + $0.30 online. Square Plus: 2.5% + $0.15 in person, 2.9% + $0.30 online. Stripe US card rates not stated here
Processor alternative	Helcim, interchange-plus	$50K-$100K/month band: interchange + 0.35% + $0.07 in person, + 0.45% + $0.20 online. $0 monthly fee, no setup, PCI, cancellation or statement fees
Fraud detection	Radar Lite or Square built-in	$0
Dispute alerts	Verifi (Visa, Discover) plus Ethoca (Mastercard)	Not published by either. Priced by your acquirer or a reseller
Chargeback management	Manual, via dashboard	$0
Analytics	Processor dashboard	$0

Sources: Square fees, Helcim pricing, Stripe pricing. Verified 2026-08-02.

Total monthly tool cost: whatever your two alert quotes come to. There's no published number to plan against. That's exactly why you get two quotes and compare them to each other, not to a figure you read somewhere.

Square publishes one threshold worth knowing here. "If you process over $250,000 per year, talk to our team about custom pricing." At $50K a month you're already six times past that. Ask. Square's Plus and Premium plans carry lower rates too, Premium at 2.4% + $0.15 in person. The monthly cost of those plans isn't stated in the source checked here. Get the plan price before you assume the lower rate pays for itself.

When to Add Dispute Alerts

Add when you hit:

• 75+ chargebacks a month, the Visa RDR threshold. Or
• a 0.65%+ chargeback ratio, which puts monitoring programs in view.

At $150K/month and a 0.6% CB ratio:

• About 23 chargebacks a month.
• Alerts deflect roughly 40%, so about 9.
• 9 x $85 = $765 saved.
• A $350/month quote leaves you net +$415 a month.

Tool cost is the only variable you control, and it's the one nobody publishes. Make the quote justify itself against your own chargeback count.

Where to Buy

The networks publish nothing, and that absence is structural. Neither Visa (Verifi) nor Mastercard (Ethoca) sells a retail per-alert price to most merchants. They licence into a reseller and acquirer channel, and the reseller sets retail. You aren't negotiating with Visa or Mastercard. You're negotiating the reseller's margin. That's why resellers publish wildly different prices for substantially the same feed.

Service	Networks	Cost	Tier	How to Buy
Verifi (CDRN)	Visa, Discover	Not published by Visa	NOT PUBLISHED	Through a reseller
Ethoca	Mastercard, and it claims all networks	Not published by Mastercard	NOT PUBLISHED	Through a reseller
Stripe RDR	Visa only	Not published. Enrollment sits in the Stripe Dashboard, but the per-resolution cost isn't stated	NOT PUBLISHED	Enable in Stripe dispute settings, then ask what a resolution costs
Chargeblast	Resells Ethoca, CDRN and RDR	$14 per chargeback stopped. Alerts plans from $19/mo. Recovery 15% on wins	VENDOR, via its Shopify App Store listing	Direct or Shopify
Disputifier	Ethoca, CDRN, RDR, Order Insight	$17 to $27.50 per alert. Recovery 20% of recovered revenue, capped at $250 per won chargeback. Fraud and INR prevention $0.05/order	VENDOR, via its Shopify App Store listing	Direct or Shopify
Chargeflow	Verifi and Ethoca	$29 per deflected chargeback, and its own page says "Over 50 alerts per month? Get better price". Prevent $0.20 per scanned transaction, first 1,000 free. Recovery 25%	VENDOR	Direct or Shopify
Chargebacks911	Both networks	Not published. Its own explainer says alert cost is "roughly on par with the chargeback fees charged by acquirers per chargeback received", which is a claim by a company that sells alerts	NOT PUBLISHED	Direct

Sources: no public alert rate card is published by Visa (Verifi) or Mastercard (Ethoca). Reseller prices from the Chargeblast, Disputifier and Chargeflow Shopify App Store listings, plus chargeflow.io/pricing and disputifier.com/pricing. Checked 2026-08-02.

Two things the published reseller prices tell you

The spread is the reseller's margin, not the network's price. $14 at Chargeblast against $29 at Chargeflow, for substantially the same Ethoca and CDRN feed. A 2x difference on identical data. Get two quotes, always.

Watch the recovery cap. Disputifier caps its 20% success fee at $250 per won chargeback. Chargeflow's 25% is uncapped. On a $2,000 recovery that's $250 against $500. On a $5,000 recovery, $250 against $1,250. For a high-ticket merchant, that gap never shows up in a headline rate comparison.

Ask for these in writing before you sign:

1. The per-alert or per-resolution fee. And whether it's charged on alerts you'd have refunded anyway.
2. The de-duplication rule. One transaction fires both an Ethoca and a CDRN alert. Does it bill once or twice? That decides whether $14 is really $14. Chargeflow is the only provider publishing a stance, a "Zero Duplication Guarantee". A marketing guarantee isn't a contract term until it's in your agreement.
3. Any monthly platform fee, setup fee or minimum.
4. Contract term and early termination terms.
5. Which of the four programmes the quote covers: Ethoca, CDRN, RDR, Order Insight. A price covering only Ethoca isn't comparable to one covering all four.
6. Whether a deflected dispute still counts toward your chargeback ratio.

That last one decides whether the service protects your monitoring-program standing or only your revenue. One operational detail from Disputifier's own page too. RDR and Order Insight take 1 to 2 weeks to enable, against 1 to 2 days for Ethoca and CDRN. RDR has to go through your acquirer. Confirm yours supports it before signing.

What Still NOT to Buy

❌ Third-party fraud platform - Radar Lite or Square's built-in screening is still enough.

❌ Manual review service - you can still review flagged orders yourself.

❌ Chargeback guarantee - it's priced as a percentage of your approved volume. At this size that percentage buys very little.

---

$250K-$1M/Month: Add Fraud Tool

What to Use

Tool Category	Recommendation	Cost
Processor	Stripe, or an interchange-plus processor that publishes its bands	Stripe publishes no volume threshold and no discount schedule. Helcim's $100K-$500K/month band is interchange + 0.25% + $0.07 in person, + 0.35% + $0.20 online. The $500K-$1M band is + 0.20% + $0.06 in person, + 0.25% + $0.15 online
Processor alternative	Stax, subscription model	$199+/month for $250,000+ per year of volume, plus interchange + 0% markup + $0.08 in person or + $0.15 online
Fraud detection	Sift, Signifyd, Forter, Riskified or SEON	Not published for the first four, on price and on minimum. SEON Starter is $699/month for 2,500 checks
Dispute alerts	Verifi + Ethoca	Not published
Chargeback management	Chargeflow or manual	Not published. Automation vendors here price per response or per win
Analytics	Processor dashboard plus basic BI	Stripe Sigma is usage-based, priced per row queried

Sources: Stripe pricing, Helcim pricing, Stax pricing, SEON pricing, Signifyd pricing. Verified 2026-08-02.

Read the Stax tiers carefully: those bands are annual, not monthly. A shop doing $250K a month is doing $3M a year. That sits in the $250,000+ tier at $199+/month. Stax's own words: "Subscription prices are determined by processing volume and do not include cents per transaction." Read the same table as monthly and Stax looks roughly twelve times dearer.

On negotiating with Stripe: Stripe publishes no volume threshold, no discount schedule and no negotiated rate band. Custom pricing may well exist. Nobody can tell you what it looks like or when you qualify. Want rates that fall with volume, visible before you call anyone? Helcim publishes five bands openly.

Total monthly tool cost: one line here has a published price. SEON at $699. Everything else is a quote.

When to Add Fraud Tool

Add when:

• Your CB ratio runs above 0.7% despite basic prevention. Or
• you're processing over $500K a month. Or
• you're in a high-risk vertical, like digital goods or supplements.

At $500K/month and a 0.8% CB ratio:

• About 40 chargebacks a month.
• Roughly half are fraud, so about 20.
• A tool stopping 30% of those prevents about 6.
• 6 x $85 = $510 saved.
• On a $2,000/month quote, you're paying about $1,490 a month for threshold protection.

That can still be the right call if the alternative is a monitoring program. Just be honest about it. It's insurance, not savings. Decide it on that basis.

Fraud Tool Options

Tool	Best For	Vendor price	Reported contract range	What to ask for
Sift	General e-commerce	NOT PUBLISHED. sift.com/pricing and /pricing/ both return 404 and no pricing link appears in site navigation	REPORTED median $150,000/yr, range $29,600-$600,000. Segments: $40K-$100K small/mid-market (100K-500K events/mo, single module), $100K-$300K mid-to-enterprise (500K-2M events/mo), $300K+ large enterprise. Based on a stated sample of 50 purchases, the only sample size Vendr discloses	The billing unit, and the overage rate in writing before signing. Reported at 20-50% above base rate, which is the most common unpleasant surprise. Also cap the reported 3-7% annual escalator at CPI or 3%
Signifyd	Chargeback guarantee	Model published, numbers not: a percentage of order total charged when an order is approved, with no charge when an order is declined for fraud. Free to install on Shopify with a 14-day trial	REPORTED median $4,444/yr, range $2,089-$48,889. The median is not credible for an enterprise contract and no sample size is disclosed	Whether you're buying fraud-only protection or total chargeback liability shift. These are wildly different products sold under one name. How friendly-fraud and item-not-received disputes are treated. Whether any part of the fee is at risk against an approval-rate SLA
Forter	Enterprise volume	NOT PUBLISHED. forter.com/pricing/ is a contact-sales form	REPORTED median $8,000/yr, range $6,000-$375,000. The same source separately describes mid-market as "low to mid-five figures" and enterprise as "mid-six figures or higher", which contradicts its own median. Model reported as structured around approved transaction volume or GMV	The rate as a percentage of approved GMV, so it benchmarks against Riskified's 0.237%. Negotiate the implementation fee, reported at low-to-mid five figures and the most discountable line. Cap the 3-7% escalator
Riskified	Apparel, high-ticket	NOT PUBLISHED as a rate card. But its Q1 2026 results give a DERIVED 0.237% of GMV: $88.3M revenue on $37.2B GMV. Q1 2025 was 0.241%	Public company, so no reseller range needed	Percentage of approved GMV, guarantee scope, and the exact liability transfer terms. Use 0.237% as the public floor when any guarantee vendor quotes you
Sardine	Fintech, banking, crypto	NOT PUBLISHED. sardine.ai/pricing and /pricing/ both 404	REPORTED median $95,333/yr, range $15,000-$254,480. Model: a minimum monthly commit you draw down from, plus consumption rates, with overages charged monthly	Annual rather than monthly true-up, and whether unused commit rolls forward. Those two terms matter more than the headline commit for any seasonal business, because a drawdown model can charge you twice: unused commit in quiet months and overages at peak
SEON	SMBs willing to write their own rules	VENDOR $699/month Starter: 2,500 fraud checks, 10 users, 50 custom rules. Premium is custom priced. No free tier published	REPORTED median $56,900/yr, range $3,900-$1,146,838, with 10-17% discounts reported. The range bottom is close to Starter annualised at $8,388, a reasonable consistency check	The overage rate above 2,500 checks, in writing. Nothing anywhere states what happens at check 2,501, and it is the single biggest unpublished risk in the contract. Also whether unused checks roll forward
Ravelin	Marketplaces, delivery	NOT PUBLISHED at every tier. ravelin.com/pricing exists but contains no pricing at all; it describes the product and routes to a demo	None found from any source with a stated methodology	Ask Ravelin to quote as a percentage of GMV so it's directly comparable. With no public anchor, benchmark against SEON's $699/mo entry, Sift's reported $40K-$100K small/mid-market band, and Riskified's 0.237%

Vendor sources: Sift (pricing 404), Signifyd, Forter, Riskified Q1 2026 results, Sardine (pricing 404), SEON, Ravelin. Reported ranges: Vendr, a SaaS buying and negotiation platform that sells negotiation services. Checked 2026-08-02.

The Riskified benchmark is calculated here, not disclosed by Riskified

0.237% is $88.3M of Q1 2026 revenue divided by $37.2B of GMV. Riskified has never published a take rate. It states only that revenue is "directionally correlated with the level of GMV reviewed". Anyone republishing this should confirm it against the 20-F.

It's also a blended enterprise average. Mid-sized or higher-risk merchants get quoted well above it. What makes it useful anyway is the trend. Take rate is drifting down year on year, 0.241% to 0.237%, while gross margin improves from 49% to 52%. That's a legitimate argument to bring to a renewal.

Use the one published price as your anchor

SEON's Starter tier works out to about $0.28 per fraud check. When a quote-only vendor finally gives you a number, convert it. Cost per check, or cost per approved order. Then compare. A vendor asking many multiples of $0.28 per decision has to explain the difference. "Better machine learning" isn't an answer you can audit.

Note what a guarantee vendor's model does to the comparison, too. Signifyd charges on approved orders, not on checks. So its cost scales with your good volume, not your fraud volume. Those two shapes aren't comparable per transaction. A vendor will happily let you compare them wrongly.

Also worth knowing about this market: Kount and Midigator are both Equifax now. Equifax bought Midigator in 2022 and folded it into Kount. kount.com itself redirects to Equifax's identity and fraud pages. Any comparison listing Midigator or Kount as standalone vendors is out of date. Accertify is no longer an American Express company either. Its own site says it was carved out, and it names no current owner.

What Still NOT to Buy

❌ Manual review team - handle it in-house until you're past $1M/month.

❌ Multiple fraud platforms - one is enough. Two overlapping contracts is the most common way to double a bill for nothing.

❌ Revenue analytics platforms - processor reports are still adequate here.

---

Over $1M/Month: Full Stack

What to Use

Tool Category	Recommendation	Cost
Processor	Stripe, Adyen, Helcim or Checkout.com	Adyen publishes no SMB rate card: Interchange++ plus a $0.13 processing fee, indicative card markup 0.60%, and Adyen labels its own figures indicative. Helcim publishes the $1M-$5M/month band openly at interchange + 0.15% + $0.06 in person, + 0.15% + $0.15 online. Checkout.com quotes only
Fraud detection	Sift, Signifyd, Forter or Riskified	Not published, on price or on minimum
Dispute alerts	Verifi + Ethoca	Not published
Chargeback guarantee	Signifyd or Forter	Not published. Signifyd charges a percentage of approved order value with no charge on fraud declines. The percentage isn't published. Forter publishes no model at all
Manual review	In-house team or outsourced	In-house analyst salary band, roughly $60K-$80K/year. Outsourced review is quoted per seat or per hour
Analytics	Stripe Sigma plus a BI tool	Sigma is usage-based per row. BI platforms are seat-based and quoted
Reconciliation	Accounting integration	Priced by your accounting platform

Sources: Adyen pricing, Helcim pricing, Checkout.com pricing, Signifyd pricing. Verified 2026-08-02.

On Adyen specifically, because the misinformation is widespread. Adyen publishes no SMB rate card and no annual volume floor. There's no $10M/year minimum on its pricing page. What Adyen does say: "we do not have monthly fees, set-up fees, integration fees or closure fees. We do have a minimum invoice depending on industry or business model." No amount attached. And it caveats the whole table with "the fees outlined above are indicative." So expect Interchange++ plus $0.13 per transaction. Get the minimum monthly invoice in writing before you commit engineering time.

Checkout.com offers a flat-rate model and an Interchange++ one, priced "based on your business profile and risk category, nothing else." No setup or account maintenance fees. Ask which model applies to you. Ask how scheme fees are treated under Interchange++. And ask whether there's a monthly minimum.

Total monthly tool cost: not a number this page can honestly print. The three biggest lines here are all quote-only. Fraud platform, guarantee, alerts. And the guarantee is a percentage of volume, not a flat fee. Build the budget from four written quotes. Re-quote annually.

When to Add Each

Manual review team (at $1M-$2M):

• Full-time fraud analyst, roughly $60K-$80K/year in salary.
• Reviews flagged orders, tunes rules, owns the tooling.

Chargeback guarantee (at $2M+ or 0.8%+ CB ratio):

• Cost is a percentage of approved order value. Signifyd publishes the model but not the percentage. Forter publishes neither.
• Both cover approved fraud orders.
• Worth it if your CB ratio is pushing 0.8%.
• Price the guarantee against your actual fraud chargeback losses over the last twelve months first. A percentage of approved volume gets charged on every good order too. That's why guarantees run expensive at low fraud rates and cheap at high ones.

Analytics platform (at $3M+):

• Looker, Tableau, or custom BI.
• Seat-based and negotiated, so get a quote rather than a list price.
• Buys you analysis the processor dashboard can't do.

Multi-Processor Strategy

At $5M+/month, consider:

• Primary: your main gateway, for most volume.
• Secondary: Braintree at 2.89% + $0.29. Or PayPal for PayPal-native checkout at 3.49% + $0.49, and 2.99% + $0.49 on standard card payments.
• Backup: a second acquirer, for redundancy.

Don't pick a secondary on rate alone. Braintree at 2.89% + $0.29 and Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30 differ by 0.01% and one cent. That's about a penny on a $50 order and six cents on a $500 one. No breakeven ticket worth calculating. Choose on features. Braintree gives you native PayPal and Venmo. Stripe gives you a broader product surface and better docs.

Where the processors actually differ is dispute economics, and this gap is far larger than the rate gap:

Processor	Dispute cost	Returned if you win?
Helcim	$0 if resolved in your favour, $15 if lost	Yes, you pay nothing on a win
Square	$0. "There are no fees for dispute management services for chargebacks"	Nothing to refund. The Payment Terms separately reserve the right to recover network fines, which are not the same thing
Braintree	$15.00	Not stated to be refunded
Stripe	$15 to receive the dispute, plus $15 to counter it	The received fee is never returned. The countered fee is returned only on an outright win. On a partial win, neither is returned, so fighting and partly winning costs $30
PayPal, standard	$15 on PayPal-account and Guest Checkout disputes, $20 on card chargebacks. Never both	The $15 isn't charged when the case is decided in your favour. The $20 is charged either way
PayPal, above a 1.5% dispute ratio	$30	No. The win exemption disappears at this tier
Moneris (CAD)	$25.00 CAD, plus an $80.00 CAD authorization chargeback handling fee	Not stated to be refunded

Sources: Helcim, Square, Braintree, Stripe disputes, PayPal fees and PayPal User Agreement, Moneris. All read 2026-08-02. Moneris figures are Canadian dollars.

Run 100 disputes a month through that table. On Square it costs $0. On Helcim, winning all 100 costs $0 and losing all 100 costs $1,500. On PayPal it's $1,500 on wallet traffic, $2,000 on card traffic, $3,000 once you're over the 1.5% line. Wins included. On Stripe, fighting all 100 and partially winning costs $3,000, because neither fee comes back on a partial win. That spread beats a one-cent difference in the card rate. Almost no comparison table shows it.

Cost of running two processors: extra reconciliation, integration and labor.

Benefit: negotiation leverage and uptime insurance.

---

Tool ROI Calculator

When Does a Tool Pay for Itself?

Formula: a tool saves money if:

(Chargebacks prevented x CB true cost) > Tool monthly cost

Two of those three inputs are yours to measure. The third is tool cost, and that's a quote for almost every vendor here. So you can't run this from published data alone. Get the quote first. Then run the math.

Example - dispute alerts at $250K/month:

Without alerts:

• 30 chargebacks a month.
• Cost: 30 x $85 = $2,550.

With alerts, on a $400/month quote:

• 12 prevented, at 40% deflection.
• 18 chargebacks still land.
• CB cost: 18 x $85 = $1,530.
• Tool cost: $400.
• Total $1,930 against $2,550. You save $620 a month.

ROI: positive at that quote. Buy it.

---

Example - fraud platform at $100K/month:

Without a fraud platform:

• 15 chargebacks a month, at a 0.6% ratio. About half are fraud.
• Cost: 15 x $85 = $1,275.

With SEON Starter at its published $699/month:

• About 8 of your chargebacks are fraud.
• A tool stopping 30% of fraud prevents about 2.
• 13 chargebacks still land: 13 x $85 = $1,105.
• Tool cost: $699.
• Total $1,804 against $1,275. You lose $529 a month.

And that's the cheapest published option. The 2,500-check Starter allowance may not even cover your order count at $100K a month. That pushes you into Premium, at custom pricing. Every quote-only vendor lands higher than $699.

ROI: negative. Don't buy yet.

Wait until:

• Volume hits $300K+. Or
• your CB ratio hits 0.8%+. Or
• fraud losses pass $3K a month.

---

Quick Decision Matrix

Your Volume	Your CB Ratio	Tool Stack Recommendation
Under $50K	Any	Processor only
$50K-$100K	Under 0.5%	Processor only
$50K-$100K	0.5-0.7%	Processor + dispute alerts
$100K-$250K	Under 0.6%	Processor + dispute alerts
$100K-$250K	0.6-0.8%	Processor + alerts + consider fraud tool
$250K-$1M	Any	Processor + alerts + fraud tool
Over $1M	Under 0.6%	Full stack without guarantee
Over $1M	0.6-0.9%	Full stack + chargeback guarantee

---

Tool Vendor Quick Reference

Fraud Detection (Choose One)

Vendor	Best For	Published price	Published minimum volume
Stripe Radar Lite	Stripe users	Included with Stripe Payments at no extra charge	None
Stripe Radar paid tiers	Stripe users needing rules and review	VENDOR Monthly subscription with an included screen allowance, or pay-as-you-go from $0.05/screen. Business: $10 / $14 / $20 a month for Standard / Plus / Pro. Platforms and marketplaces: $20 / $44 / $70 (US list, 4 Aug 2026)	None
SEON	SMBs writing their own rules	$699/month Starter: 2,500 checks, 10 users, 50 custom rules. Premium custom. No free tier	Not published. Reported median contract $56,900/yr
Sift	General e-commerce	Not published, 404	Reported median $150,000/yr, range $29,600-$600,000, from a stated sample of 50
Signifyd	Guarantee model	Model only: percentage of approved order total, no charge on fraud declines	Reported median $4,444/yr. Not credible for enterprise
Forter	Enterprise	Not published	Reported median $8,000/yr, contradicted by the same source's "mid-six figures" enterprise description
Riskified	Apparel, maximize approvals	Not published as a rate. Derived 0.237% of GMV from Q1 2026 results	Not published
Sardine	Banks and fintechs more than merchants	Not published, 404	Reported median $95,333/yr. Minimum monthly commit with drawdown
Ravelin	Marketplaces, delivery, travel	Not published. The pricing URL exists and carries no pricing	Nothing found from any methodologically stated source

Vendor sources: Stripe Radar, SEON, Sift, Signifyd, Forter, Riskified Q1 2026, Sardine, Ravelin. Reported ranges: Vendr, a SaaS buying platform that sells negotiation services. Verified 2026-08-02.

One note on Radar. "Radar for Fraud Teams" is no longer a product you can buy, so ignore any comparison still quoting it at $0.02 per transaction. The live tiers are Lite, Standard, Plus and Pro, and Lite is free with Stripe Payments.

Dispute Alerts (Need Both Networks)

Vendor	Networks	Published price	How to Buy
Verifi (CDRN)	Visa + Discover	NOT PUBLISHED. Visa publishes no retail rate	Reseller
Ethoca	Mastercard, claims all networks	NOT PUBLISHED. Mastercard publishes no retail rate	Reseller
Stripe RDR	Visa only	NOT PUBLISHED	Enable in the Stripe Dashboard, then ask what a resolution costs
Chargeblast	Ethoca, CDRN, RDR	$14 per chargeback stopped. Alerts from $19/mo. Recovery 15% on wins. Cheapest published deflection price found	Direct or Shopify
Disputifier	Ethoca, CDRN, RDR, Order Insight	$17-$27.50 per alert. Recovery 20% capped at $250 per won chargeback. Prevention $0.05/order	Direct or Shopify
Chargeflow	Verifi + Ethoca	$29 per deflected chargeback. Prevent $0.20/scanned transaction, first 1,000 free. Recovery 25%, uncapped	Direct or Shopify
ChargePay	Representment only	$19.99 to $99.99/month flat, unlimited chargebacks, 17% off annually. A structurally different risk allocation from 20-25% of recoveries	Shopify

Networks publish nothing. Reseller prices from Shopify App Store listings, where Shopify requires developers to declare charges, plus each vendor's own pricing page where it carries figures. Checked 2026-08-02. Chargeblast's numbers are on its Shopify App Store listing rather than chargeblast.com/pricing.

Ask for: per-alert fee, the de-duplication rule, setup fee, monthly minimum, contract term, which of the four programmes the quote covers, and whether a deflection keeps the dispute off your chargeback ratio.

Model both structures against your own dispute profile. A flat monthly fee with unlimited volume is far cheaper for merchants with many small disputes. A percentage of recovery is better with few large ones. And a cap changes the sum again. Disputifier's $250 cap beats Chargeflow's uncapped 25% on any recovery above $1,250.

Chargeback Guarantee (Optional)

Vendor	Coverage	Published price	When to Use
Signifyd	Approved fraud orders	Model published, numbers not: a percentage of order total on approved orders, varying by product, vertical, order volume and average ticket. No charge when an order is declined for fraud. Reported median contract $4,444/yr, range to $48,889	CB ratio above 0.7%
Forter	Approved fraud orders	Not published. Reported median $8,000/yr, range $6,000-$375,000, with the same source describing enterprise as "mid-six figures or higher". Reported multi-year discounts 10-20%, implementation fees low-to-mid five figures	CB ratio above 0.75%
Riskified	Approved fraud orders	Not published as a rate card, but 0.237% of GMV derived from its own Q1 2026 results is the only public percentage benchmark in this market	CB ratio above 0.7%

Vendor sources: Signifyd pricing, Forter, Riskified Q1 2026 results. Reported ranges: Vendr, a SaaS buying platform that sells negotiation services and discloses no sample size for these vendors. Verified 2026-08-02.

Ask every guarantee vendor to quote as a percentage of approved GMV, not as a monthly fee. Then the three are comparable to each other, and to Riskified's 0.237%. Check the number against your last twelve months of fraud chargebacks. The fee applies to your approved good orders too.

Forter's marketing claims of "72% reduction in chargeback rates" and "46% reduction in false declines" carry no published methodology, sample or period. Those are vendor claims. Never present them as verified.

Analytics (Optional)

Tool	Best For	Published price	When to Use
Stripe Sigma	Stripe users	Usage-based, priced per row queried. Check the current rate on Stripe's Sigma pricing page	$1M+
Looker / Tableau	Enterprise BI	Seat-based and quoted, no public list price for the tiers merchants buy	$5M+
Google Analytics	Traffic and conversion	Free standard tier	Any size

Checked 2026-08-02.

---

Detailed Tool Stack by Tier

Tier 1: Under $50K/Month

Monthly tool budget: $0-100

Category	Tool	Cost	Why
Processor	Square Free	2.6% + $0.15 in person, 3.3% + $0.30 online, 3.5% + $0.15 keyed	No monthly fee, so nothing to justify
Processor alternative	Stripe	No monthly or setup fee. US card rates not stated here	Better developer surface if you're building
Fraud	Radar Lite or Square built-in	$0	Sufficient at this volume
Disputes	Manual	$0	Too few chargebacks to justify alerts
Analytics	Processor dashboard	$0	Simple reports are enough
Accounting	QuickBooks plus processor integration	Priced by your accounting plan	Automation is worth it early

Sources: Square fees, Stripe pricing. Verified 2026-08-02.

What you do manually:

• Review fraud flags in the processor dashboard.
• Respond to chargebacks yourself, 1 or 2 a month.
• Weekly reconciliation, 30 minutes.

Total time: 2-4 hours a week on payment operations.

---

Tier 2: $50K-$250K/Month

Monthly tool budget: your two alert quotes, and nothing else

Category	Tool	Cost	Why
Processor	Stripe	No monthly fee. US card rates not stated here, read them at stripe.com/pricing	Best feature set at this tier
Processor alternative	Helcim	$50K-$100K/month: interchange + 0.35% + $0.07 in person, + 0.45% + $0.20 online. $0 monthly	Published bands that fall with volume, no negotiation needed
Processor alternative	Square Plus	2.5% + $0.15 in person, 2.9% + $0.30 online. Plan monthly cost not stated here	Lower rates than Free if the plan fee clears
Fraud	Radar Lite	$0	Still sufficient if CB ratio is under 0.6%
Dispute alerts	Verifi + Ethoca	Not published	MUST ADD at this tier
Analytics	Processor dashboard	$0	Or add Stripe Sigma, usage-based
Accounting	QuickBooks integrated	Priced by your accounting plan	Automation is critical now

Sources: Stripe pricing, Helcim pricing, Square fees. Verified 2026-08-02.

When to add dispute alerts: 75 chargebacks a month, or a CB ratio above 0.65%.

ROI of dispute alerts:

• $150K a month at 0.6% is about 23 CBs.
• Alerts prevent about 9, at 40% deflection.
• Savings: 9 x $85 = $765.
• A $350/month quote leaves net +$415. A $700 quote is a coin flip. That's why you get the quote before you plan the budget.

What you do manually:

• Review fraud flags, 15 minutes a day.
• Respond to 5-10 chargebacks a month, about 3 hours.
• Weekly reconciliation, 45 minutes.

Total time: 4-8 hours a week.

---

Tier 3: $250K-$1M/Month

Monthly tool budget: one published price (SEON at $699) plus three quotes

Category	Tool	Cost	Why
Processor	Stripe	Stripe publishes no volume threshold, no discount schedule and no negotiated rate band	Ask about custom pricing, but don't plan around a discount nobody advertises
Processor alternative	Helcim	$100K-$500K/month: interchange + 0.25% + $0.07 in person, + 0.35% + $0.20 online. $500K-$1M: + 0.20% + $0.06 in person, + 0.25% + $0.15 online	The rate drop is published, so you can model it before you switch
Processor alternative	Stax	$199+/month for $250K+ per year, plus interchange + 0% + $0.08 in person or + $0.15 online	Subscription pricing wins as your volume rises
Fraud	Sift, Signifyd, Forter, Riskified or SEON	Not published for the first four. SEON $699/month for 2,500 checks	MUST ADD if CB ratio is above 0.6%
Dispute alerts	Verifi + Ethoca	Not published	Must-have at this tier
Chargeback mgmt	Chargeflow or similar (optional)	Not published	Automates dispute responses
Analytics	Stripe Sigma plus exports	Usage-based per row	Deep analysis starts paying off
Accounting	Automated reconciliation	Priced by your accounting platform	Saves 5-10 hrs/month

Sources: Stripe pricing, Helcim pricing, Stax pricing, SEON pricing. Verified 2026-08-02.

When to add a fraud tool: CB ratio above 0.7%, or volume above $500K.

ROI of a fraud tool:

• $500K a month at 0.8% is 40 CBs.
• Half are fraud, so 20 fraud CBs.
• The tool prevents about 6, or 30% of the fraud.
• Savings: 6 x $85 = $510.
• On a $2,000/month quote, that's about $1,490 net cost.
• Net: negative on pure loss avoidance. You're buying threshold protection. Decide it as an insurance purchase. Don't pretend it pays for itself.

What you do manually:

• Review the tool's fraud flags, 30 minutes a day.
• Respond to 15-20 chargebacks a month, 4-6 hours.
• Weekly reconciliation, 1 hour.

Total time: 8-15 hours a week. Consider part-time help.

---

Tier 4: Over $1M/Month

Monthly tool budget: built from four written quotes, not from list prices

Category	Tool	Cost	Why
Processor	Stripe, Adyen or Helcim	Adyen: no SMB rate card, Interchange++ plus $0.13 processing fee, indicative markup 0.60%, no published volume floor. Helcim $1M-$5M/month: interchange + 0.15% + $0.06 in person, + 0.15% + $0.15 online, custom above $5M	Interchange-plus beats flat rate at this size, and Helcim's band is published where Adyen's isn't
Fraud	Signifyd, Forter, Sift or Riskified	Not published, on price or minimum	Enterprise-grade decisioning
Chargeback guarantee	Signifyd or Forter (optional)	Not published. Percentage of approved order value at Signifyd, model unpublished at Forter	If CB ratio is above 0.7%
Dispute alerts	Verifi + Ethoca	Not published	Must-have
Manual review	Outsourced or in-house	In-house analyst roughly $60K-$80K/year. Outsourced quoted per seat	Dedicated person or team
Analytics	Sigma plus Looker or Tableau	Sigma usage-based, BI seat-based and quoted	Deep analysis
Reconciliation	Automated platform	Priced by platform	Saves 20+ hrs/month

Sources: Adyen pricing, Helcim pricing, Signifyd pricing, Forter. Verified 2026-08-02.

Staffing at this tier:

• A full-time fraud and payments person, roughly $60K-$80K a year.
• Or an outsourced manual review team, quoted per seat or per hour.

What's automated:

• Fraud decisioning. The tool auto-approves low-risk orders.
• Dispute responses, via Chargeflow or similar.
• Reconciliation, fully.
• Reporting, on automated dashboards.

Total time: 20-40 hours a week. One full-time person, or split across a team.

---

Special Scenarios

High-Risk Business (Supplements, High-Ticket, etc.)

Add a fraud tool earlier:

• At $100K a month, if your CB ratio is above 0.8%.
• At $250K a month, whatever the ratio.
• Consider a chargeback guarantee at $500K+, once you can price it against your real fraud losses.

Why: a high CB ratio pushes you into VAMP. Prevention is critical.

---

Subscription/SaaS

Different tool priorities:

Volume	Add First	Add Second
Under $100K	Stripe Billing	Dispute alerts
$100K-$500K	Dispute alerts	Dunning optimization
Over $500K	Fraud tool	Chargeback automation

Why different: subscriptions carry lower fraud but different dispute patterns. Mostly recurring-billing disputes, not stolen cards.

---

Card-Present Retail

Minimal tools needed:

Volume	Tool Stack
Under $250K/mo	Square POS and built-ins only. 2.6% + $0.15 in person on Free, no monthly fee
$250K-$1M/mo	Square or Helcim, plus dispute alerts. Helcim's $100K-$500K band is interchange + 0.25% + $0.07 in person
Over $1M/mo	Compare a full POS against interchange-plus. Helcim publishes $1M-$5M at interchange + 0.15% + $0.06 in person. Clover and Toast publish no rates at all

Sources: Square fees, Helcim pricing. Verified 2026-08-02.

Why minimal: card-present fraud runs far lower than card-not-present. Tool ROI is weaker.

Looking at a bundled POS? The rate isn't the thing to ask about. None of the three big POS vendors publishes a full set of usable numbers. Each hides its cost somewhere different.

POS	What's published	What to ask for
Clover	2.3% + 10c card-present for restaurants and quick service, 2.6% + 10c on entry retail and services plans, 3.5% + 10c keyed and online. Software $0 to $129.85/mo. Hardware published both outright and on a 36-month subscription. Rapid Deposit 1.75%. No chargeback fee at any tier	Who the merchant of record is, Clover Direct or a bank or ISO, because Clover says on its own page that terms "vary based on your service provider". Your effective rate on real statements. The chargeback fee. The contract term and the 30 days' notice required to stop auto-renewal. Whether hardware is subscribed or bought: Clover's own figures show the 36-month subscription premium running $227 to $3,622, with no ownership at term end
Toast	2.49% Traditional and 3.09% Pay-as-you-Go, from Toast's own shop pages. Plans $0 Starter Kit, $69 restaurant, $90 retail. The + 15c fixed component is reported by third parties, not published by Toast	The fixed cents component. The card-not-present rate, which Toast publishes nowhere and which is reported at 3.50% + 15c. Whether the rate can rise mid-contract, with a written cap. The term, pushing for 12 months since Toast's own 10-K says 12 to 36. The chargeback fee. Whether payments are contractually locked to Toast, which is still the critical term
Lightspeed	2.6% + 10c card-present for retail, and a $15 chargeback fee described as a single fee covering the defence. Retail plans $89 / $149 / $289, restaurant $69 / $189 / $399, KDS $30 per screen	The online rate, published nowhere on either product line, and the restaurant processing rate, also absent. A card-present rate below list: Lightspeed's own filing implies a 1.90% blended take and its payments page lists "negotiate a competitive rate" as a bullet. Hardware cost, because Lightspeed says existing terminals can't be reused

Sources: Clover pricing, Toast shop pages and pricing, Lightspeed retail pricing and payments. Verified 2026-08-02.

The pattern worth noticing: all three get reported as publishing nothing. All three publish a card-present rate.

---

Common Tool Mistakes

Mistake 1: Buying a Fraud Tool Too Early

Symptom: a $100K/month business paying $699 for SEON Starter, or four figures for a quote-only platform. Meanwhile Radar Lite sits unused and free.

Cost: $699 a month minimum, against roughly $170 in prevented chargebacks at that volume.

Fix: fall back to your processor's included screening. Wait until you're past $500K a month or a 0.8% CB ratio.

---

Mistake 2: No Dispute Alerts at $500K

Symptom: $500K a month, 40 chargebacks, no alerts running.

Cost: 16 preventable CBs x $85 = $1,360 a month, gone.

Fix: get quotes from Verifi and Ethoca. Neither publishes a rate. So the only decision that matters is whether the two quotes together land under $1,360.

---

Mistake 3: Using Multiple Fraud Tools

Symptom: Sift and Signifyd both running on the same order flow.

Cost: two quote-only contracts doing overlapping work. Neither vendor will tell you what the other charges.

Fix: pick one and cancel the other. Use the cancellation as leverage at the next renewal.

---

Mistake 4: Chargeback Guarantee Too Early

Symptom: a $300K/month business quoted 1.5% of approved volume for a guarantee.

Cost: $4,500 a month, covering maybe $500 in fraud chargebacks. The fee applies to your good approved orders too, not just the fraudulent ones.

Fix: cancel the guarantee and run a standard fraud tool. Revisit when fraud chargebacks alone pass the quoted percentage of your approved volume.

---

Mistake 5: No Tools at $1M/Month

Symptom: $1M a month, 80 chargebacks, manual fraud review.

Cost: 80 x $85 = $6,800. Plus about 40 hours of labor at $50 an hour. $8,800 a month.

Fix: a fraud platform plus alerts. If the two quotes together come in under $8,800, you're ahead from month one. Get the quotes before you assume they will.

---

Test to Run

Considering a new tool? Run the ROI calculator:

Week 1: Calculate current cost

1. Chargebacks per month: ______
2. True cost per CB: $______ (fee + product + labor)
3. Total CB cost: $______/month

Week 2: Get a written quote 4. Tool monthly cost: $______. You'll have to ask. Most vendors don't publish 5. Tool prevents: ___% of chargebacks. That's a vendor claim, so discount it 6. Chargebacks prevented: (1) x (5) 7. Savings: (6) x (2)

Week 3: Decision 8. Net benefit: (7) - (4) = $______ 9. Positive? Buy the tool 10. Negative? Wait for volume or CB count to rise

Success criteria: every tool you buy has positive ROI inside 3-6 months. Calculated against a written quote, not a range you found online.

Already processing? Audit the stack you have:

Week 1: List current tools

1. What are you paying for?
2. Monthly cost for each: $______
3. Total tool spend: $______/month

Week 2: Calculate ROI for each 4. For each tool, estimate chargebacks prevented 5. Work out savings: CBs prevented x true CB cost 6. Compare to what you're actually billed. Not the list price you remember

Week 3: Decision 7. Negative ROI? Cancel it 8. Missing tool with positive ROI? Get quotes 9. Right-size the stack for your volume

Success criteria: every tool you pay for has positive ROI. And no tool you're missing would.

---

Scale Callout

Starting out (under $10K/month):

• Zero paid tools.
• Processor built-ins only.
• Manual everything.
• Your real cost is the processing rate. Plus instant payout fees if you use them: Square 1.95%, Stripe US 1.5%.

Growing ($50K-$250K):

• Add dispute alerts at $100K, or at a 0.6% CB ratio.
• Fraud review is still manual.
• Budget from two alert quotes. Neither provider publishes a rate.

Scaled ($500K-$2M):

• Fraud tool required.
• Dispute alerts required.
• Consider hiring help.
• One published SMB fraud price to anchor against: SEON at $699 a month for 2,500 checks. Everything else is a quote.

Enterprise ($5M+):

• Full stack.
• Dedicated team.
• Custom integrations.
• Nobody's list price applies at this size. Helcim publishes bands to $5M a month, then goes custom. Adyen, Checkout.com, Clover and Toast are quote-only throughout.

---

Where This Breaks

1. Most of these vendors publish no price, and a reported range is no substitute for a quote. Vendr discloses a sample size for exactly one vendor, Sift. Its Signifyd and Forter medians contradict its own segment descriptions. Vendr also sells negotiation services, so its "discounts achievable" figures read as achievable rather than typical. Every ROI number here is only as good as the quote you plug into it. The reported ranges tell you whether a quote is in the right order of magnitude. Nothing more.

2. ROI calculations assume the tool works. A high false positive rate means you decline good orders. Factor lost sales into the ROI. Ask every vendor for a false positive rate before you sign.

3. Contract lock-in. Many tools require annual contracts. Calculate the full-year cost, not the monthly one. And ask about the termination clause before the renewal, not during it.

4. Integration costs aren't included. Adding a tool takes dev time, often 10-40 hours. Put that in the payback period.

5. Effectiveness varies. 40% chargeback deflection is a rough average. Yours might be 20% or 60%. Monitor actual performance and re-run the math after 90 days.

6. Volume spikes. Jump from $100K to $500K in a month and you need tools immediately. There's no time for an ROI analysis.

7. Prices move and geography matters. Every figure here was read on 2 August 2026. Stripe and Shopify both resolve country by request IP, not by URL path. So a rate read from outside your market is your market's rate only by coincidence. Two Stripe fees are actually inverted between the US and Canada. Check the vendor's own page from your own country before you commit.

8. "They don't publish rates" is usually wrong. Clover, Toast, Square's plan prices, Shopify's and Stripe's US cards and Lightspeed's card-present rate all get reported as unpublished. All six are published. Check the shop pages and the help centre, not just the pricing page, and make sure you're on your own country's version of the site.

---

Next Steps

Choosing your first tool?

1. Work out your current CB ratio and count
2. Use the decision matrix above
3. Start with dispute alerts at $100K+, or a 0.6%+ ratio

Optimizing your current stack?

1. Run an ROI audit on each tool against your actual invoice
2. Cancel anything with negative ROI
3. Get quotes for what you're missing

Growing fast?

1. Plan tool additions three months ahead
2. Budget for the next tier before you need it
3. Don't wait for a crisis to start procurement

---

Sources

All figures on this page were read from the vendor's own published pricing page and verified on 2 August 2026.

Processors: Square, Stripe, Stripe disputes, Stripe instant payouts, Braintree, PayPal, Helcim, Stax, Adyen, Checkout.com, Moneris.

POS: Clover, Toast, Lightspeed.

Fraud and disputes, vendor: Stripe Radar, SEON, Sift, Signifyd, Forter, Sardine, Ravelin, Chargeflow, Disputifier, and the Chargeblast, Disputifier, Chargeflow and ChargePay Shopify App Store listings.

Fraud and disputes, reported: Vendr, a SaaS buying and negotiation platform. It sells negotiation services. And it discloses a sample size for one vendor only, Sift, at 50 purchases. Treat its medians as order-of-magnitude brackets, not prices.

Fraud and disputes, derived: Riskified Q1 2026 results, released 2026-05-13. The 0.237% of GMV figure is calculated from Riskified's published revenue and GMV, not a company disclosure. It came via a financial news aggregator republishing the press release. It hasn't been checked against Riskified's own investor filings. Confirm against the 20-F before republishing.

Where a vendor genuinely publishes nothing, this page says what to ask for instead. And if you see a firm monthly price for Sift, Signifyd, Forter or Riskified presented as a vendor figure, ask the author where it came from. None of the four publishes one.

---

See Also

• Total Cost Model - Include tools in budget
• Fraud Vendor Selection - How to evaluate tools
• Fraud Vendor Landscape - All vendors compared
• Chargeback Alerts - RDR, Ethoca, Verifi details
• Operations Checklist - When to review tool performance
• Business Model Viability - Tool costs in unit economics
• Processor Comparison - Processor built-in tools