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Chargeback

TL;DR
  • Your customer went to their bank instead of to you
  • The money's gone before you hear about it
  • Find your response deadline first. It's 20-45 days. Miss it and you lose automatically
  • Real cost is the sale, a fee of $0 to $30, and 30-60 minutes of staff time
  • At the usual $15 fee, a $50 chargeback runs closer to $80
  • "Chargeback" and "dispute" mean the same thing. Your dashboard says "dispute"
  • One chargeback is normal. A pattern is the problem

A chargeback is a forced reversal of a card transaction. Your customer's bank, their issuer, pulls the money back out of your account. You find out after it's gone. You get a window to respond with evidence. Respond weakly, or not at all, and you lose the money plus a fee on top.

Deadline first: 20-45 days, depending on the network. Miss it and you lose automatically. How good your case was doesn't matter. Go find yours now:

ProcessorWhere to look
StripePayments > Disputes
SquareTransactions > Disputes
PayPalResolution Center
Shopify PaymentsOrders > the order > Chargebacks

Typical cost: the sale, plus a fee of $0 to $30, plus 30-60 minutes of staff time. Most US processors charge $15. So a $50 chargeback usually costs you closer to $80.

Whether the fee comes back depends on who you're with. Helcim, Shopify Payments and PayPal's standard tier don't charge it on a win. Square charges nothing at all, and Stripe and Toast charge it either way. The verified per-processor table has the rest.

Don't Panic

One chargeback isn't an emergency. Every business that takes cards gets them. What matters is whether it becomes a pattern. That's what your chargeback ratio measures.

"Chargeback" and "dispute" mean the same thing in practice. A dispute is the customer's complaint, a chargeback is the money leaving. Every dashboard above says "dispute", so search for that word, not this one.

📖 Full guide: What Is a Chargeback? covers the whole process, what it costs, and what to do about it.

See Also​

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