Short answer
On Stripe, a dispute costs $15 when it opens and another $15 if you counter it, refunded only if you win. The bigger costs are the lost sale, goods already shipped and time spent responding. Keep your dispute rate well under 1%: above the card networks' thresholds come fines, reserves and, at worst, a closed account.
What a dispute really costs
A chargeback has four parts, and the fee is the smallest:
- The dispute fee. $15 on Stripe when the dispute opens, whatever the outcome.
- The countered fee. $15 more if you submit evidence, refunded only if you win.
- The lost revenue. The disputed amount is pulled back immediately and only returned if you win. Digital goods and services can't be recovered; physical goods usually aren't.
- Operations time. Gathering evidence, writing responses and tracking deadlines, often across support, finance and fulfillment.
Here's what that looks like at $25M a year with a $100 average transaction (250,000 payments):
| Dispute rate | Disputes a year | Dispute fees | + countered fees if you fight all | Revenue at stake |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.3% | 750 | $11,250 | $11,250 | $75,000 |
| 0.6% | 1,500 | $22,500 | $22,500 | $150,000 |
| 1.0% | 2,500 | $37,500 | $37,500 | $250,000 |
Stripe fees verified on against stripe.com/pricing. How we check
Stripe's dispute fees
Stripe's published US pricing charges $15 for each dispute you receive and $15 for each dispute you counter with evidence, refunded if you win. Appealing a lost dispute costs another $15 that isn't refunded. Stripe also offers automated dispute handling for a share of the amount recovered, and dispute-prevention services charged per resolved case.
Because every countered dispute now carries its own fee, it pays to counter selectively: fight the disputes you can win with clear evidence (delivery confirmation, usage logs, signed terms), and accept the rest quickly. Full fee list: Stripe fees explained.
Visa VAMP and Mastercard thresholds
The card networks monitor merchants with high fraud and dispute rates and penalize those above their thresholds, through fines charged to the processor and passed on to you.
- Visa: VAMP. The Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program replaced Visa's separate fraud and dispute programs in 2025. It combines fraud reports and disputes into one ratio against settled transactions, and Visa has been lowering the threshold for merchants in stages. Check the current figure with your processor; plan to stay well below it.
- Mastercard: ECM. Mastercard's Excessive Chargeback Merchant program flags merchants with a chargeback ratio of 1.5% or more and at least 100 chargebacks in a month, with a higher tier at 3% and 300. A separate program covers excessive fraud.
Being in a monitoring program also follows you: a new processor will ask for your dispute history before approving you, and may set a reserve.
Chargeback rate benchmarks
Your chargeback rate is the number of disputes in a month divided by the number of transactions. Most processors want it well under 1%, and many treat anything above about 0.75% as a warning sign. Rates vary by industry: digital goods, travel and subscriptions see more disputes than B2B software or in-person retail. What matters most is the trend. A rising rate after a pricing change, a new billing descriptor or a free-trial offer is worth fixing before it reaches a threshold.
Radar and fraud tools: what they cost at volume
Stripe Radar's pay-as-you-go price is 5¢ per screened transaction. That's small per payment and real at scale: $12,500 a year at 250,000 transactions, $50,000 at a million. Advanced fraud tooling is priced separately.
Fraud tools usually pay for themselves, because fraud losses and fraud-related disputes cost far more. Review the rules rather than switching protection off, and check whether your setup screens the same payment twice.
Reserves and paused payouts
A high dispute rate is one of the reasons Stripe gives for placing a reserve: holding part of your funds for a set period to cover future disputes. Reserves, paused payouts and account reviews have their own guide: when Stripe holds your funds.
Why a backup processor matters
A single processor is a single point of failure. If payouts are paused or an account is closed, a business with only one processor can stop taking money overnight. Larger merchants increasingly run two processors: one primary and one ready to take traffic. It also gives you leverage on price. See how to switch from Stripe, including running two processors side by side.