Chargebacks & fraud10 min readUpdated October 14, 2026

Chargeback Fees: What You Pay, Processor by Processor

Chargeback fees at Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Shopify Payments and Square, what it costs to fight a dispute, and when answering is worth more than accepting.

Nick Bonnassies, CMO at Tagada · checked against 9 sources

Article summary

TL;DR

A chargeback fee is what your processor charges each time a customer disputes a payment: $15 at Stripe, Shopify Payments and Braintree in the US, $20 at PayPal for card chargebacks. Stripe adds $15 if you respond, returned if you win. On top of the fee, you lose the order amount until you win.

Stripe US: $15 when the dispute arrives, not returned; $15 more if you respond, returned if you win.
Shopify Payments US: $15, returned if you win. Braintree US: $15 per card chargeback.
PayPal US: $20 per card chargeback; $15 or $30 per dispute on PayPal payments.
Fighting costs a second fee at some processors, plus your time. Answer only when you can win.
Network fees come on top when disputes pile up, billed to your acquirer and often passed on.

Want to go further? Ask

On this page

Every chargeback costs you twice: the order amount goes back to the customer, and your processor charges a fee for handling it. Some processors charge again if you decide to fight, and card networks add their own fees when disputes pile up. Here is what each one charges, who is behind each fee, and how to tell when fighting is worth it.

Chargeback fees by processor

Processor	Fee when a dispute arrives	Fee to respond	Returned if you win
Stripe	$15 (US), £20 (UK), €20 (euro area)	$15, £20, €20	Only the fee to respond
Shopify Payments	$15 (US), £10 (UK), €15 (France, Germany)	None	Yes
PayPal	$20 per card chargeback; $15 or $30 per dispute on PayPal payments (US)	None listed	Not stated
Braintree	$15 per card chargeback; $5 per unauthorized ACH dispute (US)	None listed	Not stated
Square	None extra, according to Square (2017 article)	None	Not applicable

Verdict

At Stripe, a dispute you answer and lose costs $30 in fees on top of the order. At Shopify Payments, a dispute you win costs nothing.

Stripe's fee to respond applies to disputes opened after June 17, 2025.1 PayPal charges the $30 dispute fee instead of $15 to sellers with high dispute volume.3 Shopify sets its fee by the currency you're paid in, not by where the customer lives.4 Braintree lists its fees in the PayPal Braintree rate table.6 Square says it never charges an additional fee for a dispute, in an article from 2017: check your current terms.7

Who charges what

A chargeback goes through four parties before it reaches you. Each can bill something.

Fig. 1Where each fee comes from

One chargebackFiled by the customer's bank

Card issuerTakes the money back for its cardholder
Card networkBills fees to the acquirer, more when disputes pile up
Acquirer and processorCharge you a fee per dispute, and pass on network fees

you pay at the end of the chain

The fee in the table above is your processor's: it's how the processor recovers what the dispute costs it. Network fees, like Visa's monitoring fees, are billed to your acquirer, who can pass them on to you.

Fees that come on top

Fee to respondStripe: $15, £20 or €20 when you counter a disputeReturned if you win; not charged in Mexico and Japan
Compliance dispute feeStripe: $500 network fee when you contest a Visa or Mastercard compliance caseReturned if you win. Rare, but check before you contest
Network monitoring feesWhen your disputes cross Visa's or Mastercard's thresholdsBilled to your acquirer, often passed on
Original processing feeAt Stripe and Braintree, processing fees aren't returned on refundsA refund isn't free either, but it costs less than a chargeback

Compliance disputes are cases where the issuer says a payment broke network rules rather than the customer's claim. If they can't be settled between the parties, the network decides, for a fee.8

What a chargeback really costs

The fee is the visible part. The full bill has four lines.

The order
The disputed amount leaves your balance on the day the chargeback is filed. It comes back only if you win.
The fees
The processor's fee, plus the fee to respond at processors like Stripe.
The goods
For physical products, what you shipped rarely comes back, and neither does the shipping cost.
The ratio
Each chargeback raises your dispute rate. Past a point, network fees and account reviews follow.

How much does it cost to fight a chargeback?

Fighting a chargeback, or representment, means sending evidence to the customer's bank. What it costs depends on where you process.

The fee to respond. $15 at Stripe in the US, returned if you win. Nothing at Shopify Payments.1
Your time. Finding the order, the tracking, the customer's messages, and writing the response. See our chargeback rebuttal letter template.
The wait. The amount stays held while the bank decides, usually 2 to 3 months end to end. See how long a chargeback takes.2

Sources: Stripe Support, June 2025 pricing updates for disputes; Shopify Help Center.

Put your own numbers in. The calculator compares answering with accepting, for one chargeback:

Fight or accept?

Is this chargeback worth answering?

Disputed amount ($)Fee to respond ($)Hours to build the fileCost of an hour ($)Your chance of winning: 50%Your own estimate, from your evidence and your past results.

Expected gain from responding

$7.50

Respond: on average, answering brings back more than it costs.

Stripe charges $15 to counter, returned if you win. The $15 received fee is gone either way. The chargeback fee is lost whether you respond or not, so it is left out.

Practical rule

On small orders, answering rarely pays unless you have strong proof: delivery confirmation, signed terms, or earlier orders from the same customer. Above a few hundred dollars, it usually does if the proof is there.

Network fees when disputes pile up

Processor fees are per dispute. Card networks add their own fees when a merchant's disputes cross a threshold, and they bill them to the acquirer, who can pass them on to you.

1.5%

Visa VAMP 'Excessive' merchant ratio in the US, Canada, EU and Asia-Pacific since April 1, 2026

1,500

Fraud reports plus disputes per month before Visa can flag a merchant in those regions

Visa fee per fraud report or dispute at the Excessive level, as reported in May 2025

The thresholds come from Visa's VAMP fact sheet.9 The $8 fee comes from Visa's May 2025 update, as reported by Chargeback Gurus; Visa doesn't publish it.5 Ask your acquirer whether it passes network fees on, and at what level.

How to pay fewer chargeback fees

The cheapest chargeback is the one that's never filed.

Refund customers who ask, quicklyNo dispute, no fee, nothing on your ratioRead chargeback vs refund
Answer bank inquiriesA full refund at that stage closes the case without a dispute feeCheck your processor's inquiry alerts
Enroll in Verifi RDR and Ethoca AlertsAn alert fee instead of a dispute fee, and no chargeback on your ratioAsk your processor
Fight only what you can winNo fee to respond on lost causesUse the calculator above

The full list of fixes is in our guide on how to prevent chargebacks, and what to do at each stage of a payment in chargeback vs refund.

How Tagada helps

Payments that follow the card network rules

Tagada follows Visa and Mastercard rules and the laws that apply to payments. TagadaPay runs native 3DS2, device intelligence and a rules engine, and payments route across Stripe, Adyen and TagadaPay with one logic. See pricing for plans.

Updated on October 14, 2026

Nick Bonnassies

CMO at Tagada

CMO at Tagada. Before Tagada, Nick built direct-to-consumer brands that generated over $115M in sales, raised over $25M in crowdfunding and sold two of them. He also works as a fractional CMO on marketing operations and AI systems.

Frequently asked questions

How much is a chargeback fee?

It depends on the processor and the country. In the US, Stripe, Shopify Payments and Braintree charge $15 per card chargeback and PayPal $20. In the UK, Stripe charges £20 and Shopify Payments £10; in the euro area, Stripe charges €20. Check your processor's fee page: amounts change.

Do you get the chargeback fee back if you win?

At Shopify Payments, yes. At Stripe, the fee for receiving the dispute is not returned, except in Mexico; the second fee you pay to respond is returned if you win. PayPal's and Braintree's fee pages don't say the fee is returned.

How much does chargeback representment cost?

Representment means answering the chargeback with evidence. At Stripe, it costs a second fee ($15 in the US, £20 in the UK, €20 in the euro area), returned if you win. Shopify Payments charges nothing extra to respond. Add the time your team spends building the file.

Who pays the chargeback fee, the merchant or the customer?

The merchant. The processor takes the fee from your balance when the dispute is filed, along with the disputed amount. The customer pays nothing to dispute a charge.

Does Square charge a chargeback fee?

Square has said it doesn't charge an additional fee for disputes. Check the current terms for your country before you rely on it, since Square's article on the subject dates from 2017.

Can a chargeback fee be avoided?

Yes, by stopping the dispute before it's filed: refund customers who ask, answer bank inquiries, and use pre-dispute alerts. Disputes resolved through Verifi RDR or Ethoca Alerts are charged an alert fee instead and don't count in your dispute rate.

Sources

Checked October 14, 2026

TagadaPay

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