A chargeback headline usually quotes one number — the processor fee. That number is real, and it is usually the smallest line on the bill. When a merchant loses a dispute on a physical-goods order, the product is gone, the shipping is gone, and somebody spent time on the case. This guide adds those lines up with verified fees, and the chargeback cost calculator runs your own figures through the same tally. This is a cost tally only: for the ratio damage a dispute does, see the chargeback ratio calculator and the ratio guide.
The four cost components
1. Product cost — net, not retail. Enter what the goods cost you, and only the part you cannot recover. If the goods come back in resalable condition, the unrecovered product cost is close to zero; if the customer keeps them, it is the full cost. Using the retail price here overstates the loss, because the retail price includes margin you never had as cash.
2. Shipping cost — outbound, unrecovered. The delivery you already paid for does not come back with a lost dispute. Return shipping, where it applies, is a separate cost your own figures should reflect; the calculator takes the single shipping figure you enter.
3. Dispute fee — set by your processor. See the verified table below. It is a flat fee per dispute, not a percentage of the order, so a $5 order and a $500 order carry the same fee on the same processor.
4. Staff time cost — hours times hourly rate. Gathering evidence, answering the case, and following up. This is an opportunity cost, not a cash payment, which is why the calculator shows the cash subtotal (product plus shipping plus fee) separately inside the total. A case that eats two hours of a senior person's time can cost more in time than in fees.
Processor fees, verified
US USD figures checked October 27, 2026, each from the processor's own published page. Fees vary by country, currency and merchant contract — check your own dashboard before budgeting.
Processor
Dispute fee (US)
Note
Stripe
$15 received, plus $15 if you counter
Countered fee returned for won disputes; received fee is not.
Shopify Payments
$15
Returned if you win.
Square
$0
No dispute-management fee charged; product, shipping and time still apply.
PayPal (card chargeback)
$20
For card chargebacks on payments not processed through a buyer's PayPal account or guest checkout. PayPal-account disputes use a separate $15 standard / $30 high-volume dispute fee. No refund-if-you-win claim is made here because published summaries disagree on it.
The fee differences are real but small next to the other lines. Moving from PayPal's $20 to Square's $0 saves $20 per dispute; losing the product and shipping on a $100 order costs several times that. Choose a processor on its whole terms, not on the dispute fee alone.
A worked example
Order value $100, product cost $40, shipping $10, Stripe, one hour of staff time at $20 an hour, one dispute:
Fee-only view: $15.
Cash subtotal: $40 + $10 + $15 = $65.
Full-cost view: $65 + $20 staff time = $85 per lost dispute.
Across 10 such disputes: $850 full tally, $150 fee-only.
Sale value at stake (not added): $100. The optional lost-revenue view — tally plus sale value — is $185 per dispute, labelled as such.
On Square the same example totals $70 (no fee); on PayPal card chargebacks it totals $90. The processor changes the answer by $20 at most in this example; the product and shipping dominate it.
Why the order value is not added
When a dispute is lost, the customer gets the order value back. It is tempting to add that $100 to the $85 tally and call the cost $185. That double-counts in cash terms: the $40 product and $10 shipping in the tally are already the sunk cost of producing and delivering that same $100 sale. The calculator therefore shows the order value separately for scale, and offers the $185 figure only as a labelled lost-revenue view. Headlines that add everything together without saying so are not wrong about the pain — they are just not a cash tally.
Published-average context, labelled as an average and never added to your tally: Mastercard research with Javelin (2026), as summarised by Chargeflow, puts average fees plus handling at $128 per chargeback ($46 third-party fees + $82 internal handling), excluding the disputed sale itself. Your fee plus staff-time lines are the comparable part of your own tally. No multiplier is applied to your figures anywhere on this site.
What the fee does not include
Ratio damage. A lost dispute still counts toward your chargeback ratio. Run it through the ratio calculator.
Monitoring-program fines. Separate from per-dispute fees; see the ratio guide for the published program lines.
Arbitration and pre-arbitration fees. These apply only if a case escalates past representment, and they are materially larger than the dispute fee.
Whether fighting is worth it. That needs win odds by reason code, which this guide does not invent. A cost tally tells you what losing costs; it cannot tell you whether you will win.
Run your own numbers
Your product, shipping, processor fee and staff time — itemised, fee-only and full-cost views, scaled across as many disputes as you enter.
Because the product and shipping lines are already the sunk cost of that same sale. Adding the refunded order value on top would count the same item twice in cash terms. The order value is shown separately, with a labelled lost-revenue view as an optional extra.
Of the four in the calculator, PayPal's card-chargeback fee is highest at $20 (US), followed by Stripe at $15 received (plus $15 if countered) and Shopify Payments at $15 (US). Square charges no dispute-management fee ($0).
It depends on the processor. Shopify Payments returns its $15 fee if you win, and Stripe returns its $15 countered fee for won disputes (not the received fee). For PayPal, published summaries disagree on whether the card-chargeback fee is returned, so this guide makes no claim on it.
Sources (checked October 27, 2026): Stripe Pricing & Fees page — dispute received fee $15.00, dispute countered fee $15.00, countered fee returned for won disputes; Shopify Help Center, "Responding to chargebacks and inquiries" — US chargeback fee $15, returned if you win; Square Support, "Manage payment disputes" and "Learn about Square fees" — no fees for dispute management, Square covers the fee for disputes it challenges with you; PayPal Merchant Fees — US chargeback fee $20 for card chargebacks on payments not processed through a buyer's PayPal account or guest checkout, distinct from $15 standard / $30 high-volume dispute fees for PayPal-account payments; Chargeflow, "True Cost of a Chargeback", summarising Mastercard research with Javelin (2026) — $46 + $82 = $128 average, excluding the sale. Fees vary by country, currency and merchant contract.
General information only — not financial advice. Your actual cost depends on your contract, your costs, and whether goods are returned. Verify fees in your own processor dashboard.
Chargeback Clock