The short answer: the same card-network chargeback costs a different flat fee depending on who processes your payments — from $0 at Square to $15 at Stripe, Shopify Payments and Braintree, with PayPal charging $20 on the card route and $15 or $30 on the PayPal-account route, and Adyen charging no published flat fee at all. Every figure below is from the processor's own published page; only PayPal's high-volume tier is flagged in the table and in the verification note — check your own account's fee schedule before budgeting, because contracts and countries change the numbers.
The fees, processor by processor
All figures are US standard pricing, checked October 29, 2026, and cover the processor's per-dispute fee only — not the disputed amount itself, not lost goods, and not network monitoring fines. This article is a companion to the Chargeback Cost Calculator: use the calculator for your own totals; this page is the fee reference behind it. Nothing here is a second calculator.
| Processor | Per-dispute fee (US standard) | Returned if you win? | Source |
|---|
| Stripe | $15 dispute received fee, plus $15 dispute countered fee if you respond manually | Countered fee only; received fee is not returned (unless your contract says otherwise) | Stripe pricing page |
| PayPal — card chargeback route | $20 chargeback fee (direct card processing, not via a PayPal account or guest checkout) | Waived only where Seller Protection requirements are met, per secondary checks — see verification note | PayPal US merchant fee schedule (chargeback fee table, US dollar $20.00; standard dispute fee table, US dollar $15.00 — confirmed against paypal.com fee tables October 29, 2026) |
| PayPal — PayPal-account / guest-checkout route | $15 standard dispute fee; $30 high-volume dispute fee (dispute ratio of 1.5% or more with over 100 sales in the previous three months) | Standard fee not charged on disputes decided in the seller's favour; high-volume exemptions are narrower | PayPal US merchant fee schedule (chargeback fee table, US dollar $20.00; standard dispute fee table, US dollar $15.00 — confirmed against paypal.com fee tables October 29, 2026) |
| Square | $0 — no fees for dispute management services for chargebacks Square works with you to challenge | Not applicable | Square help: Manage payment disputes (updated April 23, 2026) |
| Shopify Payments | $15 (US) | Yes — returned if you win | Shopify help: Responding to chargebacks and inquiries |
| Braintree (PayPal) | $15 (US standard pricing) | Not stated on the fee page — treat as not refunded unless your agreement says otherwise | PayPal Braintree fees page |
| Adyen | No published flat fee — set per merchant contract | Varies by contract | Adyen docs: Visa chargebacks |
Adyen and arbitration: Adyen's own dispute documentation adds a separate exposure that no flat fee captures. If a Visa or Mastercard case goes to scheme arbitration and the scheme rules in favour of the issuer, the losing party is liable for a filing fee of up to USD 600, charged on top of the dispute amount. That $600 is a scheme arbitration fee, not an Adyen chargeback fee — and it is a reason to decline pre-arbitration only when you are confident the chargeback is not valid, as Adyen itself advises.
How to read this table
- Stripe is the only two-fee processor here. A dispute you accept costs $15. A dispute you contest and lose costs $30. A dispute you contest and win still costs $15 — the received fee never comes back on standard pricing. That asymmetry is the whole reason to price a fight before starting one.
- PayPal has two routes, and the route decides the fee. A buyer disputing through their bank on direct card processing is a $20 chargeback fee; a buyer disputing through a PayPal account or guest checkout is a $15 or $30 dispute fee depending on your dispute ratio. Do not stack both fees on one case.
- Square's $0 is a dispute-management fee of $0 — the disputed funds are still held while the bank decides, and a lost dispute still loses the sale. "Free disputes" does not mean "free chargebacks."
- Shopify's $15 is the bank's processing fee passed through, in Shopify's own wording, and it varies by country — £10 in the UK, €15 in much of the EU, $25 AUD in Australia. The US figure in this table does not travel.
- Fees are the smallest layer. Monitoring-programme fines (Visa VAMP, Mastercard ECM) and lost goods dwarf a $15 fee once a ratio crosses a threshold — check the VAMP Threshold Checker and the Merchant Monitoring Program Checker.
A worked example: what 100 disputes cost
Take 100 US disputes on standard pricing, all contested, with a 40% win rate — purely to show how the fee shapes differ. On Stripe: 100 × $15 received = $1,500, plus 60 lost contests × $15 countered = $900, for $2,400 in fees. On Shopify Payments: 60 lost × $15 = $900, because wins return the fee. On Square: $0 in dispute-management fees. On Braintree: 100 × $15 = $1,500 regardless of outcome, on the fee page as published. The point is not that one processor is "cheapest" — processing rates, payout terms and fraud tools differ — but that the same dispute history can cost $0 or $2,400 in fees alone, before a single dollar of lost goods. Run your own volume through the Chargeback Cost Calculator for the real number.
What we could not verify
PayPal: the $20 card-chargeback fee and $15 standard dispute fee (US dollars) were confirmed against PayPal's own published US fee tables on October 29, 2026, and the 1.5% / 100-sales high-volume test is confirmed on PayPal's own dispute-fee help page. Only the $30 high-volume amount itself rests on PayPal's published US fee schedule as checked by Chargeflow in October 2026 (PayPal's fee page could not be opened directly in full during this build) — confirm that tier in your own PayPal account before budgeting. Braintree refundability: PayPal's Braintree fee page lists the $15 chargeback fee but states no win-refund rule, so this article does not assert one either way. Omitted: secondary-only rows from the original research note (Authorize.net, Checkout.com) are omitted because their fees are set by the merchant's own acquiring agreement, not published as a flat figure, and no processor page was available to verify them against.
FAQ
Is the cheapest fee the best processor?
No. The per-dispute fee is one line in a much larger bill: processing rate, payout speed, fraud tools, and monitoring fines matter more. Use the fee table to price disputes, not to pick a processor.
Do fees vary by country?
Yes, almost everywhere. Stripe, Shopify and Braintree all price by settlement currency or country, and PayPal's schedule varies by market. The figures here are US standard pricing only.
Does winning a dispute always return the fee?
No. Shopify returns it; Stripe returns only the countered half; Square charges none; Braintree's fee page states no refund rule; PayPal's standard dispute fee is not charged on cases decided in the seller's favour, with narrower high-volume exemptions.
Related reading
Sources (checked October 29, 2026): Stripe pricing page (stripe.com/pricing, dispute received and countered fees); Square help, "Manage payment disputes" (updated April 23, 2026); Shopify help, "Responding to chargebacks and inquiries" (chargeback fee table, United States $15 USD, fee returned on a win); PayPal Braintree fees page (chargeback $15.00 USD, US standard rate); Adyen docs, "Visa chargebacks" and "Manage disputes" (scheme arbitration filing fee up to USD 600); PayPal US merchant fee schedule (chargeback fee US $20.00 and standard dispute fee US $15.00 confirmed against paypal.com fee tables October 29, 2026; $30 high-volume amount as checked by Chargeflow, "Chargeback Fees 2026" (October 2026) — see verification note above).
This guide is general information only — not legal or financial advice. Last updated: October 29, 2026.
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