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Chargeback Cost Calculator

Enter the sale amount, product cost, and chargeback fee to find the total chargeback cost.

How it is calculated

For one disputed order the tool separates the money the bank takes back from what you are actually out of pocket: net loss = product cost + chargeback fee. The sale amount is the revenue that is reversed. It is shown on its own as the lost revenue: you do not get to keep it, but it was never a cost to you either, so adding it to the net loss would count the reversed sale twice. The product cost is what the goods cost you and which you assume you do not get back, and the fee is the charge for the dispute itself. The net loss is also shown as a percentage of the sale, net loss ÷ sale amount × 100. The sale amount must be above zero, and cost and fee may be zero but not negative. Everything is in dollars. It is a cash view of the worst case: shipping, handling time, and any amount you recover by winning the dispute are not included.

Worked example

An order sold for 80, the goods cost you 32, and the processor charges a 15 dispute fee. The bank pulls back the 80, so the lost revenue is $80.00. Your net loss is 32 + 15 = $47.00: you are back where you were before the sale, minus the goods and the fee. As a share of the sale: 47 ÷ 80 × 100 = 58.75%. Had the order gone through you would have kept 80 − 32 = 48, so compared with the completed sale the dispute leaves you 48 + 47 = 95 worse off, which is the sale plus the fee.

Try this example →

Common mistakes

  • Entering the sale price in the product cost box. Product cost is what the item cost you to buy or make, not what the customer paid.
  • Leaving the fee at 0 because you won the dispute. The fee is usually charged whether you win or lose, so enter the real fee.
  • Reading the percentage as a profit margin. 58.75% is the net loss relative to the sale amount, not a margin.
  • Assuming the result is the loss for a digital product. If nothing physical is lost, product cost may be 0, and the net loss is then just the fee.
  • Counting a partial refund. The tool treats the whole sale amount as refunded; for a partial dispute enter only the disputed amount as the sale.

About this calculator

A chargeback happens when a cardholder disputes a charge directly with their bank instead of asking the merchant for a refund — the bank reverses the payment and pulls the money back from the merchant automatically. Unlike an ordinary refund, a chargeback almost always comes with a separate dispute fee charged by the payment processor or card network to cover the cost of investigating the claim, and that fee applies whether the merchant wins or loses the dispute.

For a physical product, the real cost goes beyond the refunded sale: the merchant typically never gets the shipped item back, so the product cost is lost on top of the revenue. This calculator separates the two sides of a single disputed transaction for sellers, especially on marketplaces and card-not-present e-commerce: the lost revenue (the sale amount the bank pulls back) and the net loss compared with never having made the sale — the unrecovered product cost plus the chargeback fee. Adding the sale amount to those two would count the reversed revenue twice.

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Comments (1)

  • Editorial team

    To see how much one dispute really hurts, divide the net loss by the profit you normally make on an ordinary order. In the default case the loss is 45 and the sale leaves a profit of 50, so about one good order is wiped out. The tool does not add shipping, handling time or a processor penalty for repeated disputes. Which of those costs would you want to see as a separate field?

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