Refund Rate Calculator

How it is calculated

The refund rate is the share of orders that came back as refunds: rate = refunds ÷ total orders × 100. Both inputs are order counts for the same period, not money amounts. The tool also reports the orders you kept: net orders = total orders − refunds.

The rate is shown with two decimals and a percent sign. The tool returns nothing when total orders is zero or negative, when refunds is negative, or when refunds is larger than total orders, since more than 100% of orders cannot be refunded. Because it counts orders, a partial refund of one order and a full refund of the same order both count as a single refund. For a value-based view you would need to divide refunded revenue by revenue instead.

Common mistakes

• Dividing refunds by the orders that were refunded or by shipped orders rather than by all orders placed in the period. The denominator here is total orders.
• Mixing periods: counting refunds issued this month against orders placed this month, although many of those refunds belong to last month's orders. Use a window long enough for returns to arrive, or match refunds to their original order date.
• Entering refunded money instead of the number of orders. Revenue amounts give a meaningless percentage here.
• Entering the percentage already (2.96) in the refunds field, or using a rate field that expects counts.
• Counting one order several times because it had several partial refunds, which inflates the refund count.