What is Chargeback fee?

The fee covers the administrative cost of processing the dispute. It is usually a fixed amount per case, commonly somewhere between about $15 and $100, depending on the processor, the industry and the merchant’s risk level. High-risk verticals such as adult, dating or iGaming tend to pay more.

In most cases the fee is not refunded, even when the merchant wins the chargeback dispute. That makes a chargeback more expensive than the sale itself: the merchant loses the product, the revenue and the fee.

Affiliates rarely pay the fee directly, but programs pass the cost on in other ways: reversed commissions, longer hold periods, or closing affiliates whose traffic brings many chargebacks.