Chargeback Cost Calculator
Enter the sale amount, product cost, and chargeback fee to find the total chargeback cost.
Result
How it is calculated
The tool adds three amounts for one disputed order: total loss = sale amount + product cost + chargeback fee. The sale amount is the money the bank takes back, 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. It then expresses the total as a percentage of the sale, total loss ÷ sale amount × 100, so you can see how many times the sale value you lose; 100% means nothing beyond the refund. The refunded amount is shown too. 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. Total loss: 80 + 32 + 15 = $127.00. As a share of the sale: 127 ÷ 80 × 100 = 158.75%. The refunded amount is $80.00. So a single 80 order that is lost costs you about 1.59 times its value, and the 47 above the refund is made of the 32 of goods and the 15 fee.
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. 158.75% is total 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 total is then just the sale plus 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 adds the three pieces together — the refunded sale amount, the unrecovered product cost, and the chargeback fee — to show sellers, especially on marketplaces and card-not-present e-commerce, the true all-in cost of a single disputed transaction.
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