Stripe to take 30% cut of disputed revenue you recover
8 comments
I received n*m copies of this email: one for each Stripe account, for each registered email.
Clearly Stripe wants this, but I don't: it clashes with my worldview.
I noticed the email carefully avoids the word "fraud". That's because there are existing mechanisms for dealing with that. So we're talking about legitimate customers here, not fraudsters.
With my customers, the way to win disputes is to lose them.
Every dispute is a chance to not completely incinerate the relationship, preserve my brand, and woo the customer back. I remember which businesses made it difficult to make things right; don't you?
For consumers, just issue the refund. You lose a few bucks. For business and enterprise, why would you toss your work to an AI? You should already have someone's phone number. Call them. Your customer success team should have already been calling them. Don't let Stripe be the venue for customer relationship.
The fact that you got here means you did something wrong, i.e. taking money from a fraudster, marketing something you didn't deliver, or not nurturing the relationship.
Dispute is such a hostile word. A more effective attitude is deference and servanthood.
Clearly Stripe wants this, but I don't: it clashes with my worldview.
I noticed the email carefully avoids the word "fraud". That's because there are existing mechanisms for dealing with that. So we're talking about legitimate customers here, not fraudsters.
With my customers, the way to win disputes is to lose them.
Every dispute is a chance to not completely incinerate the relationship, preserve my brand, and woo the customer back. I remember which businesses made it difficult to make things right; don't you?
For consumers, just issue the refund. You lose a few bucks. For business and enterprise, why would you toss your work to an AI? You should already have someone's phone number. Call them. Your customer success team should have already been calling them. Don't let Stripe be the venue for customer relationship.
The fact that you got here means you did something wrong, i.e. taking money from a fraudster, marketing something you didn't deliver, or not nurturing the relationship.
Dispute is such a hostile word. A more effective attitude is deference and servanthood.
Agreed! A credit card dispute is a strong signal from an unhappy customer. And you're going to let it be handled by a robot? That's not smart.
If you make it easy for customers to reach a human, and easy for a human to issue refunds, you don't get disputes.
If you make it easy for customers to reach a human, and easy for a human to issue refunds, you don't get disputes.
That's a big number.
I likely did something wrong but according to my hastily put calculations, Stripe has to improve favorable dispute result chance by 40% for this option to begin making sense. Or it could be lower but the value proposition of producing the evidence to dispute must cover for the gap.
I likely did something wrong but according to my hastily put calculations, Stripe has to improve favorable dispute result chance by 40% for this option to begin making sense. Or it could be lower but the value proposition of producing the evidence to dispute must cover for the gap.
I see the value, but you should refund disputes to void them if it's not involving physical items or high value services, and ban the user. For new businesses it's not worth going above 1% DR.
flat fee + 30% cut? opt-out? using AI? oof
My experience with Stripe and disputes made me stop using them back then, looks like it's going worse..
Fraud detection is hard, sure, dealing with kids who use parents CCs is impossible to prevent
If you done nothing wrong and you win your disputes, you'll still loose money, this is all backwards
Lots of PayPal FUD around here, but when I had my online business, I effortlessly won most of the dispute cases, and they'd only keep the transaction fee, wich was ~3% only
My experience with Stripe and disputes made me stop using them back then, looks like it's going worse..
Fraud detection is hard, sure, dealing with kids who use parents CCs is impossible to prevent
If you done nothing wrong and you win your disputes, you'll still loose money, this is all backwards
Lots of PayPal FUD around here, but when I had my online business, I effortlessly won most of the dispute cases, and they'd only keep the transaction fee, wich was ~3% only
Stripe doesn't determine who wins or loses a dispute. So whether you use PayPal or Stripe is irrelevant in that respect
If you want to handle disputes yourself then just don't use this feature
If you want to handle disputes yourself then just don't use this feature
The feature is opt-out, though. With Stripe taking 30% of revenue for this path, it is now in Stripe's interest that people issue disputes so that Stripe can resolve them and take a bigger cut.
"It is now in Stripe's interest that people issue disputes."
That should be the headline right there.
That should be the headline right there.
We’re excited to share that you’ll get early access to Smart Disputes starting November 2025. We’ll automatically enable this new product on your account Migration. Smart Disputes will help you save time managing eligible disputes on card transactions and recover revenue - with no action needed from you.
Benefits to you Managing disputes is time-consuming, and it can be difficult to know what evidence to submit. Smart Disputes helps:
Save time: We automatically compile evidence and respond to disputes, so you don’t have to spend time fighting them.
Recover revenue: Our evidence is compiled using AI trained on real dispute data from the more than $1 trillion in payments Stripe processes annually, to help you recover disputed revenue.
Get started with no integration required: Unlike other automated dispute management solutions, Smart Disputes is built into Stripe so there’s no extra work to integrate.
How it works We’ll notify you when you receive an eligible dispute on a card transaction and automatically compile evidence for you. If you don’t take action before the dispute deadline, Stripe will automatically submit this evidence on your behalf. You can always choose to accept the dispute or counter it manually before the deadline.
Only pay when you win If you win a dispute using Smart Disputes, you’ll pay 30% of the recovered disputed amount. If you don’t win, then no fees for Smart Disputes apply. The fee for receiving a dispute still applies to all disputes, including ones countered with Smart Disputes.
How to turn off auto-submission If you don’t want to use Smart Disputes, then you can turn off auto-submission in your Dashboard. If you opt out, you can still manually submit evidence generated by Smart Disputes once it is enabled for your account.
Questions? Please visit our support site—we’re here to help.
— The Stripe team