PayPal Refund & Chargeback Loss Calculator

This PayPal refund & chargeback loss calculator helps you see how much money you actually lose when an order is refunded or disputed and PayPal does not return processing fees. Instead of just guessing, you can see your loss in USD per dispute, the loss as a percentage of the order value, and how those fees scale as your refunded volume grows.

1. Enter the order amount and any refund or chargeback fee

Start with the Order amount (USD) — the original customer payment processed through PayPal. Then enter the Refund / chargeback fee your account charges per dispute. Use $0 for simple refunds where there is no extra dispute fee, or enter your chargeback fee (for example, $20.00) when you want to model a lost dispute.

2. Set your PayPal processing fee structure

The second step models your standard PayPal processing fees. Use the percentage fee box for your variable rate and the fixed fee per payment box for the flat amount that applies to every transaction. The default values use a simple example of 3.49% + $0.49, but you can overwrite both fields with your real rates or test different fee tiers.

3. Read the breakdown to see total loss per dispute

After you calculate, the left column shows the order amount, the original PayPal fee kept, the refund or chargeback fee, and the total loss in fees per dispute. It also shows the loss as a percentage of the order value and how much you would lose in fees for every $1,000 in refunded or charged-back orders at the same size.

4. Use it to adjust pricing, risk rules, and dispute strategy

This calculator is useful when you are deciding how much risk you can take on COD-style customers, higher risk products, or geos with more chargebacks. If your fee loss per dispute is high, you might raise prices, tighten fraud filters, or put stricter rules on certain items. The Copy summary button gives you a clean text breakdown you can drop into email, Slack, or a planning spreadsheet so everyone sees the same numbers.

Remember that the tool focuses on payment fees only. Your real loss on a bad order usually includes product cost, shipping, time spent on support, and potentially marketing spend. Use this calculator as a fast way to quantify the PayPal fee side, then layer in product margin and acquisition costs in your own sheets or reporting.

The calculator models your fee loss when an order is refunded or charged back and PayPal keeps the original processing fee. Let G be the original order amount in USD, r be the PayPal percentage fee as a decimal (for example 0.0349 for 3.49%), f be the fixed fee per payment in USD, and c be any extra refund or chargeback fee in USD.

First, the original processing fee on the successful order is:

Original PayPal fee = G × r + f

When the order is refunded or lost to a dispute, this processing fee is not returned to you. If there is also a refund or chargeback fee, that is added on top. The total fee loss per dispute is therefore:

Total loss in fees = (G × r + f) + c

The loss as a percentage of the order is:

Loss % of order = (Total loss in fees ÷ G) × 100

To show how this scales, the calculator also computes the loss per $1,000 in refunded orders at the same order size and fee structure:

Loss per $1,000 in refunds = (Total loss in fees ÷ G) × 1000

These numbers help you put a hard dollar value on each bad order so you can tweak your pricing, fraud controls, and customer policies with a clearer picture of how PayPal refunds and chargebacks impact your margins.

• PayPal: How do I issue a refund? – Official help article explaining how refunds work and noting that PayPal does not return the original processing fees on refunded payments for goods or services.
• PayPal: What is the PayPal Dispute Fee and why was I charged one? – Help article describing PayPal’s dispute fee, when it applies to disputes and chargebacks, and how the fee amount is determined.