Refund Impact Calculator
Show revenue and processor fee impact of different refund rates.
Refunds cost you twice: lost revenue and lost processing fees (processors don't return fees on refunded transactions). A 5% refund rate on $10k monthly volume can mean $500 lost revenue plus ~$15–20 in non-refunded fees. This calculator shows the combined impact so you can prioritize quality and policies that reduce refunds.
Inputs
Or calculate refund rate from raw numbers
Results
Lost revenue (refunds): $300
Lost fees (not returned): $8.70
Net revenue after refunds: $9,700
Insights
Formula
Lost revenue = Revenue * Refund_rate Lost fees = (Refunded amount) * Fee_rate (fees not returned) Net = Revenue - Lost revenue
Input Definitions
What does each input mean?
- Monthly revenue
- Total monthly sales before any refunds. Used as the base for calculating refund impact.
- Refund rate %
- Percentage of sales that are refunded. E-commerce often 2–5%; higher may indicate quality or policy issues.
- Processing fee %
- Your processor's percentage fee. Processors typically do not refund fees on refunded transactions.
Related Calculators
What Your Refund Rate Is Actually Costing You
Refunds feel like a customer service issue, but they’re really a financial one. Every refund reverses revenue while often leaving you with processing fees you can’t recover, plus the cost of goods or services already delivered. At scale, even a small refund rate creates a significant gap between reported sales and actual net revenue. This calculator makes that gap visible.
It’s most useful for e-commerce businesses trying to understand the true margin impact of their return policy, SaaS companies evaluating churn-related refunds, or any operator who wants to calculate the revenue equivalent of cutting refunds by even a small percentage. Sometimes reducing your refund rate by 1% is worth more than a 5% increase in sales.