15 Best Chargeback Protection Services for 2023

Pricing

• Custom-quoted based on sales volume, goals, and the types of fraud and chargeback issues you typically have
• Offers three solutions: Kount Command, which protects against chargebacks and disputes; Kount Control, which protects customer accounts; and Kount Central, which offers fraud protection to merchants
• Monthly minimum: $1,000

Key Features

• AI-driven fraud detection that looks at billions of data points
• Protection against malicious logins
• Data storage and analysis to determine problem areas resulting in potential chargebacks
• Flag known customers to prevent false declines
• Rules setting for automated alerts
• Near Real-Time (NRT) Rapid Dispute Resolution (RDR) reporting

Integrations

• Partners with payment providers such as Chase, Sage, Braintree, and BlueSnap
• Integrates with ecommerce platforms like Shopify and Salesforce Commerce Cloud
• Offers optional third-party subscriptions to data from Chargebacks911, Ekata, LexisNexis, and others

Customer Support

• Phone support is available Monday through Friday (except holidays), 6 a.m.–6 p.m. Mountain time
• Email support
• Online help center
• Other tools like white papers, webinars, videos, and both live and virtual events

Kount earned the highest score on our evaluation: 4.41 out of 5. It would have scored higher if not for contract and minimum monthly spend requirements. Thus, it’s best for well-established businesses losing well over $1,000 monthly due to chargebacks. However, it is not the only chargeback company that requires a minimum—Signifyd has an even higher monthly minimum.

Kount has a partnership with Midigator, which is also on this list, for representment. This option is an add-on service that comes with a fee.

Strengths

• Fraud and pre-transaction chargeback protection: Kount is the only service on our list with a perfect score for its tools to prevent fraud and chargebacks even before the transaction is approved. It has artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) analysis, 3D Secure, fraud, scoring, and false decline prevention. It even lets you build your own fraud detection rules.
• Personalized chargeback prevention services: Like ClearSale, Kount provides live, personalized evaluation services for companies that have complex business issues, are experiencing sophisticated fraud attacks, or need extra guidance. It also offers an in-depth analysis of business and operational policies to minimize fraud risk.
• Good customer experience: Despite complaints about complex processes, it had the highest user approval rate: 4.75 out of 5 stars, averaged over multiple third-party user review sites. It offers a chargeback guarantee with 100% coverage of eligible fraud-related chargebacks or a KPI-performance guarantee. Customers report an average 83% reduction in manual reviews, 70% reduction in false positives, and a 99% reduction in chargebacks.

Weaknesses

• Monthly minimum: Unlike most chargeback services on our list, Kount expects you to pay at least $1,000 a month (Signifyd is $1,500 a month). For chargeback protection with no monthly minimum, consider Verifi, ClearSale, Chargebacks911, Chargeback Gurus, and ChargebackHelp.
• No included chargeback representment: Kount does not automatically provide chargeback representment. (Of course, it has a 99% chargeback reduction rate and dispute tools.) It does have a partnership with Midigator for fighting chargebacks, but it is available for an additional fee.

Pricing

• Call for a quote

Key Features

• Uses Verifi, Ethoca, and 3D Secure technology for validating transactions
• Has chargeback alerts, so you can respond before fees are applied
• Can integrate with Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry (VMPI) engine
• Chargeback representment
• Chargeback Predictive Engine called ARI

Integrations

• Offers 91 integrations for payment processors, gateways, CRM, and ecommerce like Zendesk, Wells Fargo, Paysafe, HelloSign, FlexPay, Ethoca, Authorize.net, and Converge Pay

Customer Support

• Phone support
• Email and Skype support
• FAQs, e-books, and guides

With a score of 4.29, Chargeback Gurus placed second on our list. It offers a complete chargeback solution from prevention all the way to representment.

ARI analyzes transactions and gives you options for your course of action. However, with the feature being relatively new, there are still very few reviews on how effective it is in predicting potential chargebacks.

Chargeback Gurus also offers a satisfying spectrum of chargeback and dispute tools, is easy to use, and scored well for pricing. It claims a 50% prevention and a 70% win against chargebacks. Moreover, if you do not see your chargebacks declining and your income increasing, you can quit and get your money back.

Although Chargeback Gurus came in behind Kount, it has its own chargeback representment service, which Kount only offers via its partnership with Midigator. What prevented Chargeback Gurus from taking the top spot is that its services are available individually—the monthly fee you can expect to pay depends on the services you would like to include. There are also little to no real-world user reviews.

Strengths

• Reports: While all the chargeback prevention companies provide some reports, Chargeback Gurus offers over 30. Its Root Cause Analyzer looks at over 40 data points to help you identify your vulnerabilities. It gives you an in-depth and personalized analysis of your weaknesses.
• Chargeback Predictive Engine: ARI analyzes transactions using order, transaction, and fraud data to develop a chargeback predictive score to help you decide on your next steps.

Weaknesses

• Individual service fees: The individual fees for the different services offered by Chargeback Gurus effectively makes each one available with an extra add-on fee.
• Lacks customer review: Despite Chargeback Gurus’ promising offerings, there is little to no reviews you will find for it in review sites like Capterra and G2.

Pricing

• Now that Chargeback App is part of Sift, pricing is not publicly available. Previous reports said Chargeback App charges by sales volume, around 5 cents per transaction, with minimum annual fees of $8,000.

Key Features

• Account analysis
• Enrollment in Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry
• AI-powered automated responses to chargeback alerts
• Compiles evidence to accompany response letter
• Add-ons for account defense, fraud prevention, protection against malicious content, and more

Integrations

• Integrates with most payment technologies including, PayPal, Stripe, Vantiv, Authorize.net, and Worldpay
• Works with Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, and PrestaShop
• Offers an API for integrating into other software solutions
• Integrates with Verifi and Ethoca for card processing information

Customer Support

• Variety of self-serve support options such as response templates, a knowledge base, ebooks, guides, and reason codes
• Email support

Sift came in third on our evaluation, scoring 4.27 out of 5. The pricing score was average, especially now that Chargeback App is under Sift, which does not advertise its pricing but also does not list contracts or minimum spend like others do.

It did very well with chargeback prevention and resolution tools but lost points because it lacks representment and does not repay chargeback fees. Nonetheless, it is easy to use, has a real-world user rating of 4.59 out of 5 (averaged over multiple review sites), and is highly effective.

Strengths

• More payment protection tools: Sift offers robust fraud prevention tools to stop bad transactions before they happen. (About half the services on our list, like Chargebacks911 and Midigator, specialize in reacting after a chargeback occurs.) One callout example is creating your own fraud rules for any known red flags. Only Verifi and Kount also offer this.
• Protect against false positives: Sift has an “Insult Monitor” that flags potential false positives, so you can manually approve them to prevent denying a legitimate customer a sale. Many chargeback protectors, including Verifi, lack this function.

Weaknesses

• No chargeback representment: Sift provides the tools and information to handle the issue but doesn’t have experts who handle the chargeback process for you. If you want this time-saving feature, check out Signifyd, ChargebackHelp, Chargebacks911, Chargeback Gurus, and Verifi.
• No guarantee: It does not refund fees for chargebacks it missed (ClearSale and Kount do).

Pricing

• Custom pricing; call for a quote

Key Features

• Adaptive AI/ML that delivers actionable insights
• IDs multiple fraud anomalies automatically
• Guaranteed protection of approved orders
• Customer abuse scores
• Unauthorized reseller protection
• Automated chargeback recovery

Integrations

• Integrates with ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce, Magento, Salesforce, Commerce Cloud, and Shopify
• Custom API

Customer Support

• Contact form
• Support portal

It earned 3.99 out of 5 in our evaluation, with a perfect expert score for quality of features and effectiveness and only losing points on ease of use because it lacked personal recommendations (only a few, like Kount, Sift, and Chargeback Gurus do this). It can provide analyses that you can act upon, however, and its pre-transaction charge prevention offerings are among the strongest. Real-world users on third-party review sites give it an average of 4.63 out of 5 stars.

Signifyd is available in over 100 countries, which is a much higher number than most other chargeback protection companies (for reference, Visa’s Verifi works with just over 40). Users said that it is easy to use and flexible and that this chargeback company is quick to refund chargebacks based on fraud. However, it does not guarantee delivery of digital items.

Strengths

• Additional fraud tools: Like Sift, Signifyd can provide more than chargeback protection. Its commerce protection platform includes account abuse prevention to protect you from customers taking advantage of businesses through coupon misuse or item-not-received complaints.
• 3D Secure: Signifyd uses 3D Secure as part of its verification procedures. Only Kount and Chargeback Gurus incorporate this tool; the rest don’t mention it or say they work alongside other tools that use it. All transactions in the EU must be 3D Secure, but not every chargeback protector uses it for data.

Weaknesses

• Minimum $1,500 monthly spend: Its biggest hit came in pricing, requiring a $1,500 monthly spend and 30 days’ notice to cancel. This means a merchant will pay a minimum of $1,500 per month regardless of their actual transaction volume for the month. It is the most expensive on our list; most do not have a minimum at all. This makes Signifyd suitable only for large-volume merchants.
• No phone support. The only way to get customer support from Signifyd is through an online contact form. Although many users rarely need to contact support, having customer support available via phone, even on a limited basis, can greatly help when issues arise.

Pricing

• Like most of the other chargeback protection platforms on this list, Verifi doesn’t disclose pricing information on its website. You’ll need to contact Verifi directly for pricing information.

Key Features

• Data sharing with issuer call center or cardholder self-service
• Automated responses to disputes before charges are levied using seller-defined rules
• Financial resolution (refund) capability through Visa
• Dispute processing
• Reporting dashboard with KPIs and performance data

Integrations

• Integrates with payment processing services like Bank of America, Chase, BlueSnap, Vantiv, and Merchant Solutions
• Integrates with other chargeback protection services

Customer Support

• Phone support every Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Pacific time
• Live chat
• Contact form
• Online knowledge base

Verifi earned a 3.79 out of 5 in our evaluation, with good but not outstanding scores. It lost points because it doesn’t protect against false declines or pay chargeback fees, and its overall chargeback decrease is slightly below the best on our list. However, it offers good reports and excellent deflection services.

It helps prevent chargebacks by sending fraud notifications as soon as they are confirmed by the bank or card authority. Verifi can also send notices of stop payments, so you can cancel orders or subscriptions accordingly. It reports lost or stolen Visa cards, so you can block them. Overall, it claims businesses will experience up to a 42% reduction in dispute rates.

About half the services on our list offer full management and representation when chargebacks occur. With Verifi’s program, you get a reporting dashboard with KPIs and performance and business summaries. This lets you uncover weaknesses leading to chargebacks and helps track Verifi’s success in disputing chargebacks for you.

Strengths

• Link to Visa: While some services, like Chargebacks911, link with Verifi or the Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry program, Verifi offers direct access to Visa’s alerts and information without paying extra.
• Transaction details: Access to detailed transaction data can help prevent friendly fraud by consumers who don’t recognize or remember a sale. Verifi gets this directly from Visa, and you won’t find this tool with ClearSale, Chargeback Gurus, and Midigator.

Weaknesses

• No false decline prevention: Almost as important as preventing fraudulent transactions is avoiding false declines. Consider ClearSale, Sift, Kount, and Signifyd.
• No chargeback reimbursement: Unlike ClearSale, Kount, Signifyd, and Chargeback Gurus, Verifi does not reimburse you for chargebacks, even those that slip through the system.

Pricing

• Pricing is applied by KPI. You can call for a quote or get ClearSale Chargeback Protection for 0.4%–0.5% of sales.

Key Features

• Fraud scoring using AI/ML
• Manual checks of transactions failing AI fraud scores
• Protection from false declines
• Blocking fraudulent transactions
• Reimbursement for chargebacks caused by missed fraudulent transactions (with Guaranteed Protection plan)

Integrations

• Integrates with about a dozen ecommerce platforms, including Magento, Shopify, Oracle, and BigCommerce
• API for custom integrations
• Mobile software development kit (SDK) for Android and iOS app integrations.

Customer support

• 24/7 technical support
• Phone support
• Email support
• Contact form
• Knowledge base

With 3.68 out of 5 on our rubric, ClearSale is a solid service with most tools you need for chargeback prevention and dispute management. It scored high for pricing because of its choice of plans and lack of contracts or minimum fees. While it lost points for not letting you create fraud detection rules, it makes up for it by evaluating suspicious transactions twice to reduce friendly declines. It also took a hit for not having representment. Its real-world user score on G2 was 4.7 out of 5 stars.

ClearSale AI scans each transaction, assigning a fraud score based on factors like order information, device, and behavioral data. If a transaction fails the fraud score, it’s then checked manually by ClearSale’s review team, composed of 700+ fraud analysis experts.

The provider offers a guarantee plan that reimburses you for any missed frauds resulting in chargebacks. Or, you can purchase the key performance indicator (KPI) plan, where you and ClearSale set KPIs, and you get a discount if ClearSale doesn’t meet them. Kount also has a KPI-dependent warranty.

Strengths

• Human and AI fraud checks: ClearSale is unique in that it employs both AI/ML and human evaluation of each transaction. This provides an extra layer of protection against false declines and sneaky fraud.
• Fraud consulting: While other services provide white papers and general tips or have dashboards where you can analyze your fraud, ClearSale offers consulting services. You’re paired with a fraud protection expert in your industry who analyzes your current methods and makes recommendations—without an upsell to its platform. (Fees apply.) Kount also has an assessment program.

Weaknesses

• No integrated chargeback response tools: ClearSale only prevents chargebacks. Most other chargeback prevention companies in this guide have tools for addressing disputes.
• No representment: ClearSale does not dispute chargebacks. For representation, consider Signifyd, Chargebacks911, Chargeback Gurus, and ChargebackHelp.

Pricing

• Call for a quote

Key Features

• Affiliate fraud protection and prevention
• Fraud analysis for source detection
• Merchant compliance reviews to prevent merchant errors
• Merchant account cost analysis for cost reduction
• High-risk merchant support
• Chargeback alerts

Integrations

• Integrates with 40 different CRM platforms
• Custom integration—sets up a workaround with any platform to engineer a complete integration
• APIs

Customer Support

• Knowledge base and online guides
• Online contact request form
• Email support
• Phone support

Chargebacks911 got an overall of 3.6 out of 5 in our evaluation, an excellent score considering the lack of fraud prevention tools. Like many services ranking below Chargebacks911, its focus on dispute management and chargeback resolution means it received a low score on our rubric for fraud prevention. Nonetheless, it earned high marks on chargeback resolution, ease of use, and overall quality of features.

It works with around two dozen industries and about 90 currencies to provide international coverage. In addition to ecommerce, travel, and digital industries, it has customizable programs for larger businesses and solutions for financial institutions. Chargebacks911 also offers a merchant account cost analysis to determine how to reduce your credit card processing costs.

Strengths

• Affiliate Fraud Shield: If you work with affiliates, you could be at risk of paying commissions on bogus sales through affiliate fraud. Chargebacks911 is the only service on our list with a program designed to safeguard against this.
• Prevent merchant error: Chargebacks911 says half of all chargebacks are caused by merchant error. To help alleviate that, it has a 106-point noncompliance check of merchant processes to catch errors before they occur. No other service we reviewed offers such a program, although ClearSale and Kount provide live consultation.
• High-risk merchant accounts: Chargeback911 works with merchants with any merchant category code or MCC, including those that fall under the high-risk categories.

Weaknesses

• No fraud prevention: In our rubric, ChargebackHelp has the third-lowest score for fraud prevention—1 out of 5 (Chargeback Gurus has 0.75; Midigator 0.38). The only credit it earned in this criterion was for 3D Secure. Look at Signifyd, Shift, and Kount if you want to stop fraud before it happens. Note: This score did not look at affiliate fraud, which is a separate program.
• Does not pay chargeback fees: Unlike others on our list, such as Chargeback Gurus and Kount, Chargebacks911 does not reimburse you for fees incurred by chargebacks it was unable to deflect.

Pricing

• Charges are based on services provided; contact ​​Midigator for a quote

Key Features

• In-depth analytics
• Account reporting dashboard
• Chargeback alerts and custom notifications
• Dispute flows to reduce time spent on disputes

Integrations

• Integrates with Verifi and Ethoca for real-time alerts
• Integrates with Stripe, Shopify, Authorize.net, Worldpay, Paysafe, and other payment systems for transaction data

Customer Support

• Online resource center where you can view reports and tutorials, access a chargeback reason code directory, and pull templates and sample documents
• Email support

We gave Midigator a 3.51 out of 5—just a hair above the average for this list. It had the lowest score for fraud and pre-transaction chargeback prevention, but that reflects its focus. Midigator got perfect scores for quality of features and effectiveness and only lost points on ease of use because it does not provide personalized recommendations for reducing fraud (you can do analysis, however). It missed a perfect score for dispute resolution because it does not pay chargeback fees. With no contracts or minimum spend, it did well in the pricing category, too.

Strengths

• Improved ROI for chargeback defense: While other chargeback protection services brag that they dispute 100% of chargebacks, Midigator’s software analyzes chargebacks for conditions like evidence and costs associated with defense. If it fails to meet guidelines, then Midigator will not defend. This may affect how many you win, but it may save you money and time in the long run.
• Works with Verifi and Ethoca: Midigator integrates with Verifi and is a certified VMPI facilitator, like about half of those in this guide. However, Midigator also partners with Ethoca, the Mastercard equivalent of Verifi. This gives it access to information from the most commonly used credit cards. Of those in this guide, only Chargeback Gurus, ChargebackHelp, and Sift also use Mastercard’s system, though most offer it as a separate integration.

Weaknesses

• Weak fraud prevention tools: Midigator, like others on this list, defends against chargebacks but does not prevent them. Its platform provides the data and order information that will allow the user to do their own analysis and decide on their next course of action. The lack of actual fraud prevention capability makes it suitable for those who want a more hands-on fraud prevention approach. For fraud prevention tools, consider Kount, Sift, and Signifyd.
• No guarantee: Kount, Chargeback Gurus, and ClearSale reimburse you at least your chargeback fees for each lost case. Midigator does not have a similar guarantee.

Pricing

• Call for pricing information

Key Features

• Chargeback representment
• Automatically refund money to customers with legitimate disputes
• Manual or automated chargeback response
• Merchant accounts
• BILLAPAY payment gateway
• Managed alerts

Integrations

• Integrates with CRMs, payment gateways, and major card networks
• Partners with Verifi, CDRN, and Ethoca

Customer Support

• Phone support
• Email support
• Knowledge base and code guide

ChargebackHelp earned 3.28 out of 5 (for comparison, the list average is 3.5). Like Midigator, it had a low score for pre-transaction chargeback protection because that’s not its focus. However, it also took hits for not paying chargeback fees like many competitors and not providing personalized tips. Other individual functions were there, but not as high-quality as, say, Kount or Chargebacks911. Nonetheless, it made an excellent showing for chargeback resolution tools, reports, and dispute management.

Strengths

• Automated dispute management: If your disputes are basic, you can set ChargebackHelp to handle them automatically. You can also set up rules for issuing refunds through ChargebackHelp’s integration with Verifi.
• Payment gateway: If you need a payment gateway, ChargebackHelp offers BILLAPAY. It offers 3D Secure authentication, PCI compliance, and, of course, ChargebackHelp’s chargeback protection. No other service on our list has its own payment gateway, although at the bottom of this article we list some gateways with their own chargeback protection.

Weaknesses

• Anemic help section: The online knowledge base and FAQs are sparse and more geared toward marketing than answering in-depth questions. Midigator has a more robust product knowledge base, while Sift offers a wide range of ebooks, webinars, and infographics with tips for avoiding fraud.
• Little fraud/chargeback prevention: Like several services on our list, ChargebackHelp focuses on reacting to chargeback claims. If you want to be proactive in stopping fraud or false denials, Kount, Signifyd, and Sift are your best bets.