Chargebacks are among the most frustrating and costly issues online businesses face. They can result from fraud, buyer’s remorse, or customers forgetting purchases. Each dispute risks your revenue and merchant account.
Unchecked chargebacks drain profits and harm your reputation with payment providers. Because of this, chargeback prevention software has become essential for e-commerce. They let you respond to disputes in an instant, detect fraud, and automate resolutions.
Here, we’ll break down the best chargeback prevention tools. We’ll also explain how they work and help you choose the best setup to protect your business.
What is Chargeback Prevention Software?
Let’s first understand what chargeback prevention software is. In short, chargeback prevention software helps businesses avoid losing revenue from chargebacks.
This software includes many solutions that minimize disputes, detect fraud, and recover revenue. Examples include real-time alerts, fraud detection, and automated dispute responses. Each tackles chargeback management in different ways.
Some tools warn merchants before customers officially file disputes. Others use machine learning to block fraudulent transactions altogether. Certain platforms deal with the entire transaction process (including Chargebacks) on your behalf.
Now we know what this software does. Let’s explore the different types of chargeback prevention tools and how they work:
Chargeback Alert Software
Chargeback alert software notifies sellers as soon as customers dispute charges — before they become chargebacks. These tools use real-time networks like Ethoca, along with Verifi’s CDRN and RDR. The differences between these alerts lie in their card brand coverage.
RDR offers coverage for 97% of global Visa transactions. Meanwhile, Ethoca covers around 95% of Mastercard purchases. However, these providers offer little to no coverage for brands like American Express or JCB.
Anyway, here’s how alerts work:
- Customer contacts their bank to dispute a charge.
- The alert provider instantly notifies the merchant.
- Merchants can then issue refunds or deal with the chargeback.
- Quick responses (within 24 hours) often avoid chargebacks entirely.
These solutions help merchants maintain low chargeback ratios. For example, some providers have stopped 9 out of 10 chargebacks. But. They’re more useful for high-risk merchants or those who operate on higher margins. As alerts resellers typically charge per alert, which can eat into profits.
Many providers resell RDR, CDRN, and Ethoca alerts. Otherwise, you’d have to integrate each alert separately, dealing directly with Ethoca and Verifi. Resellers simplify this — one dashboard for all alerts.
Below are resellers that are fantastic for merchants who only want alerts:
- Chargeback.io – Best overall
- Chargblast – Runner up
- Chargeback911 – Best all-in-one Solutions
- Kount – Runner-up all-in-one Solutions
- Chargeflow – Best management
- Riskified – Best fraud prevention
- Signifyd – Runner-up fraud prevention
Best Overall Chargeback Prevention Software
When it comes to balancing ease of use, effectiveness, and cost, the best overall chargeback prevention software stands out for its ability to stop disputes before they escalate while integrating seamlessly with popular payment platforms. These tools are ideal for merchants who want a straightforward, self-managed solution without the complexity or expense of all-in-one platforms.
1. Chargeback.io
One of the best chargeback prevention software is Chargeback.io. This is because catching chargebacks before they happen is usually the best option. As this means the chargebacks do not increase your dispute rate. And thus, you can always avoid money holds, fines, and potential shutdowns.
Chargeback.io automates refunds by integrating with major processors, saving valuable time. It’s the ultimate chargeback prevention solution. This allows you to spend more time growing your business.
Key Features:
- Integrates with Stripe, Shopify, Chargebee, Recurly, Braintree
- Clearly shows where your chargebacks come from
- Pay-per-alert (no subscription)
- Quick account setup
- Insights on dispute origins
The list of processors isn’t the largest, but they’re constantly adding new integrations. When it comes to setup, the process with Chargeback.io is faster compared to other tools, allowing us to start catching chargebacks sooner. For instance, while other platforms may take up to 24 hours to set up Ethoca, Chargeback.io does it in 12 hours.
Thus, Chargeback.io is excellent if you prefer simple alerts and self-managed solutions.
2. Chargeblast
Chargeblast, another alert reseller, consolidates all alerts into one platform. It supports more integrations than Chargeback.io, including Adyen and PayPal. It also provides Visa Compelling Evidence and Order Insight (OI) to further reduce disputes.
Key Features:
- Integrates with processors such as Adyen and PayPal
- Access to Order Insight and Compelling Evidence
OI allows you to send itemized receipts to customers. Such a tool has resulted in some merchants seeing an 80% drop in chargebacks resulting from customers forgetting their purchases.
Compelling Evidence (CE) 3.0 allows you to use a cardholder’s purchase history to prove that a disputed transaction is legitimate. However, there are no percentages showing how many chargebacks CE has prevented.
Chargeblast differs from Chargeback.io by offering more integrations and additional tools. However, enrollment can take longer, and pricing per alert is higher. Merchants can also directly access Order Insight through some processors (e.g., Stripe).
All-in-One Solutions
All-in-one chargeback solutions handle the entire dispute lifecycle — from prevention to resolution. Unlike standalone alerts, these platforms offer alerts, automated responses, fraud analytics, and consulting. Though, expertise will vary by solution. Some providers may offer fraud protection on top of chargeback tools, others won’t.
These services suit large businesses due to higher costs. They’re most effective when frequent chargebacks justify the expense of full dispute outsourcing.
Let’s get a closer look at a couple of the best all-in-one solutions.
3. Chargebacks911
Chargebacks911 works best for larger businesses flooded with chargebacks. It saves you time and money from hiring in-house teams. Depending on your chosen service, Chargebacks911 audits your business to identify vulnerabilities.
Having such specialties available eliminates the need to search for staff, go through the hiring and training processes, and other factors that go into setting up an in-house team.
Key Features:
- They will fight chargebacks on your behalf
- Helps identify chargeback sources
- Customized solutions
- Bulk pricing for chargeback alerts
- Analytics
However, saving time comes at a cost. For the most basic of features, expect to pay more than $1,000 monthly. Thus, you need to weigh the costs of dealing with chargebacks. Then, compare that to how much they’re impacting our business against that of going with an all-in-one solution.
Simpler tools — alerts, dispute management, or fraud prevention — may suffice if they address most chargebacks. Chargebacks911 doesn’t handle fraud prevention, unlike the next pick.
4. Kount
Kount is another all-in-one provider that’ll charge based on the business’s needs. This will likely result in paying thousands of dollars per month. Meaning that it’s best for enterprise businesses dealing with high chargeback volumes.
Key Features:
- Specializes in new-account fraud
- Uses historical data to enhance fraud prevention
- Offers global watchlists and dispute response automation
- Consumer insights help you assess customer risk
- Chargeback alerts
The global watchlist allows you to screen customers who could have ended up on a government watchlist. This gives you a chance to prevent accidentally selling to fraudsters or to someone who may engage in illegal activity.
Speaking of customers. The consumer insights feature allows you to get data from billions of people to help you make data-driven decisions . This helps you determine whether a transaction will lead to a chargeback.
Having such data also reduces the risk of false positives, which could tank our goodwill with customers if we were to flag them wrongly. Then, their fraud takeover prevention and new account fraud prevention monitors customer accounts. Allowing us to block a user based on policies you may have in place.
Dispute Management Platforms
Dispute management platforms focus on responding to chargebacks after they’ve been filed. These tools streamline the process of gathering evidence, formatting it correctly, and submitting it to issuing banks.
For merchants who get hit with hundreds or thousands of disputes, these platforms reduce your manual workload. They also improve win rates by up to 80% through optimized, bank-compliant responses.
They’re also better for merchants operating in low-margin industries, as you’d only pay a percentage of recovered funds.
Here are some of the best options in the market.
5. Chargeflow
You may have to deal with a lot of chargebacks that you know you can win, but don’t have the resources to fight them. That’s when Chargeflow can lighten the load by submitting evidence on our behalf. Such a feature also ensures you won’t miss evidence submission deadlines, which can result in automatic losses.
Key Features:
- Chargeback alerts
- Automatically submits evidence for the merchant
- Integrates with hundreds of platforms including PayPal, Adyen, and Shopify
- Analytics for chargeback sources
They have what’s called a Success-Based Pricing model, meaning that they’ll charge us 25% of recovered revenue from potential or in-process chargebacks. You may end up paying more for chargeback alerts depending on your product value.
Depending on your chargeback rate, this cost could outweigh the consequences of having too many chargebacks. High rates can typically result in losing access to payment processors or being placed on the MATCH list — a merchant blacklist.
Fraud Prevention & Detection Software
Fraud prevention and detection software analyzes real-time transaction data to flag and block suspicious activity before it leads to fraud. Fraud that may lead to chargebacks.
These systems use a mix of the following to identify potentially risky transactions:
- Machine learning
- Customer behavior analysis
- Device fingerprinting
- Rule-based logic
Using the above factors may also prevent potentially fraudulent transactions from going through. As a result, this saves you money on payment processing fees.
Such tools also help reduce “friendly fraud” — when customers falsely claim a transaction was unauthorized. This type of dispute accounts for more than 70% of all chargebacks.
Some of these tools offer chargeback management on top of fraud protection. But expect to pay more with those providers.
So, let’s dive in.
6. Riskified
Riskified combines many chargeback prevention tools while emphasizing fraud prevention. Making it an exceptional all-around solution for many folks who operate on lower margins. Such fraud-reducing tools can also reduce payment processor costs by preventing them from going through.
Many of its features also reduce fraud, which results in fewer chargebacks. For instance, they’ll monitor for suspicious activity and block customers who might stuff credentials to create fraudulent accounts.
Key Features:
- Uses pre-authentication fraud analysis to block potentially fraudulent orders
- Reduces false declines
- Utilizes 3D Secure for cardholder verification
- Can submit evidence for chargebacks on your behalf
- Chargeback insurance
At the time of writing, Riskified operates on a pay-as-you-go model that charges a percentage of your transaction. Most smaller merchants will find this more accessible compared to options like Kount and Signifyd.
7. Signifyd
Signifyd’s solutions focus on more than just chargebacks. For instance, there’s account protection, authentication rate optimization, fraud protection, chargeback insurance, and chargeback recovery. Giving customers (and us) more protection against chargebacks, refunds, and other issues.
Key Features:
- Account Protection to prevent account takeovers
- Connects to banks to share transaction data
- Focuses on real-time decisions
- Dispute response generator
- Chargeback insurance
- Authentication rate optimization
Similar to Kount, Signifyd has access to data that allows you to learn about most customers before they make a purchase. Such data allows you to prevent a customer who’s likely to file a chargeback — or commit return abuse — from completing a purchase.
The pricing for this platform will depend on what product you get or could range from a percentage-of-GMV or flat fee per transaction. Many users have said that they spend thousands of dollars monthly for this service. Meaning, it’s not the most accessible tool to small businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Chargeback?
A chargeback is when a customer disputes a charge with their bank, and the bank forcibly reverses the transaction. Unlike a regular refund, the merchant doesn’t get a say and is hit with a chargeback fee, often costing more than $15 per dispute.
Do I Need Chargeback Prevention Software?
You likely do if you’re in a high-risk industry (like fashion, electronics, or digital goods) or have a chargeback rate above 0.60%. Also, consider this software if your payment processor has warned you about disputes.
Why Are Chargebacks Bad?
Chargebacks are expensive—not just because of the lost sale, but due to chargeback fees, admin costs, and the time your team spends fighting them. Too many chargebacks can get your merchant account shut down. Cutting off your ability to process payments entirely.
Is Chargeback Prevention Software Cost-Effective?
Yes — top-tier solutions can prevent up to 57% of disputes and reduce chargebacks by as much as 91%. Tools like Visa Order Insights alone can stop 80% of disputes from turning into chargebacks.
How Do I Choose the Right Chargeback Prevention Software for My Business?
Look for tools that integrate with your payment processor, match your transaction volume, and offer the right features. If you’re getting serious about growth, focus on automation and scalability.
Conclusion
Chargebacks are more than a payment issue—they threaten cash flow, credibility, and scalability. Today’s prevention software goes beyond damage control. Merchants can respond quicker, fight smarter, and avoid disputes proactively.
Whether growing your brand or managing high-volume sales, the right tools protect your revenue. With effective chargeback prevention, you spend less time firefighting — and more time growing your business.
