At a glance
The total dollar amount refunded through Recharge in the period: customer-cancellation goodwill refunds, quality / defect refunds, late-shipment make-goods, retroactive promotion adjustments. The dollar-value complement ofrec_refund_rateand the figure to subtract fromrec_total_volumefor a net-of-refunds reading.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Recharge data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
“Daily Greens Co”. 30-day window 03 Apr 26 to 02 May 26.- Refund volume USD 22,124 is the figure to subtract from gross to get net-of-refunds. Many CFOs read the gross volume card and forget refunds; this card is the bridge.
- Cancellation goodwill (USD 14,540) is the bulk. Reducing it requires cancel-flow improvements (offer pause, skip, downgrade before refund) not refund-policy tightening.
- The original Recharge platform fee + processor fee on USD 22,124 is non-refundable. At a blended ~3% on the original charges, that’s ~USD 660 of merchant cost the brand absorbs even when refunding the customer. Heavy refund volume erodes margin disproportionately.
- Late-shipment make-goods at USD 1,738 are a 4PL signal. If this category grows multi-week, the warehouse / carrier needs review.
- Promotional retroactive refunds (USD 2,212) are operational waste. Restructure as next-rebill discounts to eliminate the refund operation.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in the Recharge merchant portal: admin.rechargepayments.com. The closest comparable view is Recharge Admin → Charges → Refunded with date range; the running total at the top equals this card. Why our number may legitimately differ:
Cross-connector reconciliation:
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
“Refund volume jumped, what to check first?” A fulfilment cohort issue (delayed batch, defective product), a marketing-driven retroactive promotional refund cluster, or a customer-portal swap bug producing duplicate-charge corrections. Cross-reference withrec_refund_rate reason groupings.
“Why does my bank deposit not equal gross_volume - refund_volume?”
Three deductions: (1) Recharge platform fee, (2) underlying processor fee, (3) the original processor fee on the refunded amount is typically NOT recovered (Stripe / Shopify Payments still take their fee on the original charge). So bank-deposited ≈ (gross - refund) - all_fees - non_recovered_processor_fee.
“Partial refunds, do they count proportionally?”
Yes. A USD 30 refund on a USD 79 charge contributes USD 30 to this card.
“Multi-currency refund total, can I see one rolled-up number?”
Not on this card. Use Recharge admin’s “Convert to store currency” toggle in the Refunded view for FX-rolled USD equivalent.
“Recharge fee on refunds, is there one?”
No platform fee from Recharge for issuing a refund. The cost is the non-recoverable original processor fee.
“Why are duplicate-charge corrections in here?”
When a customer-portal swap produces an unintended double-bill, CS reverses one of the charges. It’s a refund operation in the data even though it’s effectively a correction. Filter by reason code in Recharge admin to isolate.