Refunds

Refund a customer in full or in part from the payment’s details page. The refund goes to the original payment method, and Dodo Payments emails the customer a receipt when it succeeds.

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Initiate Refund

You can initiate two types of refunds from the Payment Details Page:

• Full refund: Refunds the entire payment amount to the customer.
• Partial refund: Refunds part of the payment. You set the amount to refund for each item.

To begin, click Initiate Refund and choose Full refund or Partial refund. The refund goes through only if it meets every refund rule. To refund from your backend, call Create Refund with the payment_id. For a partial refund, pass items, each with an item_id (the product_id or add-on ID) and the amount to refund in the smallest currency unit.

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Details Required for Refund

• Refund Amount: The amount to be refunded. For a partial refund, enter the amount for each item you want to return to the customer. The dashboard shows each item’s refundable amount and prevents you from refunding more than the original payment.
• Refund Reason: The reason for the refund, recorded with the refund. The dashboard requires at least 5 characters, and the API accepts up to 3,000.

Before you confirm, the dashboard shows the price refund, the tax refund, and the total refund to the customer.

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Refund Rules

1. The payment must have succeeded.
2. Refunds (full or partial) must be initiated within the refund window, which is 30 days from the payment date by default. After the window closes, the refund is not allowed.
3. The refund, together with any earlier refunds on the payment, can’t exceed the amount paid.
4. Only one refund per payment can be in progress. A refund with the status pending or review must finish before you start another.
5. Your balance must cover the refund amount.
6. In live mode, live payments must be enabled for your business.
7. Refunds are issued to the original payment method used by the customer.

If any rule is not met, the refund request is denied. For help, contact support@dodopayments.com.

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When Your Balance Can’t Cover a Refund

Dodo Payments pays a refund from your wallet balance, not from the original payment. If your balance is lower than the refund amount, the refund is denied, even though the payment succeeded. Your balance can be lower than a payment’s full amount for three reasons:

• A payment adds less than the customer paid. Your wallet is credited with the payment, and then the tax on it and the Dodo Payments transaction fees are debited. A full refund returns more than the payment added to your balance.
• A payout moves your balance to your bank. On each payout date, your eligible balance is transferred to your bank account. Right after a payout, your balance may not cover a refund for a payment made before it.
• Other entries use the same balance. Earlier refunds, disputes, and their fees are deducted from your balance when they occur.

When a refund goes through, the Balances ledger records these entries: The Payment Fees entry has no reversal, so Dodo Payments does not return the transaction fees on the original payment when you refund it. To issue a refund that your balance can’t cover:

1. Check your balance under Payouts → Balances.
2. Wait until new payments raise your balance, and then initiate the refund. Refunds must be initiated within the refund window, so don’t wait past it.
3. If the refund can’t wait, email support@dodopayments.com from your registered email address with the payment ID.

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Refund Status

Track the progress of your refund with these statuses: Dodo Payments sends the refund.succeeded or refund.failed webhook when a refund reaches a final status. See Refund Webhooks.

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Refunds Page

The Refunds tab on the Transactions page lists every refund, with its amount, status, refund ID, associated payment, refund type, date, and reason:

• To open the Payment Details Page for a refund’s payment, click its ID in the Associated Payment column.
• Refunds are exported from Settings → Reports. The Adjustments Report covers refunds and disputes together, as CSV or XLSX.

The Refunds page looks like this: To read refunds from your backend, use List Refunds and Get Refund Detail.

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Refund Receipt

When a refund succeeds, Dodo Payments emails the customer. The email shows the refund amount, status, Refund ID, original payment amount, and refund date, and links to the Refund Receipt. The Refund Successful email is on by default; you can turn it off under Customer Emails. To fetch the receipt from your backend, use Get Refund Receipt. Refund Receipt Template: The refund receipt includes:

• Refund ID: The unique identifier for the refund, with the ID of the refunded payment.
• Refund type: Whether the refund is full or partial.
• Refund amount: The amount refunded to the customer, with its taxable amount and tax amount.
• Refund date: The date the refund was processed.
• Refund method: The payment method the refund was sent to.
• Refund reason: The reason for the refund.