Is this payment dispute worth fighting?

Find out in 60 seconds. FREE calculator for Shopify, Stripe and PayPal merchants.

Fight or Flight Calculator - enter 5 inputs, get a clear recommendation

Most merchants either fight every dispute automatically or accept every one without thinking. Both are expensive mistakes.

This calculator factors in your transaction amount, margin, dispute fees, time cost, and evidence strength – and gives you a clear recommendation: Fight, Accept, or improve your evidence first.

It takes 60 seconds. It works for Stripe, Shopify Payments, and PayPal. Enter your email below and we will send it right over.

What you get

One Excel file. Two sheets.

  1. Fight or Flight Calculator – enter 5 inputs, get a clear recommendation.
  2. How to Use guide – explains every input and how the recommendation is calculated.

How it works

  1. Enter your transaction amount, margin, dispute fee, time cost, and evidence strength.
  2. The calculator computes your expected value of fighting versus accepting.
  3. You get one of three outputs: Fight, Accept, or improve your evidence first and re-run.

What the outputs mean

Fight Your expected value is positive after fees and time cost. Your evidence is strong enough to make fighting worthwhile. Proceed to assembly.
Accept The math is against you. After fees and time cost, the expected return is negative. Accept – and use what failed to prevent the next one.
Borderline The math is close. Spend 15 minutes strengthening your weakest evidence field – usually IP address or delivery confirmation – then re-run. If still borderline, default to Accept.

Educational tool only. Win probabilities are estimates based on typical CE 3.0 dispute outcomes – not guarantees. Actual outcomes depend on your processor, reason code, evidence quality, and submission timing.

The calculator is the first tool in the Chargeback Defender kit. If you want the full evidence workflow – checklists, templates, tracker, and prevention audit – it is at guideworks.co/chargeback-defender.

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