Refund
Returning money to a customer, in full or in part, which in a marketplace also means undoing the provider's earnings and the platform's commission.
Updated October 2026 · with examples from our own builds
What does refund mean in practice?
A refund is more than a button in the gateway dashboard. The customer's money goes back, but the system must also reverse what the sale created: the provider's earnings, the platform's commission, any access granted and any invoice issued.
Refunds test whether the money design holds. If the provider has already been paid out, a refund creates a debt; if it is recorded twice, the books are wrong. Holding provider earnings for a settlement period is one common answer.
Policy is product copy as well. Customers and support staff need to know who can refund, how much and how long it takes.
Refund at a glance
- Must reverse
- Provider earnings, commission, access and invoices
- Common safeguard
- Holding provider earnings until a settlement date
- Record once
- Under the provider's refund ID
Where has refund come up in our builds?
Downgrades and cancelled classes can mean a refund. Trainer credits stay pending until their settlement date, so a refund inside that window reverses cleanly, and a refund already recorded under its Stripe refund ID is never booked twice.
The admin console handles disputes with full or partial refunds, and a refunded subscription drops the user to the free plan at once with a reversal posted to the ledger.
Account deletion refuses to run while a paid subscription has no refund decision recorded, because once the key is destroyed nobody can establish what the user had or was owed.
Common questions about refund
What happens to a provider's earnings when a customer is refunded?
They should be reversed in the ledger. If the money is still pending, the reversal is clean; if it has already been paid out, the provider owes it back, which is why many platforms hold earnings until a settlement date.
Who should be allowed to issue refunds?
A small set of staff roles, with partial refunds allowed, an audit-log entry for each and, for large amounts, a second approval.
Related terms
Sources
Planning a product and not sure where refund fits? Ask us, or browse all 116 terms in the glossary.