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No matter what refund policy you offer to customers, Polar makes it easy to issue both full and partial refunds, so you can deliver the customer experience and refund policy you want.
Polar can issue refunds on your behalfPolar reserves the right to issue refunds within 60 days of purchase, at its own discretion, in order to prevent chargebacks. We integrate with credit card networks to receive early chargeback signals before a dispute is officially filed, and for lower-value transactions we’ll automatically refund the order — and cancel any related subscription — on your behalf to head off the chargeback.This applies even if you have a “no refunds” policy: keeping chargebacks low protects your account, so Polar may still refund proactively. See Chargeback Management for the wider context.

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What’s refundable

The maximum refundable amount on an order is the net amount (excluding tax) minus anything that’s already been refunded, with any customer balance applied to the order taken into account. The corresponding tax is refunded automatically alongside it — fully on a full refund, prorated on a partial one.
Payment fees are not refundedCredit card networks and payment processors charge us for the underlying transaction regardless of whether it’s later refunded (industry standard). We therefore can’t return our fees, since the cost remains.Example: an order of 30costs 30 costs ~1.60 in fees to Polar. You can still refund the customer 30,butthe 30, but the ~1.60 fee stays deducted from your balance.

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Issuing a refund

  1. Go to the order details page for the specific order you want to refund.
  2. Scroll down to the “Refunds” section.
  3. Click “Refund order”.

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Amount

Specify the net amount to refund — i.e. the amount excluding tax. It defaults to the maximum refundable amount, but you can lower it to issue a partial refund. Polar automatically calculates the corresponding tax to refund based on the order’s tax rate. For partial refunds, tax is prorated against the refunded portion; for a full refund, the entire remaining tax is returned.

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Reason

Select the reason for the refund — helpful for future reference.

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Revoking benefits

One-time purchases. You can revoke the customer’s access to product benefits — e.g. file downloads, license keys, or Discord/GitHub invites. This is selected by default, since we default to a full refund, but it can be disabled. Subscriptions. You can’t revoke access by refunding an order tied to a subscription — refunding the order returns the money but does not end the relationship. To end access, cancel the subscription instead. Polar revokes the associated benefits automatically once the subscription itself is revoked.