We Refunded Payments at Four Gateways to See Who Handles It

Refunds are the most common merchant-side operational problem in crypto acceptance. We tested how four providers handle them. For the tests below we used crypto acquiring for businesses as the reference, because it publishes the figures we were measuring against.

Who does the sending

Two providers refund from their own balance on your instruction. You click refund, they send, the fee comes out of your settlement.

One requires you to hold a crypto balance with them and refunds from it, which means maintaining a float.

One does not handle refunds at all. You send crypto yourself from your own wallet, which means acquiring crypto for the purpose and doing the accounting.

That last case surprised us and it is a real operational commitment nobody mentions during a sales conversation.

The amount question

Each provider offered different options.

Original crypto amount: available at three.

Original fiat value at today’s rate: available at all four, and the default at three.

Fiat by bank transfer: available at one, which is the cleanest option where you can use it.

Partial refunds

All four supported them. Two applied a minimum below which a refund could not be issued, set at a level covering the network fee. The institutional version we tested through a fintech payment gateway, with its additional reporting.

For small refunds this is sensible. It also means you need a policy for amounts below the minimum: credit, alternative method, or decline. Decide before it happens.

The destination

All four defaulted to refunding to the origin address, correctly.

Two allowed a different destination with an additional confirmation step. Two did not allow it at all.

Not allowing it is the safer default. A request to refund elsewhere is the mechanism for two distinct frauds, and every genuine case can be handled as a verified exception rather than as a routine option.

What we would decide before launch

Which amount basis, published in the terms. What happens below the minimum. And a firm rule that refunds go to origin, with any exception requiring a second approver.

Three decisions, made once, and they convert every refund from a judgement call into a process.

The provider question to ask

Do you handle refunds, and from whose balance.

If the answer is that you send crypto yourself, that is a treasury requirement that should factor into the comparison, and it did not appear in any of the pricing material we read. Test anything you are offered against an exchange that publishes its full terms before committing to it.