Everyone talks about payment processor fees but the real pain comes from everything else.
Refund requests taking forever to process, chargeback disputes that drain your time, support teams that don’t understand your business model.
What operational nightmare have you dealt with that nobody warns you about?
Reconciliation is my biggest headache. Your processor shows one set of numbers, your analytics shows another - then you’re stuck digging through data for hours trying to figure out what went wrong.
Had this happen with a subscription app. Stripe showed successful payments, but our webhook was missing about 3% of them. Users got charged but couldn’t access their accounts. Took us weeks to catch it.
Chargebacks suck, but you can actually fight them and win. This video helped me turn around way more disputes:
The timeline stuff alone saved me from missing deadlines. Most people just eat the chargeback, but if you document everything properly, you’ve got a real shot at winning.
Chargeback protection programs often fail. They approve clear friendly fraud cases while you pay their fees and lose sales. Their systems can’t distinguish real fraud from buyer’s remorse. It’s usually smarter to manage disputes on your own.
Cash flow issues from frozen funds are tough.