What are the refund and chargeback figures?
| Figure | Value | Source | Credibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chargeback ratio, coaching vertical | About 1% | GivePayments (payments processor marketing to coaches) | Low to moderate. Vendor figure, no method or sample given |
| Coaching's position among verticals | One of the highest chargeback ratios in payments | GivePayments | Low. Vendor characterisation, no comparison table |
| Refund requests, traditional online courses | 18 to 28% of sales | CommuniPass (community platform vendor), 2026 | Low to moderate. Vendor data, sample not stated |
| Refund rate, platform-wide average, Q1 2026 | 21% | CommuniPass | Low to moderate. Vendor data |
| Refund rate, premium course tier ($497 to $1,997) | About 28% | CommuniPass | Low to moderate. Vendor data |
| Refund rate, paid challenges, most coaching categories | Under 4% | CommuniPass | Low to moderate. Vendor data, and the vendor sells challenge tooling |
Both sources are vendors with a product to sell: a processor that wants coaching merchants, and a platform that wants course sellers to run challenges instead. The figures are the best public numbers available, and they should be read with that in mind. We have found no independent, coaching-wide refund or chargeback benchmark.
Why are coaching refunds so high?
Because the buyer pays for a result before any of the work has happened, and the gap between the sales call and the first visible progress is where doubt lives. The CommuniPass split is telling: a $497 to $1,997 course, bought on a promise and consumed alone, refunds at 28%. A paid challenge, where the buyer is doing something with other people from day one, refunds under 4%. The price is not the driver. Early participation is.
“nothing is worse than not filling a group and having to give back money.”
Chargebacks are the refund you did not handle. A client who asks for money back and is met with silence, a delay or an argument goes to the card issuer instead, and a coaching merchant sitting at a 1% dispute ratio has very little room before processors start asking questions.
What should you do with these numbers?
- Track refund rate and chargeback ratio by start cohort and by reason, monthly. If you cannot state last quarter's figure, that is the first fix.
- Compare against the bands above with the format in mind: a high-touch program should sit well under the 18 to 28% course range; anything near 1% in chargebacks is a warning.
- Front-load participation. The first week should contain a call, a task and a reply from a human. This is the challenge effect applied to a program.
- Honour your written refund terms, every time, quickly. The FTC's 2025 and 2026 actions against online business programs turned on earnings claims and refund handling, and a refund is always cheaper than a dispute.
- Flag at-risk clients before they ask. A refund request is rarely the first signal; it is usually the third or fourth, after missed calls and unanswered messages.
How does Scale With Fulfillment handle refunds and at-risk clients?
Early. Our Results Tracking system scores every client on attendance, progress and engagement, and fires a drop-off flag when the score falls, which is usually weeks before a refund request. A client success manager reaches out with a specific next step. If a client still wants out, we honour the client's refund terms and, where it fits, offer a downsell before the refund. Refund and chargeback rates are reported by cohort in the weekly review. We do not publish our own refund figures because we do not yet have a sample large enough to be honest about.
