Stripe Radar

Stripe Radar is Stripe's fraud screening product. It scores each payment attempt in real time with machine learning models trained on payments across the Stripe network, then allows it, blocks it, or sends it for review. There's nothing to install. Businesses on Stripe's standard payments pricing get the entry plan, Radar Lite, on their card payments at no extra charge.

How Stripe Radar evaluates a payment

Radar screens every payment attempt, including ones that succeed, decline, get blocked, or go to review. It covers cards, wallets backed by a card, ACH Direct Debit, and SEPA Direct Debit.

Radar gives each payment several scores between 0 and 99, where 99 is the highest likelihood. The fraudulent dispute score predicts a fraud chargeback. The early fraud warning score predicts an early fraud warning. The fraudulent payment score covers card fraud that never turns into a dispute. The Dashboard combines them into one risk level of Normal, Elevated, or Highest. On the Charge object, the result sits under outcome, with outcome.risk_level, outcome.type such as authorized, blocked, or manual_review, and on some plans outcome.risk_score.

You decide how much Radar blocks with a risk setting. The three options are maximize protection, balance risk and revenue, and maximize revenue. Rules then let you allow, block, send to review, or request 3D Secure.

Radar plans compared

Stripe's documentation lists four Radar plans.

• Radar Lite covers card payments with AI fraud prevention, card testing prevention, and fraud alerts. It's included at no extra charge for businesses on standard payments pricing.
• Radar Standard adds fraud prevention for all supported payment methods, default rules, default allow and block lists, risk levels, and fraud analytics. Stripe says businesses block 42% more fraud on average on Standard than on Lite.
• Radar Plus adds risk scores, custom rules with backtesting, manual review queues, risk preferences, adaptive 3D Secure, and advanced fraud analytics.
• Radar Pro adds dynamic risk thresholds and protection against customer abuse, such as free trial abuse, bot abuse, and multi-accounting.

Radar for Fraud Teams

Radar for Fraud Teams was the paid Radar tier Stripe announced with Radar 2.0 in April 2018. It added custom rules, manual reviews, custom risk thresholds, block and allow lists, and fraud analytics on top of the free Radar. Stripe's current plan list doesn't use the name. Those tools are now spread across the Standard, Plus, and Pro plans above, and Stripe doesn't say which plan replaces it.

If you used Radar for Fraud Teams, list the tools you rely on and match them against the plan list. Custom rules and manual reviews, for example, are in Radar Plus. For pricing, use the current plan prices below.

Stripe Radar pricing

Radar Lite has no extra fee on standard payments pricing. Radar Standard, Plus, and Pro charge a fee for each transaction Radar screens. That includes one-off payments, recurring payments, and invoice payments, and you're only charged when Radar actually screens one. Stripe's Radar pricing page lists monthly prices for businesses in USD, starting at $10 a month for Standard, $14 for Plus, and $20 for Pro, with a pay-as-you-go option for each. Platforms and marketplaces pay more. Enterprises can get custom pricing.

The per-transaction rate depends on your plan, country, and pricing, so check that page for your account before you budget.

Subscriptions follow their own rule. For Stripe Billing subscriptions, Radar always screens and charges for the first payment and the first payment after the payment method changes. In the Dashboard you choose how many renewals it screens after that, and skipped renewals cost nothing. On a free trial, the first screened payment is the first real charge.

On Connect, Stripe charges Radar account fees to the platform. Transaction fees use the rate of the account that collected the payment.

Where Radar falls short

Radar is the first defense against fraudulent chargebacks, early fraud warnings that count toward card network monitoring programs, and card testing attacks. It has limits.

• You're still liable. Stripe says you're responsible for the payments you accept, including ones later disputed as fraud. A Normal risk level lowers the odds of fraud and doesn't remove them.
• False positives cost sales. A blocked real customer is a lost sale that never shows up in your fraud numbers.
• Friendly fraud looks normal. When the real cardholder disputes a purchase they made, the payment usually looked fine at checkout.

Working with Radar day to day

1. Check blocked payments when a customer complains. If Radar blocked a real buyer, open the payment and add it to the allow list. That doesn't retry the payment. It stops Radar from blocking future attempts with that card or email.
2. Mark fraud as fraud. When you refund a payment you believe was fraudulent, choose Fraudulent as the reason. Stripe uses that signal, and on plans with default block lists it adds the email and card fingerprint to them.
3. Own the review queue. On plans with manual reviews, give one person the job of clearing it every day. review.opened and review.closed events let engineering send reviews wherever the team works.
4. Send more data. Radar scores better when you pass the customer's email, name, billing address, and IP address.
5. Adjust after an attack. After a fraud wave, move your risk setting toward protection or, on plans with custom rules, add a velocity rule for the pattern you saw.

Radar and ChargeBell

ChargeBell doesn't post Radar reviews or early fraud warnings, and its read-only Stripe connection can't change Radar settings. It shows what happens around Radar's decisions. A burst of failed payment alerts with generic declines and odd customer emails is often the first sign of a card testing attack. When fraud gets past Radar and a cardholder disputes the charge, the dispute created alert posts the amount, reason, and customer to Slack as a critical alert that ignores quiet hours. Send both to a channel like #billing or #disputes where someone with Radar access will see them.