As a Storefront reseller, you can issue full or partial refunds to your customers directly from Storefront Manager — no need to contact OpenSRS Support. Refunds are processed through Stripe and returned to the customer's original payment method.
This article covers refund eligibility, what refunds cost you as the reseller, how to issue them, and what happens to the domain or service when a refund is processed.
Refund eligibility and time limits
| Refund type | Window |
|---|---|
| Full refund | Within 5 days of order creation |
| Full or partial refund | Within 60 days of order creation |
| After 60 days | Refunds are not available |
The 5-day threshold is significant for domain registrations specifically — see the section on domain revocation below for why it matters.
What refunds cost you
Before issuing a refund, it's important to understand how the money flows:
- Your customer always receives the full refunded amount back to their payment method.
- You (the reseller) do not receive the $0.75 Storefront order fee back, regardless of the refund type.
- Stripe processing fees from the original transaction are not returned by Stripe when a refund is issued — this is Stripe's standard policy.
- A $1 revoke fee is charged per refund when a domain is also deprovisioned (revoked). See below.
- Domain renewals and Contact Privacy can be refunded to your customer, but you will not recover the underlying domain cost from Tucows, as registry costs for renewals cannot be recouped.
What happens to the domain or service
Refunding a payment and deprovisioning the service are two separate decisions. When you issue a refund, Storefront will ask whether you also want to remove the domain or service from the customer's account.
Domain registrations within 5 days
If the domain was registered within the last 5 days, Storefront can revoke it at the registry. When a domain is successfully revoked, Tucows recovers the domain cost and passes that back to you. A $1 revoke fee applies.
Domain registrations after 5 days
After 5 days, domains cannot be revoked at most registries — the registration cost is non-recoverable. You can still issue a customer refund, but you will absorb the domain cost. The domain will be removed from the customer's account if you choose to deprovision it, auto-renew will be turned off, and the domain will expire at its natural renewal date.
If for any reason a domain cannot be immediately deleted, Storefront will set it to auto-renew off and it will be removed after one year. In the meantime it remains in your reseller account.
Domain renewals
Renewed domains cannot be revoked — registries do not issue refunds for renewals. You can still choose to refund the renewal charge to your customer, but you will not recover the renewal cost.
Contact Privacy
Contact Privacy charges are not refundable to you as the reseller.
Subscriptions
Refunding a subscription order works the same way as any other order — the difference is what deprovisioning means for a subscription.
If you choose to deprovision, the subscription is immediately suspended and canceled, and shows as Expired in Storefront Manager. The customer loses access right away.
If you don't deprovision, the subscription stays Active and continues billing on its normal schedule — only the payment is refunded.
See Managing Customer Subscriptions in Storefront for more on subscription statuses.
Issuing a full refund
- Log in to Storefront Manager.
- Navigate to Orders and find the order you want to refund, or open it directly from the customer's order history.
- Click the order ID to open the order details.
- Click Issue Refund. This button is hidden if the order has already been fully refunded.
- The full refund amount is pre-selected by default.
- Choose whether to also remove (deprovision) the domain or service from the customer's account.
- Click Refund to confirm.
Issuing a partial refund
- Follow steps 1–4 above to open the Issue Refund panel.
- Select Partial refund to see an itemized breakdown of eligible items in the order.
- Select the specific items you want to refund.
- Choose whether to deprovision the selected items.
- Click Refund to confirm.
Partial refunds are useful when an order contains multiple items and the customer only needs a refund on some of them — for example, a domain registration but not Contact Privacy, or one domain from a multi-domain order.
After the refund
- Refunds typically take 5–10 business days to appear on the customer's card statement, depending on their bank. Storefront issues the refund as soon as you process it; this is Stripe's standard policy.
- The order status in Storefront Manager updates to Refunded or Partially Refunded.
- If you chose to deprovision, the domain or service is removed from the customer's account immediately — they will no longer see it in their portal.
- An event is recorded in the order history.
Stripe refund errors
Occasionally a refund attempt will fail due to an issue with the customer's payment method. Stripe returns an error code in these cases:
| Error | Meaning |
|---|---|
lost_or_stolen_card | The card was reported lost or stolen and the bank is blocking the refund. |
expired_or_canceled_card | The card has expired or been cancelled since the original charge. |
charge_for_pending_refund_disputed | The original charge has been disputed; the refund is blocked pending resolution. |
insufficient_funds / declined | The Stripe account has insufficient funds to process the refund. |
merchant_request | The refund was blocked due to a merchant-level request or restriction. |
unknown | An unspecified error occurred. Retry the refund, or contact Stripe support if it persists. |
If a refund fails due to a card issue, you may need to arrange an alternative method to return funds to your customer (such as a bank transfer or store credit). Storefront cannot override Stripe card-level rejections.
Troubleshooting
The Issue Refund button is not visible
The button is hidden when an order has already been fully refunded, or when the 60-day refund window has passed. Check the order date — if it's more than 60 days old, refunds are no longer available through Storefront.
I want to refund a customer but not delete the domain
You can issue a refund without deprovisioning. When prompted, simply leave the deprovision option unchecked. The customer keeps the domain in their account and remains responsible for future renewals. Note that if the domain is still within the 5-day window, the revoke fee will not apply since no revocation is taking place.
I refunded a subscription order but the customer still has access.
That's expected if you didn't choose to deprovision during the refund. Open the subscription from Storefront Manager and suspend it manually if you want to cut off access now, or reopen the refund flow if you meant to select deprovision.
The refund was more than 5 days ago — will I get my money back?
For domain registrations older than 5 days, the registry cost is not recoverable. You will be refunding the customer from your own Stripe balance. Domain renewal refunds are also non-recoverable regardless of timing. If you are concerned about the financial impact of a particular refund, contact OpenSRS Support before proceeding.
The customer hasn't seen the refund on their card yet
Refunds take 5–10 business days to post depending on the customer's bank. If it has been longer than 10 business days, ask the customer to contact their bank directly, or check the refund status in your Stripe dashboard.
Related articles
- Viewing Orders
- Collecting Taxes in Storefront
- Pushing Domains Between Customer Accounts
- Managing Customer Subscriptions in Storefront
Related articles
- Viewing and Managing Orders in Storefront
- Setting Up Stripe on Your Storefront
- Adding Funds to Your OpenSRS Account
Questions? Contact OpenSRS Support.
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