Using Signifyd
Signifyd is a fraud prevention and chargeback protection partner that reviews orders for risk, provides financial guarantees on approved orders, and helps you manage chargeback disputes, false declines, and abuse patterns such as return abuse and policy abuse.
This guide covers how to set up Signifyd for your Recharge subscriptions on Shopify, what to monitor after go-live, and how to prepare evidence for subscription chargeback disputes.
- Shopify Checkout Integration
- Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration
Before you start
- You must have an active Recharge subscription on a Shopify store.
- You will need merchant admin access to both Recharge and Signifyd.
How it works
Signifyd connects to your store through the Shopify Integration, which means it already receives your Recharge orders without any additional configuration in Recharge. When a customer checks out, Shopify creates the order. When a subscription renews, Recharge generates the recurring order in Shopify. In both cases, Signifyd receives the order from Shopify, reviews it, and returns a decision based on the rules and product configuration you've set up.
Recharge automatically applies order tags that Signifyd uses to identify which orders are recurring renewals, so you can treat first-time and recurring orders differently in your fraud rules. For each order, Signifyd returns one of the following:
- Approve
- Decline
- Hold for review
If you have a guarantee product, orders that Signifyd approves are covered by Signifyd's chargeback guarantee within the terms of your contract. Recharge manages your subscription, billing cadence, customer portal, and the creation of recurring orders in Shopify. Recharge does not make fraud decisions or represent chargebacks on your behalf as those steps are handled by Shopify, your payment processor, and Signifyd.
Step 1 – Install Signifyd on Shopify
Install Signifyd from the Shopify App Store and complete the Signifyd onboarding flow. Signifyd will guide you through connecting your store, configuring your products, and setting your initial decision rules.
Step 2 – Confirm Recharge order tags are flowing to Shopify
Recharge automatically tags subscription orders in Shopify. Verifying that these tags are present confirms that Signifyd can identify recurring orders and apply the right rules to them.
Step 3 – Configure your Signifyd rules for subscriptions
In Signifyd, decide how you want to handle initial subscription checkouts and recurring renewals.
A common starting point is to screen all initial subscription checkouts with your standard fraud rules and let Signifyd's customer history and network intelligence carry the weight on recurring orders. Signifyd's team can help tune this for your business.
Step 4 – Define your fulfillment workflow
Decide whether orders should wait for a Signifyd decision before fulfilling, or move forward immediately and rely on Signifyd's guarantee if a chargeback occurs later.
Most merchants wait for the Signifyd decision on first orders and let approved recurring orders flow through.
Step 5 – Review chargeback representment
If you use Signifyd's chargeback protection product, Signifyd handles the chargeback representation process for covered orders.
Signifyd offers two chargeback coverage products:
- Guarantee Fraud Protection (GFP): Covers fraud-related chargebacks on approved orders
- Complete Chargeback Protection (CCP): Extends coverage to a broader set of chargeback reason codes including non-fraud disputes. C
Coverage and representment handling depend on which product you have purchased. Confirm with Signifyd which reason codes are covered under your contract.
Chargebacks on subscription orders
Chargebacks are decided by the customer's issuing bank. You submit evidence, the bank reviews it, and the bank makes the final decision. Shopify, Recharge, and Signifyd do not decide chargeback outcomes.
Subscription businesses see chargeback categories that one-time merchants rarely encounter. Preparing evidence before a dispute arrives is the most important thing you can do. Common chargeback reasons for subscription merchants include:
- Fraudulent transaction: the cardholder did not authorize the purchase.
- Subscription canceled: the cardholder claims they were billed after cancellation.
- Product not received: the cardholder claims the order was not delivered.
- Credit not processed: the cardholder claims a refund was promised but not issued.
- Duplicate charge: the cardholder claims they were billed twice.
- Product unacceptable: the cardholder claims the product was not as described.
- General billing dispute: any other billing-related complaint.
Evidence to prepare
Strong subscription chargeback evidence includes the following:
- Subscription agreement and terms accepted at checkout.
- Billing cadence and renewal schedule communicated to the customer.
- Renewal reminder emails sent before each charge.
- Cancellation policy and the customer's cancellation history in Recharge.
- Order and shipping confirmation emails.
- Delivery confirmation from the carrier.
- Customer support conversations.
- Prior order history showing a pattern of successful deliveries.
- Refund history.
- AVS, CVV, IP, and device signals captured at checkout.
Monitoring and ongoing operations
After Signifyd is live, review these metrics regularly to catch fraud trends, false declines, and rule drift before they affect your business:
- Approval rate on first orders and recurring orders.
- Decline rate and any false-decline complaints from your CX team.
- Chargeback rate by reason code.
- Return abuse and refund patterns.
- Manual review queue volume and resolution time.
- Impact of rule changes on approval and fraud rates.
Review your Signifyd rules and thresholds at least quarterly, or any time you launch a new product line, change pricing, or expand into a new region.
Considerations
Consider the following before setting up Signifyd with Recharge.
| Consideration | Note |
|---|---|
| Recurring order sequence | Signifyd can identify that an order is a Recharge recurring order, but the position of that order in the subscription sequence (for example, the third renewal) is not available by default. |
| Return and refund abuse coverage | Signifyd's return and refund abuse capabilities are evolving. Confirm current product scope directly with Signifyd if this is a priority for your business. |
| Signifyd vs. Shopify native fraud tools | Shopify's built-in fraud analysis still runs alongside Signifyd. Signifyd adds financial guarantees, chargeback representment, coverage across payment gateways beyond Shopify Payments, and abuse management. Both can be active at the same time. |
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a custom Recharge integration to use Signifyd?
No. Signifyd reviews your orders through its Shopify integration. Recharge subscription orders are created in Shopify and reach Signifyd through that path automatically.
Does Signifyd screen recurring subscription orders?
Yes. Recurring orders generated by Recharge are reviewed by Signifyd the same way other Shopify orders are.
Can Signifyd screen only certain orders in a subscription sequence?
Signifyd can distinguish first-time orders from recurring orders using Recharge order tags. Identifying a specific position in the subscription sequence. For example, the third renewal is not available by default.
What happens if Signifyd declines a recurring order?
The order doesn't fulfill. You can review the decision in Signifyd, override it if appropriate, and decide how to handle the customer and the subscription. A common approach is to pause the subscription and reach out to the customer to update their payment method.
Does Signifyd replace Shopify's built-in fraud tools?
No. Signifyd complements them. Shopify's native fraud analysis still runs. Signifyd adds guarantees, representment, broader coverage across payment gateways, and abuse management on top of Shopify's native signals.
Does Signifyd work if I use a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments?
Yes. Signifyd reviews orders regardless of the underlying payment gateway. This is one of the main reasons merchants on Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, or other gateways add Signifyd alongside Shopify.
Support
Contact Signifyd support for questions about decisions, rules, guarantees, and chargeback representment. Contact Recharge support for questions about subscription orders, order tags, and Recharge configuration.
