Fraud & payments risk · comparison
Ravelin vs FeeGuard: fraud decisioning vs the losses nobody steals
A dispute programme and a leak detector answer different questions. Ravelin works the cases that reach a card network; the money this page is about never gets that far, because it leaves through ordinary refunds where no dispute exists. Here is the side-by-side, including where Ravelin is the better tool.
What Ravelin does
a Worldpay-owned fraud and payments-risk platform serving large merchants and marketplaces with ML-driven decisioning. Source: https://www.ravelin.com.
That is real capability in its lane — and the lanes below show precisely where it ends.
Everything said here about Ravelin is summarised from its own public materials at the link above, never from private knowledge of how it works inside. Products change; if any line has gone out of date, tell us at feeguard@teamveristria.com and we will correct the page rather than argue about it.
Side by side: FeeGuard vs Ravelin
Eight capabilities a Connect platform needs. No empty cells — every row states what each product actually does.
| Capability | FeeGuard | Ravelin |
|---|---|---|
| Unreversed-transfer detection | Yes — computed on every `charge.refunded` event: proportional expectation, rounding tolerance, ratio clamping | No — decisioning screens transactions; defaults corrupt ledgers silently afterward. |
| Application-fee leak detection | Yes — application fees tested against reversals via Net Platform Margin; zero- and three-decimal currencies handled | No — fee layer untouched. |
| Dispute-loss clawback support | Yes — recoverable figure computed on `dispute.closed` (transfer remainder, fee excluded); early warning on `created`; gated automation | Partial — dispute workflows partial at best. |
| Cross-border FX monitoring | Yes — realised rates measured against same-day currency-pair baselines; directional loss flagging beyond 0.8% | No — fX absent. |
| Runs on your live Stripe Connect account today | Yes — read-only restricted key, roughly ten minutes to first findings, revocable anytime | Depends on deployment |
| Performs recovery actions | One-click manual reversals (free tier); risk-gated automation with idempotency keys on Monitor Pro | Varies by product |
| Evidence & audit trail | Append-only trail on every action; finding-level evidence ids exportable as CSV | Varies by product |
| Pricing model | Detection and the 90-day lookback free · monitoring is a subscription from $49/mo · success fee only when eligible funds are recovered | See vendor site |
Where Ravelin genuinely wins
- — Enterprise fraud ML with marketplace-scale proof points.
- — Deep payments-risk modelling culture.
Why platforms choose FeeGuard over Ravelin
- The event stream is different. Detection starts at
charge.refunded, notcharge.dispute.created— and most Connect leakage never becomes a dispute at all. - All four vectors, natively. Unreversed transfers, kept fees, uncovered dispute losses and FX drag are separate detectors with separate arithmetic, not one heuristic wearing four labels.
- Free before you pay anyone. Detection and the 90-day lookback cost nothing — measure your stranded dollars before committing to any vendor, including us.
- Ten-minute, read-only setup. One restricted key you create and revoke; no migration, no seller re-onboarding, no payment-path changes.
- Recovery is billed on results. The success fee applies only to dollars actually recovered and confirmed in Stripe — if nothing recovers, nothing bills.
- Evidence-grade trail. Append-only logs with finding-level arithmetic — ready for controllers, auditors and diligence teams.
Bottom line
After fraud screening passes, ordinary refunds begin — and so does the leak Ravelin was never built to see. If your problem lives in fraud & payments risk, Ravelin deserves its reputation. If your problem is a platform balance lower than your ledger predicts — refunds succeeding while transfers never come home — that problem has exactly one purpose-built answer, and you are reading it. Run the free audit; the number settles the debate faster than any comparison page can.
Common questions
Does Ravelin monitor transfer hygiene?
No — decisioning at transaction time is the product; ledger absences require continuous reconciliation-style checks.
Is FeeGuard a better choice than Ravelin?
For fraud & payments risk, Ravelin is the specialist and we say so plainly. For detecting and recovering silent Stripe Connect losses — the four vectors above — FeeGuard is purpose-built and Ravelin does not perform that function. Most platforms comparing the two are feeling the second problem.
Can we run Ravelin and FeeGuard together?
Yes, commonly. They operate on different objects and different events; neither conflicts with the other’s workflow.
What does switching cost us?
Nothing upfront: read-only key, ten-minute setup, free detection. Recovery carries a success fee only on confirmed dollars — so trying FeeGuard risks no budget at all.