Native fraud defence · comparison
Stripe Radar vs FeeGuard: built-in fraud defence vs built-out leak detection
First-party Stripe tooling has perfect fidelity to your data and no opinion about it. Stripe Radar will answer any question you write the query for. This page is about the question nobody schedules: did every refund reverse its transfer?
What Stripe Radar does
Stripe’s native fraud/risk product with rules and ML scoring on payments. Source: https://stripe.com.
That is real capability in its lane — and the lanes below show precisely where it ends.
Everything said here about Stripe Radar 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 Products change; if any line has gone out of date, tell us at feeguard@teamveristria.com and we will correct the page rather than argue about it.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 Stripe Radar
Eight capabilities a Connect platform needs. No empty cells — every row states what each product actually does.
| Capability | FeeGuard | Stripe Radar |
|---|---|---|
| Unreversed-transfer detection | Yes — computed on every `charge.refunded` event: proportional expectation, rounding tolerance, ratio clamping | No — fraud-screening scope. |
| Application-fee leak detection | Yes — application fees tested against reversals via Net Platform Margin; zero- and three-decimal currencies handled | No — fees untouched. |
| Dispute-loss clawback support | Yes — recoverable figure computed on `dispute.closed` (transfer remainder, fee excluded); early warning on `created`; gated automation | Partial — dispute-prevention features exist; recovery does not. |
| Cross-border FX monitoring | Yes — realised rates measured against same-day currency-pair baselines; directional loss flagging beyond 0.8% | No — fX untouched. |
| Runs on your live Stripe Connect account today | Yes — read-only restricted key, roughly ten minutes to first findings, revocable anytime | Yes — native |
| Performs recovery actions | One-click manual reversals (free tier); risk-gated automation with idempotency keys on Monitor Pro | Prevention-side |
| Evidence & audit trail | Append-only trail on every action; finding-level evidence ids exportable as CSV | Stripe-native |
| Pricing model | Detection and the 90-day lookback free · monitoring is a subscription from $49/mo · success fee only when eligible funds are recovered | Per Stripe’s tiers |
Where Stripe Radar genuinely wins
- — Zero-integration friction.
- — Network-wide signals attributed generally and respectfully.
Why platforms choose FeeGuard over Stripe Radar
- A scheduled opinion, not an ad-hoc query. The check runs on every relevant event instead of whenever somebody remembers to run it.
- 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
The best native tooling cannot flag what happens after approval — refunds are valid instructions, remember. If your problem lives in native fraud defence, Stripe Radar 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
Radar for Connect leakage?
No — Radar screens transactions; post-refund transfer hygiene is a different discipline entirely.
Is FeeGuard a better choice than Stripe Radar?
For native fraud defence, Stripe Radar 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 Stripe Radar does not perform that function. Most platforms comparing the two are feeling the second problem.
Can we run Stripe Radar 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.