What is Sentinel?
Sentinel is a Stripe marketplace app that scores refund requests against a cross-merchant abuse network before you approve them. When a serial refunder hits one merchant, every Sentinel merchant can see the pattern. You see the score and the network evidence in your Stripe Dashboard when you open a charge.
How much does it cost?
$49 per month flat. Unlimited refund scoring. $39/month with the Reflex bundle. First 14 days are free with no card required. Cancel anytime.
How is the refund risk score computed?
Sentinel scores on two network-native signals, clamped 0-100: (1) cross-merchant abuse network, hashed device, IP, card, and email signals contributed by every Sentinel merchant, and (2) per-card refund history, refund counts on the card across Sentinel merchants in the last 30 days. If you also run Evidence Vault, Sentinel uses your vault's 3DS/AVS/CVC data from purchase as additional signal. Missing signals are skipped, no penalty, no false positives.
When does Sentinel intercept a refund?
Sentinel is a decision-support tool, not an interceptor. You see the score when you open the charge in Stripe, before you click Refund. If you refund via the Stripe API without opening the Dashboard, Sentinel still records the outcome but won't block the refund, it wasn't designed for that.
Will the abuse network work on day one?
Partially. On day one you see network evidence for any card that another Sentinel merchant has already flagged, those hits fire immediately. For a brand-new card that no Sentinel merchant has seen, there's nothing yet. The network strengthens with every install. Expect meaningful cross-merchant signal density once the network reaches ~50 merchants. Sentinel is transparent about this: the Stripe app shows "No Sentinel network history on this card" when there's no data, not a fake zero score.
What data do you store?
We store the refund risk score, the risk factors that fired, your approve/block decision, and hashed signal values (device, IP, card fingerprint, email). Signals are salted-hashed; we never store raw card numbers, customer names, email addresses, or IP addresses.
Does Sentinel work with Reflex or Evidence Vault?
Yes. If you run Evidence Vault, Sentinel automatically pulls 3DS/AVS/CVC data from your vault entries to strengthen the score. If you run Reflex, you pay $39/month for Sentinel instead of $49 (bundle discount applied automatically).
How does billing work?
$49/month invoiced on the 1st of each month for the prior month. First 14 days free. Your first invoice is sent via Stripe's hosted page (net-30). From month 2 on, invoices auto-charge the card you paid the first invoice with. No per-refund fees, no success fees.
What are the proof request emails?
Opt-in feature (off by default) that sends the customer a link to upload a photo or explanation before you approve the refund. It's opt-in because card network rules set time limits on refund processing. Review your local Visa/Mastercard rules before enabling. Every send and reply is RFC 3161 timestamped.
How do I cancel?
Uninstall Sentinel from your Stripe Dashboard, or disable scoring in App Settings. Billing stops at the end of your current billing period. No cancellation fees.
Who owns the abuse network data?
Aggregate abuse network signals are operated by CertNode on behalf of all Sentinel merchants. No merchant can see another merchant's individual scores or customers, only hashed signals and aggregate counts. Your decisions feed the network but are never attributable to you publicly.
Does this replace Signifyd or other enterprise fraud tools?
No. Signifyd is an enterprise-grade fraud and chargeback tool that costs 1-3% of revenue and targets large merchants. Sentinel is the SMB-priced alternative, flat monthly fee, no per-refund cost, narrower scope (refund abuse only). Use Signifyd if you need full fraud protection with guarantees. Use Sentinel if you want refund abuse detection without enterprise pricing.