How long does a refund take to process?

Refund timing on Valid Email Checker depends on the kind of refund and the payment processor involved. There are four distinct paths, and each one has a very different clock. Knowing which one your inquiry falls into sets the right expectation for when the money or the credits actually arrive.

Path 1: Unknown auto-refund — instant

If your verification returned the Unknown status, the credit refund is already in your Pay-As-You-Go bucket by the time you see the result. The refund-credits edge function runs synchronously in the verification pipeline. See what is VEC Unknown auto-refund for the full mechanic.

Path 2: compensation credits — minutes after approval

When an admin reviews your refund inquiry and approves compensation credits, the credits land in your PAYG bucket almost immediately. The process-refund function calls the same atomic_refund_credits RPC the Unknown path uses, writes a refund row to your Credits History, and fires an email confirmation. Front to back, this is usually 1-5 minutes after the admin clicks Approve.

Path 3: Stripe money refunds — 5-10 business days

When we issue a money refund through Stripe, we get back a re_xxx refund id from Stripe within seconds and you receive an email immediately. But the funds taking the trip from Stripe back to your card-issuing bank typically takes 5-10 business days. We have no control over that final leg — it is entirely between Stripe and your bank. If 10 business days pass and you still do not see the refund on your statement, contact your bank first and us second.

Path 4: Paddle and crypto — varies

• Paddle: refunds are processed in the Paddle dashboard, not ours. Paddle quotes 5-10 business days to your card after they approve the refund. We redirect Paddle refund inquiries to paddle.net.
• CoinPayments (crypto): refunds are flagged for manual payout. An admin reviews the request, processes the crypto transfer manually, and marks the inquiry complete. Expect 3-7 business days.

Review time before any of the above starts

All paths except Unknown auto-refund begin with an admin review of the inquiry. Our analyst pipeline scores the request within minutes of submission, but an admin still has to read it and decide. We aim to reply to every refund inquiry within 24-48 hours. Inquiries submitted on weekends or holidays tend to land at the upper end of that window.