When to use this
A member paid for a monthly or annual membership through one of our order forms and that charge needs to come back, in full or in part. Membership payments settle through Stripe and show up in GoHighLevel's own Transactions list, so the whole refund is done inside the dashboard, not in a separate Stripe login.
A refund is two parts: first cancel the subscription, then refund the charge. Skipping the cancel is the one mistake that bites: the plan keeps billing on its next cycle even after you hand the money back.
One-time charges (lead credits, test buys)
If the payment was a single charge and not a recurring plan, there's nothing to cancel. Skip straight to Part 2 and refund the transaction. And refund it in whichever sub-account took the payment: memberships run in the TTS admin sub shown here; a contractor's lead-credit buy is refunded in that contractor's own sub.
Cancel the subscription
Do this first. If you refund the charge but leave the subscription active, it will try to bill the member again on the next cycle.
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1
Open Payments
In the TTS admin sub, click Payments in the left-hand menu. This opens on the Transactions list.
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2
Go to Subscriptions
Click Subscriptions in the top nav. Cancelling here first is what stops the plan from billing again on its next cycle.
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3
Find the subscription, open its menu
Locate the subscription tied to the member you're refunding (match the customer name and the TTS Membership source), then click the three-dot Menu options button on that row.
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4
Click Cancel
Choose Cancel from the menu.
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5
Confirm the cancellation
Click Yes, Cancel. The subscription status flips to cancelled and will no longer rebill.
Refund the payment
With the subscription cancelled, give back the money on the original charge.
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6
Switch to Transactions
Now click Transactions in the top nav to find the actual charge to give back.
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7
Open the transaction's menu
Find the charge you're refunding (customer name, date, and amount), then click its three-dot Menu options button.
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8
Click Refund
Choose Refund to open the Refund Payment dialog.
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9
Set the amount and note the reason
The Amount field is pre-filled with the full charge. Leave it for a full refund, or type a smaller number for a partial one. In Notes, write the reason and paste any links (ticket, message, approval) so the refund has a clean paper trail.
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10
Submit the refund
Click Refund to submit. The dialog confirms the money returns to the card on file (in this example a card ending 1919).
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11
Done
The refund is issued through Stripe and posts back to the buyer's original card. Stripe releases it within about two business days; the dialog notes it can take up to 4-6 business days to appear on their bank statement, depending on their bank.
The processing fee doesn't come back
A refund returns the payment amount to the buyer, but the Stripe processing fee on the original charge is already spent and is not returned. It's small, but worth knowing so a refunded transaction doesn't look like it came back a few dollars short.
Confirming it went through
After you submit, the transaction shows a refunded status in the Transactions list and the money returns to the buyer's original card. If the status doesn't update or the refund errors, check that the payment actually ran through Stripe; a payment taken some other way would need to be refunded wherever it was processed.