How to Stop Wasting Time on Refunds: Set Up Automatic Subscription Refunds

If you run a membership site, you already know refunds are just part of the job. Maybe someone forgot to cancel, maybe they had a billing issue, or maybe they simply changed their mind. Whatever the reason, at some point you’ll need to refund a subscription.

The problem? Handling a subscription refund the old way is clunky. You’d log into Stripe or PayPal, find the payment, issue the refund there, then jump back into WordPress to adjust the member’s subscription manually. That back-and-forth is a real time sink.

Now, with automatic refunds in Paid Member Subscriptions, the whole process happens right inside your WordPress dashboard. No more juggling between multiple platforms.

Why Automatic Refunds Save You Time

Automatic refunds cut out the manual steps. Instead of logging into your payment processor, you can manage everything in one place:

• Issue full or partial refunds in seconds.
• Add notes for context (so you remember why the refund was made).
• Choose what happens to the member’s subscription after the refund.

It doesn’t matter if you need to refund a membership after a billing mistake or quickly cancel a subscription and refund a customer who requested it—you can handle it all from the same screen.

How to Setup Automatic Refunds in WordPress

You may be thinking “Easier said than done.”, huh? Well, there are actually three ways you can make this happen. But let’s take it step by step:

Get a Paid Member Subscriptions License

To enable automatic refunds, you’ll first need to install Paid Member Subscriptions on your site. The plugin takes care of memberships, subscriptions, and now, thanks to the refund feature, your refund process too.

Just head over to the Cozmoslabs website, choose the plan that fits your needs, and download the plugin. After purchase, you’ll find both the free and Pro versions in your account.

Then, install it on your WordPress site just like any other plugin:

• Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
• Upload the downloaded files.
• Hit Install Now and then Activate.

Once activated, you’re ready to start creating subscription plans and managing payments.

Create Your Subscription Plans

Next, you’ll want to set up the actual products or memberships people can subscribe to. Subscription plans define what members get access to, how much it costs, and how often they’re billed.

In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Paid Member Subscriptions → Subscription Plans → Add New.

From here, you can give your plan a name (e.g., Monthly Membership, Pro Plan, etc.), set the price and billing cycle (monthly, yearly, or even installments if you’d like), and most importantly, decide what content or perks this plan unlocks.

Once saved, your plan is live and ready for new members to join.

Set Up Your Payment Gateways

Before you can issue refunds, your site needs to know where the money is coming from and where it should go back. That’s where payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal come in. Without them, the refund button simply won’t work.

To set this up, head to Paid Member Subscriptions → Settings → Payments tab. Then, choose the Gateways subtab to set up your payment gateways.

In this section, you will be able to enable your preferred payment gateways and configure them. If you want to go with Stripe or PayPal, you’ll need to connect your existing account here.

Once your gateways are configured, all new payments will easily flow through them.

Set Up Refunds for Your Subscription Plans

Now that your users can subscribe to paid plans and actually make payments, here’s where you’ll want to learn more about refunds.

So, once you have completed payments on your site, you can easily refund them in 2 ways.

Method 1. From the Payments List

Go to Paid Member Subscriptions → Payments, hover over the payment you need refunded, and click Refund.

A modal will pop up with the payment details. From here you can:

• Enter the amount you want to refund (you can’t go over the original payment).
• Add a refund note, like “user requested cancellation”.
• Decide what to do with the subscription:
  • Keep Current Status – leave it unchanged.
  • Expire Subscription – end it right away.
  • Cancel Subscription – cancel it at the next renewal date.

Hit Refund Payment, and you’re done.

Method 2. From an Individual Payment Page

Another option to use this functionality is if you’re already viewing a payment record. So, when editing a payment, you will see the Refund Payment button towards the end of the page. Click it and that’s it!

Review Your Changes

One of the biggest headaches with refunds isn’t just issuing them, it’s keeping track of them afterwards. If you’ve ever had to dig through emails or payment processor dashboards to figure out what happened with a particular customer, you know how frustrating it can be.

Good news is that each subscription refund is logged automatically.

Payment Logs will show who issued the refund, when it happened, and if there are any notes.

Subscription Logs will update if the subscription status changes.

Final Thoughts

Refunds are never the most exciting part of running a membership site, but they’re a reality. Maybe someone signed up by mistake, maybe they decided a plan wasn’t right for them, or maybe you just want to provide great customer service by making the process hassle-free.

The good news is that refunds don’t have to eat up your time or turn into a back-and-forth with payment processors. With automatic subscription refunds, you can handle everything right inside WordPress.

Try them out for yourself and tell us in the comments if you notice the difference!