Canonical Labs

Stripe Radar Set Up

Fraud defense that is live before your first payment.

Launching on Stripe, or moving onto it? Risk and ML engineers build a Stripe Radar configuration for how you sell, switch it on before your first customer pays, and tune it as your volume ramps.

Talk to a Fraud Expert
Length
4 to 6 weeks
First result
Rules on launch day
Where
Inside your Stripe
Engineering lift
None

Who it is for

  • You are launching on Stripe, or moving onto it from another provider.
  • You have little or no payment history on Stripe yet, so there is nothing to tune.
  • You sell in a vertical fraud finds early: collectibles, digital packs, precious metals, software.

What is included

  • A launch rule set from what works at businesses like yours
  • Block, allow and VIP lists, and Sigma switched on
  • 3DS where it pays, not on every payment
  • Live tuning as your volume ramps, with backtests that loosen blocks
  • A final report, a playbook and training for whoever runs it after us

Inside an engagement. Six hours from the first message to live rules.

A real client engagement, shown step by step as it happened.

Tune · 4 of 4

The weeks after

  • −38%

    blocked payments a week, as the rules loosened

    Days 4 to 10Days 11 to 17

  • +3

    points of approval rate over the same weeks

    About three more in every hundred approved

  • −21%

    modeled blocked volume in the backtest, every disputed payment still caught

    BeforeAfter

“It’s been super good having you on board. You manage our rules, the fraud keeps coming down, and we get to focus on the business.”

Operations lead, digital-pack marketplace

−38%

blocked payments in one week, while approvals rose by 3 points

Blocked, wk 1Blocked, wk 2

How a Stripe Radar Set Up runs.

Week by week, from the first call to a configuration your team owns. A shared Slack channel the whole time, and a written review every week.

  1. Week 0

    Intro call and questionnaire

    Twenty minutes on how you sell and when you launch. Then one page of questions: what you sell, where your buyers are, what you blocked before, and who decides.

    Scope and rule plan

  2. Day 1

    Access

    A developer seat on your Stripe account for our team, Sigma switched on, and a shared Slack channel. Nothing for your engineers to build.

    Seat, Sigma, Slack

  3. Days 1 to 3

    Business-model review and a launch rule set

    Where fraud would hit a business like yours first, and a launch rule set built from what works in your vertical.

    Launch rule set

  4. Week 1

    Lists, 3DS and rules live

    Block, allow and VIP lists, a 3DS policy where it pays, and the rules live before your first payment. Strict on purpose at first.

    Live configuration

  5. Weeks 2 to 4

    Tuning as volume ramps

    We read the blocks as real traffic arrives, and backtest changes that loosen them without letting a disputed payment through.

    Backtest memo and change log

  6. Week 4

    Training, final report, playbook

    A working session for whoever runs it after us, and a final report with every rule, why it is there, and the weekly routine.

    Final report and playbook

  7. After

    While disputes mature

    Disputes land 30 to 60 days after a payment, so we keep watching and check in. Stay on a retainer, or call us when something changes.

    Check-in or retainer

Questions buyers ask.

No, it is the best time. A Set Up is built for accounts with no payment history: we start from what works at businesses like yours, so the rules are live before your first payment and tuned as real traffic arrives.

No. Everything we change lives in Stripe Radar, lists and Stripe settings. Sometimes a signal you already have (account age, trust level, KYC status) would make rules sharper; we write a one-page spec for passing it in the payment metadata, and it is your call whether to ship it.

A developer seat on your Stripe account, Sigma switched on, and a shared Slack channel. You can remove the seat at any time.

Often in the first days: on one launch, our first rules were live the same afternoon. Most engagements run four to six weeks, and disputes take 30 to 60 days to land, so we keep watching after.

Every rule is backtested first, with a list of the good customers it could touch. And we audit our own blocks: on one account we found good customers behind one of our own block rules, and relaxed it.

The configuration stays in your account and keeps working. You get the final report and the playbook, and we check in while disputes mature. A retainer is there if you want us to keep running it.

Our Stripe Radar services work inside Stripe. For other payment providers, ACH, identity checks or anything else, that is what Custom Solutions is for.

Each engagement is fixed in scope and priced on the engagement. We scope it with you on the first call.