How Smallpdf used AI automation to turn fragmented chargeback operations into $200K in value

Overzicht

How Smallpdf scaled chargeback recovery across every payment provider

Smallpdf is one of the world’s most popular document-management platforms, helping approximately 25 million monthly users convert, compress, edit, sign, protect, and unlock PDF files.

Its subscription business spans Braintree, Stripe, and Adyen, with critical customer, subscription, and billing data managed in Recurly. As the business scaled, chargeback disputes increased in both volume and complexity.

Smallpdf needed to improve recovery across every payment provider without building a larger internal chargeback operation.

De uitdaging

Fragmented, manual processes do not scale

Every payment provider has its own dispute workflows, evidence requirements, and deadlines. Valuable subscription and billing context lived in Recurly. Manually collecting and organizing information, shaping it into a persuasive response, tracking outcomes across providers, and filing the dispute responses in a timely manner became an operational nightmare.

As dispute volumes grew, the operational burden grew with them. Smallpdf needed an AI automated partner that could fight every eligible dispute on time, strengthen recovery rates, and remove the daily work from their team.

De oplossing

Unified, AI-powered recovery process across every provider

Smallpdf partnered with Chargeflow to unify dispute recovery across Braintree, Stripe, and Adyen. Chargeflow’s pre-built Recurly integration added the subscription and billing context needed to strengthen each case and establish proof of delivery for Smallpdf’s digital products.

Chargeflow’s AI handled the operational work from end to end. It gathered and structured evidence, enriched each case with relevant customer data, tailored the response to the dispute and provider, submitted it on time, and tracked every case and outcome in one place, giving Smallpdf a consolidated view of performance across its payment stack.

Instead of managing daily submissions, the team could review performance and dispute trends while Chargeflow ran, and delivered remarkable performance, in the background.

Deployment and Time to Value

Live within one hour

Getting started required connecting Smallpdf’s existing payment providers and Recurly, not building a new internal workflow. Within one hour of receiving access, Smallpdf was up and running.

The value was immediate. Chargeflow began automating evidence collection and on-time submission from the start, while responsive customer success and proactive reporting gave the team confidence that performance remained visible and accountable.

Resultaten

$100K in measurable value in six months

In its first six months with Chargeflow, Smallpdf recovered $55K in disputed revenue and generated an estimated $45K in operational savings. Together, those results created $100K in measurable value.

Automation saved more than 1,100 hours of manual dispute work, while improving revenue recovery and win rates.

The transformation went beyond efficiency. Smallpdf replaced fragmented workflows across three payment providers with one AI-powered recovery process and one clear view of performance. Its team could stay focused on product and growth while Chargeflow handled dispute recovery in the background.

Smallpdf is now on track to generate over $200K in first-year value.