Glovo refunds: how to tell a compensation from a deduction

A manager opens the Glovo order history on a Monday morning and finds three different labels scattered across the weekend's orders: orders with a compensation, orders with a deduction and orders with a customer complaint. All three refer to incidents. Only one comes out of your statement.

Mixing them up is expensive in both directions: you worry about what costs you nothing and write off what you could get back. This guide explains what each label means in Portal Manager, who pays in each case and what to do about deductions that are not yours.

What is the difference between a compensation and a deduction on Glovo?

A compensation is an amount Glovo refunds to the customer while absorbing the cost itself: your statement does not change. A deduction is a refund the platform attributes to a restaurant error and takes off your balance. The label on the order is what counts: if it says compensation, you do not pay; if it says deduction, that money has already left your takings and only comes back if you dispute it with proof.

The three labels in your order history

In your history, the issues column summarises what happened with each order. Here is the quick read:

Orders with a compensation: they cost you nothing

Glovo compensates the customer when the problem is not the restaurant's. The typical case is a late cancellation by the customer or a logistics issue: the platform refunds part of the amount so as not to lose the user, and the cost stays on their side. These orders are identified in your history so you can tell them apart from the ones that do affect your income.

Even so, they are worth a look. A spike in compensations at one particular site usually points to long prep times or orders going out late, and that ends up sooner or later as deductions or avoidable cancellations.

Orders with a deduction: the money has already gone

When the portal marks an order with a deduction, Glovo has refunded the customer and decided the cause lies with the restaurant. The most frequent reasons are always the same three:

• Missing items: the customer says not everything was in the bag.
• Prep mistakes: the wrong item, without the modification requested, or swapped for another.
• Quality or presentation: food spilled, cold, badly sealed or badly packed.

These are the deductions to work on: they are the ones that get charged and also the only ones you can challenge with evidence from the order.

Orders with a customer complaint: the early signal

The complaint label covers both claims and negative ratings, and does not always have money attached. Treat it as the warning it is: the usual reasons (item not delivered, quality problems, wrong ingredients or packaging) are exactly the ones that generate deductions. If an order carries none of these labels, the platform applied no charge.

Why a deduction does not mean your kitchen got it wrong

The label is an attribution, not proof. The platform decides with what it has: what the customer says. And there are three very common situations where the kitchen did its job properly and the deduction arrives anyway:

• The item was in the bag and the customer complains regardless.
• The problem happens after the order leaves the site (transport, delivery to the wrong door, a bag opened on the way).
• The same customer complains repeatedly across different orders.

In these cases the conversation with the platform only changes if you have something to show. With the photo of the order exactly as it left the kitchen, Bronze wins 83% of the disputes it files (Bronze platform figure for disputes resolved in the last 12 months, July 2026), and in restaurants that verify every order fewer than 1% end in a net refund.

How to review your deductions each week in ten minutes

1. Filter your order history for those with a deduction over the last full week.
2. Note the reason for each one and the amount charged. Without amounts there is no conversation to be had with the platform.
3. Group them by site, by shift and by product. The patterns show up quickly: it is nearly always a handful of products and a handful of time slots.
4. Separate deductions with a real cause (fix the process) from doubtful ones (challenge them).
5. Challenge the doubtful ones one at a time, with the evidence for that specific order, through the platform's official channel.

If your review turns up cancelled rather than refunded orders, that reads differently: we explain it in our guide to types of Glovo cancellation. And if you want the full claims procedure for the three big platforms, it is in our guide to disputing unfair refunds.

This weekly review is the bare minimum. The problem is that by hand you only get to part of it, and always late: by the time you see the pattern, the money has already been taken across several statements.

How to stop the deduction arriving at all

Deductions are tackled on two fronts, and the order matters:

• Before the order goes out: if the mistake is caught on the pass, there is no claim, no refund and no bad review. It is the cheapest euro you will ever save.
• After the claim: if the order went out correctly and the deduction lands anyway, you need dated, time-stamped proof to get it back.

Bronze Tracker covers both: one photo per order on the pass, with computer vision checking what was prepared against the order from your POS or delivery platform and flagging anything missing straight away. That same photo is documented and is what backs the dispute when a claim does not match reality. Verification takes less than a second per order.

What to take away

• Compensation: Glovo pays. Deduction: you pay. Complaint: nobody pays yet, but it is a warning.
• A deduction is an attribution of responsibility, not proof that the mistake happened.
• Without evidence from the order, challenging it is your word against the customer's. With the photo, 83% of disputes are won.