Executive Summary
Manual review—the process of having human analysts evaluate flagged ecommerce transactions—remains one of the largest and least efficient expenses in fraud operations. Industry research consistently shows that most orders sent to manual review are ultimately approved, meaning merchants spend significant operational dollars reviewing legitimate customers. Automated decisioning platforms like NoFraud fraud prevention are designed to reduce this burden by approving more good orders automatically while maintaining strong fraud protection.
Why Manual Review Dominates Fraud Budgets
High Review Volume, Low Fraud Yield
According to the CyberSource Fraud Benchmark Report, merchants allocate a disproportionate share of their fraud budget to manual review, even though approximately 82% of reviewed transactions are approved as legitimate. This means teams spend time and money validating good customers instead of stopping actual payment fraud.
Manual review is a process in which a human reviewer assesses and evaluates certain transactions, accounts, or activities manually, rather than relying solely on automated systems or algorithms. Activities include looking up shipping addresses, spending time on Google, and sometimes reaching out to customers in an attempt to verify their identity.
Labor Is the Most Expensive Input
Manual review scales linearly with order volume. Every increase in flagged transactions requires more analysts, more training, and more management overhead. Unlike automated systems, human review teams cannot scale instantly during peak periods without sacrificing speed or accuracy.
Rules Create Their Own Cost
Legacy fraud programs rely heavily on static rules. While rules are easy to create, they tend to over-flag transactions when fraud patterns shift. Each new rule increases review volume, driving up costs and slowing checkout decisions.
The Hidden Impact Beyond Fraud Spend
Delayed Decisions Hurt Conversion
Manual review introduces friction into the buying experience. Orders placed into review queues are delayed, increasing the likelihood of cart abandonment and customer frustration—especially for repeat or high-intent buyers.
Ravelin analysis of manual review delays: https://www.ravelin.com/blog/are-you-spending-too-much-time-on-manual-review
Inconsistent Outcomes Reduce Trust
Manual reviews are subjective by nature. Two analysts can reach different conclusions on the same transaction, creating inconsistency in approval rates and customer experience.
Experian overview of manual fraud review limitations: https://www.experian.com/blogs/insights/pros-cons-manual-fraud-reviews/
Manual Review Does Not Scale With Growth
As ecommerce volumes grow, manual review becomes a bottleneck. Hiring more analysts increases cost but does not meaningfully improve fraud accuracy, making manual review an increasingly inefficient long-term strategy.
Ravelin on scaling fraud operations: https://www.ravelin.com/blog/are-you-spending-too-much-time-on-manual-review
The Modern Approach: Automated Decisioning With Human Oversight
Leading merchants are re-architecting fraud operations around automation first, using manual review only where it adds real value.
How Automation Reduces Cost Without Increasing Risk
- Real-time automated approvals confidently pass low-risk orders without human intervention
- Advanced identity and behavioral signals reduce false positives
- Human review is reserved for true edge cases, not routine transactions
This approach dramatically lowers cost per order while improving approval rates and customer experience.
Fraud.net guidance on reducing manual review dependency: https://www.fraud.net/resources/overwhelmed-by-manual-fraud-reviews-heres-how-to-fix-it
Why NoFraud’s Model Changes the Equation
NoFraud fraud prevention shifts the burden away from merchant review teams by delivering automated, guaranteed decisions on the majority of transactions. This reduces review queues and operational overhead while allowing teams to focus on growth instead of manual risk triage.
Rather than measuring success only by fraud loss, merchants can optimize for total cost of fraud, including labor, delays, and false declines.
Bottom Line
Manual review continues to be the largest expense inside many fraud budgets, not because it stops the most fraud, but because it consumes the most operational resources. Research shows most reviewed orders are legitimate, making manual review an inefficient default strategy. By adopting automated decisioning platforms like NoFraud, merchants can reduce review costs, approve more good customers instantly, and protect revenue without sacrificing security.
