Looking for Managed Recovery? We can run failed-payment recovery for you.
Stripe retries failed cards and sends a failed payment email. That's a good start. Stunning runs alongside it and handles the rest: more channels, more contacts, backup cards, and recovery that keeps going after Stripe gives up.
On Foxy or Subbly? We recover failed payments there too. Here's what we support on each.
Keep Stripe's retries on and turn off its customer emails. Stunning sends better ones and adds what's missing.
| Stripe on its own | Stripe + Stunning | |
|---|---|---|
| Failed payment emails | The same email after every failed attempt | Up to 8 different emails, each written by you, and chosen per customer by plan, amount, or metadata |
| Who gets the email | The customer's email, plus CCs you enter by hand in the Dashboard | CC every billing contact stored in a metadata field, and BCC anyone on your team |
| Other channels | None | Up to 8 SMSes, and a notice inside your app |
| Expiring cards | One email, a month before | An automatic card update attempt, then emails at 30, 15, and 7 days |
| Backup cards | Retries the default card only | Asks for a backup card, then switches to it and charges it when the main card fails |
| Abandoned updates | Nothing | A follow-up email when someone opens the update page and leaves |
| After retries run out | The subscription is marked unpaid or cancelled | An unpaid email, a win-back sequence over months, and automatic reactivation when they pay |
| Update page | Stripe-hosted | On your own domain, with your HTML and CSS, Apple Pay, and Google Pay |
| Reporting | Overall failure and recovery rates | Revenue credited to each email, SMS, in-app notice, retry, and backup card, by month and by plan |
| Your team | Alerts you build yourself with Automations | Slack alerts, a weekly report, card update alerts, and high-value customer flags, ready to switch on |
Stunning recovers failed payments on Foxy and Subbly too. There, we focus on failed payment recovery, so the feature set is smaller than on Stripe. Here's exactly what you get on each.
| Stripe | Subbly | Foxy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dunning emails, a different one for each failed attempt | Up to 8 | Up to 3 | Up to 3 |
| Draft mode and BCCs to your team | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Recovered revenue tracking | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Different templates per customer, by plan, amount, or other fields | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Smart retries between your platform's retries | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Control which past-due invoices get charged after a card update | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Email when a subscription is cancelled for failed payments | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| In-app notification bar | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Card update page | Stunning's, on your domain | Subbly's | Your Foxy customer portal |
| Dunning SMSes | ✓ | — | — |
| Backup cards | ✓ | — | — |
| Pre-dunning emails and automatic card updates | ✓ | — | — |
| CC billing contacts from metadata | ✓ | — | — |
| Abandoned update page follow-ups | ✓ | — | — |
| Unpaid win-back sequence and reactivation | ✓ | — | — |
| Monthly manual dunning | ✓ | — | — |
| Slack alerts | ✓ | — | — |
Selling on WooCommerce? See our guide to WooCommerce subscription payment failures.
These are the full set of recovery features on Stripe, and every one of them runs on top of Stripe's own retries and emails. For Foxy and Subbly, see the platform comparison above.
Stripe only retries the card on file. Stunning asks customers to add a backup card, with a discount you choose as the incentive. If a payment fails, Stunning switches to the backup and charges it. If that fails too, it switches back. It's basically failed payment insurance.
Sometimes customers start updating their billing information and get distracted. If they abandon their payment page, we help you to follow up with them automatically.
When a card is about to expire, has expired, or has failed, Stunning can let them know inside of your app, with a different message for each case. In-app notifications are even more effective than emails, because your customer is already using your app when they see the notification.
Stripe only sends email. Stunning can also send up to eight texts when payments fail, each with a link that lets them update their billing information directly. Replies can come straight into Slack. Don't have cell numbers for your customers? We can even help you collect them.
Some failed payments can be collected successfully if you just retry them at the right time. With Smart Retries, Stunning goes beyond Stripe's retries. It intelligently retries your failed payments at times that have the best chance of recovering revenue, based on your customer base and what's best for your particular app. It does it over a maximum of 21 days, for maximum recovery potential.
Stripe sends the same email after every failed attempt. Stunning sends up to eight different ones, in plain text or your own HTML, from your own address and reply-to. Each one can get more urgent than the last.
Send an email when a subscription is marked unpaid or cancelled due to too many failed payments. This is one of the most important failed payment emails that you can send, because some customers won't update their billing information until there are consequences.
Stunning provides secure payment update pages with Apple Pay, Pay With Google and Payment Request API support. We link to them in your dunning emails, so that your users can easily update their payment info without logging in. You can even use them on your own domain.
If a customer is marked unpaid and they update their billing information, Stunning will reactivate their subscription and charge them for a configurable amount of their past due payments, bringing their account up to date automatically.
Stripe stops once a subscription is marked unpaid. Stunning keeps going, with three win-back emails over the following months, on a schedule you set.
Have real-time notifications pushed directly into the Slack channel of your choice when customers go delinquent, when they update their billing info and are successfully charged, when the dunning process is unsuccessful, or when emails bounce so that your team can follow up personally.
Stripe sends one email a month before a card expires. Before each warning, Stunning first tries to update the card automatically. If that doesn't work, it emails your customer at 30, 15, and 7 days out, so they can update their billing information before a payment fails.
The person who owns the card often isn't the person who gets the email. Point Stunning at a metadata field on the customer and it CCs every email address it finds there on your recovery emails. Your finance person, their office manager, or a co-founder all get the message. You can BCC your own team, too.
Your $9 customers and your $900 customers shouldn't get the same letter. Write several versions of each recovery email and SMS, and Stunning picks the right one for each customer based on their plan, amount, or metadata.
Once a month, send one more email to every customer who's still delinquent with an active subscription, in one click. It's a good way to reach the people who ignored the automated emails.
See what's actually happening with your payments, in detail.
See how much we've recovered overall, how much we've recovered each month, which customers are still within the recovery process, and which you need to follow up with personally.
See every important event that's happened recently in your Stunning & Stripe accounts, from failed payments to successful charges and everything in between.
See customers with expiring cards, which helps you to get a handle on potential revenue loss before it happens.
When customer subscriptions are cancelled due to failed payments, sometimes they come along later and update their billing info. Since they no longer have a subscription, we can't automatically reactivate it, but we let you know when it happens so you can!
We show you revenue recovery for every month you've used Stunning. Every failed payment, every recovery, and even which recovery methods are working best for you. You can even break stats down to the plan level.
See when customers visit their payment pages, and when they update their billing information.
Receive email notifications when any customer updates their billing information. If they're delinquent, we'll point it out for you!
Get a list of every failed payment and recovery for the past week in your inbox, so you know what's going on without even having to log in to Stunning.
See if your emails are actually getting opened.
We do more than just help to recover failed payments. Stunning helps you to communicate with your customers from the moment that their subscription begins.
Have a custom email sent when a customer starts their subscription.
When a customer's trial period is ending, remind them that they are about to be charged. Make sure that they get full use out of their trial period.
Easily send your customers fully customizable plain-text or HTML receipts each time they are charged. Use your own templates, for consistent branding.
Reduce chargebacks by sending a reminder email to your customers before they are charged.
Send an email to your customer as a confirmation that their subscription has been successfully cancelled when they click a link to cancel, or you cancel their subscription for them from your Stripe dashboard.
Have a confirmation email sent to your customers when you refund charges.
Help your customers to help themselves.
Show your customers a history of all of their previous charges and refunds.
Let your customers switch between plans or cancel their subscriptions themselves.
Customers can view receipts for any of their previous charges in their browser and download PDFs of them if they'd like.
Just starting out? Have lots of customers? Either way, Stunning scales with you.
View Pricing Now"As a small business owner, I was craving automation to be able to support my customers if their payments failed or they wanted to upgrade their services. I can now do all of this automatically with Stunning. Their service pays for itself."
Asya Watkins
Stunning customer since 2020
"I can’t believe how easy Stunning makes it for me to keep my members... thank you!"
Sherry Lee Woycik
Stunning customer since 2018
"You take the pain away!"
Russ Dhooge
Stunning customer since 2016
"We are now getting many billing updates automatically. This is magic 🙂. Thanks!"
Thibaut Camberlin
Stunning customer since 2018
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