Why Stripe subscription payments fail, and what each decline code needs
Expired cards, insufficient funds, 3-D Secure, generic declines: what Stripe's decline codes mean for a subscription business and the right response to each one.
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Get paid for the subscriptions you already sold
Practical guides on failed Stripe payments, follow-up emails and involuntary churn. No invented numbers: methods you can apply to your own data.
Involuntary churn: the customers who leave without deciding to
Involuntary churn is the revenue a subscription business loses to failed payments, not to unhappy customers. How to recognise it in Stripe, why it hides, and what reduces it.
Dunning email templates for failed subscription payments
A four-email sequence for failed subscription payments, with ready-to-adapt templates, the timing of each email and the reasoning behind every line.
Stripe Smart Retries: what they do well and where they stop
Smart Retries choose when Stripe tries a failed payment again. What they handle, the failures they cannot fix on their own, and what to add on top without fighting them.
Measuring payment recovery with a holdout group
Why before-and-after comparisons overstate what a dunning tool recovers, and how a small random holdout group measures the real lift on failed payments.
Reducing card declines before they happen
Automatic card updates, reminders before a card expires, smooth 3-D Secure, renewal notices and a second payment method: practical ways to prevent failed subscription payments.
How much do failed payments cost you? A method using only Stripe data
A step-by-step method to measure what failed subscription payments cost: failed amount, what Stripe recovers, what is still open, what is lost, and the subscriptions that ended.
Follow-ups in your own name vs Stripe's failed payment emails
Stripe can email customers when a payment fails. When those emails are enough, where follow-ups sent in your company's name do better, and how to run both without confusing customers.