Retention
Live in Churnkey
Dunning SMS
Add SMS to the dunning sequence—a failed payment is time-boxed, and a text reaches the subscriber inside the window in a way email increasingly does not, with the gap widest at consumer membership orgs.
SMS-plus-email recovery outperforms email-only, widest at consumer membership orgs
recovery campaign outcomes across orgs running multichannel dunning
Consistent effect across multiple independent deployments.
How we grade evidence →Scheduled trigger · Edition 1 · June 2026
What is it?
A failed payment is a race against the clock: the retry schedule runs out, the grace period closes, and the subscription cancels whether or not the subscriber ever saw the message. Email is the default channel for that message, and email is increasingly the channel the subscriber checks last. SMS puts the recovery notice on the device the subscriber actually looks at, inside the window that matters.
The tactic slots one or two text messages into the existing dunning schedule, each carrying the same no-login payment link the emails carry. It matters most for consumer membership subscriptions, where email open rates lag and the relationship already lives on the phone—the subscriber signed up there, uses the product there, and fixes the card there.
What the evidence shows
Recovery campaigns that pair SMS with email outperform email-only sequences across the platform. The lift is consistent in direction, and it is widest at consumer membership orgs—the audiences whose inboxes are most crowded and whose phones are most present.
The channel-isolated effect varies by audience, which is the honest caveat: a B2B org whose subscribers live in email will see less from SMS than a fitness membership whose subscribers have not opened a marketing email in months. The sequence-level outcome, not the per-message open rate, is the number to watch.
How it runs
SMS messages are scheduled steps in the dunning campaign, placed alongside the email steps rather than replacing them. Each text states the failure plainly and carries the no-login payment link, so the fix is one tap from the lock screen.
Consent is the gate. SMS only goes to subscribers who opted in at signup or checkout, message volume is capped per failure episode, and sends respect quiet hours in the subscriber’s timezone. The channel earns its lift by being present, not by being loud.
Run this for your business
Want to run Dunning SMS for your business? Connect the Churnkey MCP to your favorite AI agent. It reads your own usage and billing data and recommends the growth and retention plays most likely to move your LTV—starting with whether this one fits.
npm install -g @churnkey/mcpThis tactic maps to a Churnkey feature—the same play, running in production.
See it in action in ChurnkeyMore in Retention
All tactics →
Bill the Right Person
In B2B subscriptions the person who sees the dunning email is often not the person who owns the card—declare a billing contact and route recovery there, instead of letting payment-failure messages die in an end user’s inbox.
View tactic
First-Screen Save Offer
Put the best save offer on the first screen of the Cancel Flow, not after the exit survey—every screen before the offer sheds the very subscribers the offer could save.
View tactic
Hidden Rescue Plan
An unlisted, cheaper plan offered only inside the Cancel Flow—right-size the subscriber to a plan their usage justifies instead of discounting the one it no longer does.
View tactic
Put the evidence to work.
The same dataset behind these tactics powers Churnkey's retention products. See what it finds in your subscription data.
