---
title: "Stripe Dunning and Failed Payment Recovery — Churnkey for Stripe"
description: "Recover more failed Stripe subscription payments with Churnkey. Add Precision Retries, Dunning Campaigns and in-app payment recovery to your Stripe setup."
canonical: "https://churnkey.co/stripe-dunning"
category: "integration"
related:
  - /feature/payment-recovery/index.html.md
  - /feature/payment-recovery/payment-retries/index.html.md
  - /feature/payment-recovery/dunning-campaigns/index.html.md
  - /integrations/stripe/index.html.md
  - /blog/stripe-dunning.html.md
  - /blog/involuntary-churn-benchmarks.html.md
last_updated: "2026-11-05"
---

# Add More Ways to Recover Failed Payments on Stripe

## Overview

Some failed payments need more than retries and email. Churnkey adds Precision Retries, SMS, branded recovery emails, and in-app payment recovery to your existing Stripe setup.

Stripe remains your billing system. Churnkey connects to it, keeps Stripe Smart Retries running, and adds more ways to reach the customer and recover the payment.

- **70%** of detected involuntary churn recovered in 2024
- **4%** more failed payments recovered, **0.7 days** faster, with [Precision Retries](/feature/payment-recovery/payment-retries/index.html.md) layered on Stripe Retries ([benchmarks](/blog/involuntary-churn-benchmarks.html.md))

## What Churnkey Adds to Stripe

Stripe gives you retries and recovery emails. Churnkey adds more ways to reach the customer and recover the payment:

- **Text messages as well as email** — Reach customers by SMS after a payment fails.
- **Recovery inside your product** — The Payment Recovery Wall prompts customers in your app to update their payment method.
- **Your domain and your brand** — Recovery messages and payment forms run on your domain, so customers see your brand.

## How Churnkey Works With Stripe Smart Retries

Keep Stripe Smart Retries enabled. Churnkey works alongside them, giving customers more ways to complete a failed payment.

1. **Retries keep running** — Precision Retries add scheduled payment attempts around days when a retry is more likely to succeed.
2. **The customer gets a recovery message** — [Dunning Campaigns](/feature/payment-recovery/dunning-campaigns/index.html.md) send email and SMS based on the decline reason and customer segment.
3. **The customer updates their card in your product** — The Payment Recovery Wall prompts customers inside your app. If the bank requires 3D Secure, they can complete the verification from the wall.
4. **You can see what recovered the payment** — Payment Recovery analytics show which recovery method led to each successful payment.

## A Recovery Plan for Every Decline Code

Churnkey tailors a recovery strategy based on whether it's a soft decline or a hard decline. And we take billions of datapoints into account to ensure the highest recovery rates for your business.

### Soft declines

How Churnkey responds:

- [Precision Retries](/feature/payment-recovery/payment-retries/index.html.md) retries the card for you.
- The soft decline campaign gives retries time to work before it asks the customer to act.
- Every new attempt is checked again. If the next decline is a hard one, the customer moves to the hard decline campaign.

### Hard declines

How Churnkey responds:

- No wasted retries. Precision Retries skips codes like stolen card, so your limited attempts go where they can work.
- The hard decline campaign moves faster and sends the customer straight to update their card.
- The Payment Recovery Wall asks for a new card inside your product.

### Share of failed payments by decline code

| Decline code | Share of failed payments |
| --- | --- |
| Insufficient funds | 40.56% |
| Transaction not allowed | 8.83% |
| Highest risk level | 7.99% |
| Do not honor | 7.56% |
| Previously declined do not retry | 6.44% |
| Generic decline | 5.78% |
| Incorrect number | 4.69% |
| Try again later | 4.13% |
| Partner insufficient funds | 3.68% |
| Invalid account | 2.71% |
| Expired card | 1.14% |
| Card velocity exceeded | 1.05% |
| Pickup card | 0.94% |
| Lost card | 0.78% |
| Stolen card | 0.72% |
| PayPal payment declined | 0.45% |
| Link connection closed | 0.42% |
| Cash App customer request expired | 0.41% |
| Incorrect CVC | 0.39% |
| Blocklist | 0.37% |
| Cash App payment declined | 0.32% |
| Revocation of authorization | 0.20% |
| Processing error | 0.19% |
| Requested block on incorrect zip | 0.14% |
| Invalid amount | 0.11% |

Source: [involuntary churn benchmarks](/blog/involuntary-churn-benchmarks.html.md), 5.4M failed payments.

## Recover More Failed Payments, Faster

Precision Retries retries the card for you. Added to Stripe Retries, it recovered 55% of failed invoices, up from 51%.

| | Payment recovery | Average days to recovery |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Stripe Retries only | 51% | 5.5 |
| Precision Retries + Stripe Retries | 55% | 4.8 |
| Improvement | +4% more recovered | 0.7 days faster |

Source: [involuntary churn benchmarks](/blog/involuntary-churn-benchmarks.html.md), with Stripe.

## Keep Stripe at the Center of Your Billing

Churnkey uses your Stripe data to run recovery while Stripe remains your billing system. You can:

- Segment campaigns by soft or hard decline and payment method
- Recover failed one-time invoices when you turn that setting on
- Send recovery emails to additional billing contacts
- See recovered 3D Secure payments in your Stripe Dashboard with Payment Recovery keys
- Split-test recovery campaigns

## Using Stripe? Try These Settings

For most subscription businesses using Churnkey Payment Recovery, we recommend:

- Keep Stripe Smart Retries enabled
- Set Stripe Smart Retries to four attempts over 30 days
- Ask the Churnkey team to turn on Precision Retries
- Choose what happens to the invoice and subscription after the retry period

Precision Retries stop when the payment is recovered or the invoice is marked void or uncollectible.

## Security and Testing

- SOC 2 Type II
- GDPR
- Restricted Stripe key option
- Stripe sandbox testing

## Customer Testimonials

> "On any given day, we have a few dozen subscriptions with failing payments. It could be a full-time job for someone to follow up with all these customers. Luckily, Churnkey takes care of it for us. In a typical month, Churnkey recovers over $20k in revenue and saves over 200 customers from churning. It definitely pays for itself."
> — Reilly Chase, CEO of HostiFi

> "No founder wants to think about failed payments or has the time to deal with them. Churnkey stepped up and did it for us, setting us up quickly and optimizing everything, so we could focus on what we love to do: ship fast and grow faster."
> — Grant Cooper, Co-founder of Cometly

## FAQ

### What is Stripe dunning?

Stripe dunning is the process of recovering subscription payments after an invoice fails. It can include automated retries and customer communications that help resolve the failed payment.

Churnkey adds Precision Retries, Dunning Campaigns and in-app recovery experiences to that process.

### What does Churnkey add to Stripe Smart Retries?

Churnkey adds Precision Retries, Dunning Campaigns by email or SMS and the Payment Recovery Wall. Its reporting shows which one recovered each payment.

### How does Churnkey work with Stripe Smart Retries?

Precision Retries runs alongside Stripe Smart Retries and adds its own scheduled payment attempts.

### What Stripe retry settings should I use with Churnkey?

For most companies using Precision Retries, Churnkey recommends setting Stripe Smart Retries to four attempts within one month.

Your invoice and subscription settings should reflect how your business handles payments that remain unpaid after the recovery period.

Not sure which settings to change? Reach out to our retention team for advice.

### What happens when a bank requires 3D Secure?

For Stripe-billed customers, the Payment Recovery Wall can show a card verification step. The customer confirms the card already on file and completes the bank's verification from the wall.

Once the payment succeeds, access can be restored.

### How can I tell which recovery method brought a payment back?

Payment Recovery analytics attribute each recovered payment to the method that brought it back, such as email, SMS, retries or the Payment Recovery Wall.

### Can Churnkey recover failed one-time Stripe invoices?

Yes. Stripe integrations can include failed one-time invoices in Payment Recovery when that setting is enabled.

Subscription invoice recovery remains the default.

### Can I test Churnkey before using it with live Stripe subscriptions?

Churnkey supports Stripe sandbox mode, which connects a separate Stripe sandbox account for testing.

## Related

- [Payment Recovery](/feature/payment-recovery/index.html.md) — Overview of the full Payment Recovery suite
- [Precision Retries](/feature/payment-recovery/payment-retries/index.html.md) — ML-driven retry schedules layered on your billing provider's retries
- [Dunning Campaigns](/feature/payment-recovery/dunning-campaigns/index.html.md) — Email, SMS, and in-app campaigns for failed payments
- [Stripe Integration](/integrations/stripe/index.html.md) — Everything one Stripe connection unlocks in Churnkey
- [Stripe Dunning: Best Practices and Limitations](/blog/stripe-dunning.html.md) — Recommended settings for Stripe Smart Retries, emails and expiring cards
- [Involuntary Churn Benchmarks](/blog/involuntary-churn-benchmarks.html.md) — The data behind the Precision Retries figures