dunning
Communication cadence for unpaid invoices.
failed payment recovery
Failed payment recovery is the operational practice of getting a customer's payment to succeed after it fails. Includes the technical retry layer (Stripe Smart Retries), the email/communication layer, and the audit trail of who paid late and why. Most SaaS at $5K-$500K ARR loses 5-10% of MRR monthly to failed payments.
In context.
PorchOps makes failed payment recovery the operational layer Lou runs. Stripe fires payment_intent.payment_failed; Lou pulls the customer's history, identifies the failure cause, drafts a recovery email, lands the draft in the founder's inbox.
The recovery surface includes: decline-code classification, retry cadence, the recovery email itself, auto-send thresholds, Card Account Updater integration, and the audit trail. All five matter; missing one leaves recovery on the table.
Concrete instances.
Failed payments are a recurring share of MRR rather than a one-off; the recoverable part of that share is what the practice exists to reclaim.
A SaaS with $50K MRR loses ~$3,500/month to failed payments. Recovering 50% recovers ~$1,750/month — $21,000/year.
Common questions.
Is this the same as Stripe Smart Retries?
No. Smart Retries handles the retry attempt cadence (technical); failed payment recovery is the broader operational layer that includes the email, audit, and recovery-rate tracking.
What's a realistic recovery rate?
Yours, not a published one. The mix of decline codes drives it: a book weighted toward expired cards recovers far better than one weighted toward hard declines, so a single headline rate tells you almost nothing about your own. Measure it against your own baseline once the email layer is running.
What tools help with failed payment recovery?
Stripe Smart Retries (free, technical), Card Account Updater (free, automatic), and an email layer like Lou (or Churnkey, Churn Buster, Stunning). All three layers are needed.
PorchOps puts a crew of AI coworkers on your back office: recovering failed payments, sorting support, keeping the books. Everything they write waits for your approval.