We got tired of losing
money we already earned
Payment Recovery System was born from a simple frustration: failed Stripe payments were quietly destroying MRR, and every existing dunning tool was either priced for enterprises or wanted a percentage of recovered revenue — a tax on the money you already earned.
60–75%
Typical soft-decline recovery
100%
of recovered revenue stays yours
< 5 min
to connect Stripe and go live
Recovery figures are typical industry ranges, not a forecast of your results — hard declines recover far lower than soft ones, and outcomes depend on card issuers and your own customers. See the FAQ for the breakdown by decline type and the Disclaimer for what we do and do not promise.
Failed payments are the most preventable form of churn
Subscription industry studies commonly put 20–40% of churn in the “involuntary” bucket — it’s not that customers want to leave, it’s that their payment failed and nobody told them clearly, or the retry happened at the wrong time, or the update link expired.
At the low end of that range, a $20k MRR business is losing four figures a month — not to competitors, not to dissatisfaction, but to a fixable technical and communication failure.
Enterprise teams hire dunning specialists. We built the tool that gives indie founders the same capability — at a price point that makes sense when you’re at $5k MRR, not $500k.
Failed payment detection
Retry strategy
Customer outreach
Expiring cards
How Payment Recovery System is different
| Feature | Payment Recovery System | Typical dunning tool | Stripe built-in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat monthly fee | Often % of recovered rev | Free (basic retry only) |
| AI email personalization | Yes — Gemini 2.0 | Usually template-based | No |
| AI retry timing optimizer | Yes — per decline type | Rarely | No |
| Hosted payment update page | Yes — branded | Varies | Basic link |
| Setup time | < 5 minutes | Varies | Native |
| Team members | Yes (Pro/Agency) | Often enterprise tier | Via Stripe |
| Analytics & exports | Full dashboard + CSV/PDF | Varies | Limited |
| DPA for GDPR | Included by default | Varies | Yes |
The comparison columns describe the dunning category in general and Stripe’s built-in Smart Retries, not any single named competitor. Products change — verify anything material to your decision directly with the vendor. See our position on comparisons.
What we believe in
Indie-first pricing
Flat subscription. We never take a cut of your recovered revenue. Recover $5k or $500k — you pay the same plan fee.
See the plansNo-code by default
You shouldn't need to hire a developer to stop losing money. Connect Stripe in 2 clicks. Everything else is automatic.
What it doesSecurity first
AES-256-GCM encrypted tokens. HMAC-signed payment links. Card data never touches our servers, which keeps us in PCI DSS SAQ A scope.
Read the security pageTransparency
Our pricing is public. Our sub-processors are named. Our security page says plainly what we are not certified for, as well as what we are.
See every sub-processorAI that earns its place
We use AI (Google Gemini) only where it demonstrably improves outcomes — email personalization and retry timing. Not for gimmicks.
How the AI is usedRelentlessly focused
We do one thing: recover failed Stripe payments. We'll never add project management, CRM, or analytics you already have.
Common questionsHow the product came together
Every capability below exists in the product today. You can check each one against the features page.
- Where it started
The problem
Involuntary churn is the only kind of churn where the customer still wants your product. The payment failed, the retry landed at the wrong moment, or the update link expired — and the subscription quietly ended. Existing tools either priced for enterprises or took a percentage of the money you had already earned.
- First build
Smart retry engine
Connect Stripe, catch the failed-invoice webhook, and classify the decline as soft, hard, or SCA — because each needs a different response. Retries are scheduled per decline type and skip weekends automatically.
- Next
AI email engine
A retry alone does not fix an expired card; the customer has to act. Google Gemini drafts recovery copy from your brand tone and the specific failure reason, with three subject-line variants per step and deterministic A/B rotation.
- Then
Branded card-update page
A hosted page at your own branding with Stripe Elements and inline 3DS. Card details go from the browser straight to Stripe — never through our servers — which is what keeps the whole platform in PCI DSS SAQ A scope.
- Then
Prevention, not just recovery
The proactive expiry scanner finds cards expiring within 60 days and asks for an update before the charge ever fails. The cheapest recovery is the failure that never happens.
- Then
Teams, agencies and integrations
Role-based team access (owner, full access, read only), outbound webhooks to Zapier, Make.com and n8n, Slack alerts, revenue-at-risk thresholds, and CSV/PDF export.
- Most recent
AI retry optimizer
Analyzes your own historical retry outcomes and recommends a retry schedule per decline type, rather than applying one fixed cadence to every kind of failure.
Built in public, open stack
We believe in transparency. Here’s exactly what Payment Recovery System is built on — no vendor lock-in, no black-box magic.
Next.js
Full-stack framework (App Router, RSC)
DigitalOcean Managed Postgres
Primary database (Drizzle ORM, pg driver)
Auth.js v5
Authentication and session management
Stripe Connect
Payment data and retry execution
Google Gemini 2.0 Flash
AI email generation and retry optimization
Resend
Transactional email delivery
DigitalOcean Spaces
S3-compatible object storage
Plesk (Node.js)
Self-hosted production deployment
Which of these process your data, and where, is listed in full on our sub-processors page.
Questions before you commit?
Ask us anything — plan sizing, whether your decline mix suits the product, or how your data is handled. A real person answers.
Start recovering revenue
in the next 10 minutes
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