TLDR: Failed payments are 20-40% of total SaaS churn. The best dunning tool depends on your scale:
- Under $30K MRR: Stripe Smart Retries (free, built in)
- $30K-$200K MRR: Churnkey ($199/mo) — best ROI
- $200K+ MRR: Churnkey + specialist setup
- Non-Stripe billing: Churnkey (multi-processor) or Recurly's built-in
Dunning is the highest-ROI lever in SaaS churn reduction. A team with $50K MRR and 30% involuntary churn is losing roughly $5K/month to failed payments. Recovering even half of that pays for any dunning tool 5-10x over.
Why dunning matters more than you think
The math is brutal. In most SaaS businesses:
- 20-40% of total churn is involuntary (failed payments, not customer choice)
- Of those failed payments, 60-80% are recoverable with the right system
- Most teams recover only 15-25% because they're using defaults
That means a meaningful chunk of your "churn" is actually a billing problem you can fix in weeks. See the full breakdown in our AI dunning guide.
Quick comparison: top dunning tools for Stripe
| Tool | Best for | Recovery rate | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe Smart Retries | Under $30K MRR | 30-40% | Free |
| Churnkey | $30K-$500K MRR | 45-55% | From $199/mo |
| Recoverly | Mid-market specialist | 45-55% | From $199/mo |
| ProfitWell Recover | Already in Paddle suite | 35-45% | ~$200/mo |
| Stunning | Email-focused recovery | 30-40% | From $79/mo |
| Recurly built-in | If you're on Recurly | 40-50% | Included with Recurly |
The winner: Churnkey for $30K+ MRR
If you're past $30K MRR, Churnkey is the dunning tool I recommend most often. Three reasons:
- Higher recovery rate. 45-55% recovery vs Stripe Smart Retries' 30-40%. That gap compounds.
- Customer-side recovery. Customers get a landing page where they can retry the card themselves. This pattern recovers 15-25% more than vendor-side retries alone.
- Cancellation flow integration. Churnkey also handles cancellation save flows. One vendor, two churn levers.
The pricing math: $199/month base. A team at $50K MRR with 30% involuntary churn loses ~$5K/month to failed payments. Churnkey recovering an additional 10-15% over Stripe Smart Retries saves $500-$750/month — pays back in under a month.
Setup takes 1-2 weeks done properly. Most teams report results within the first month.
Runner-up: Stripe Smart Retries (free)
For teams under $30K MRR, Stripe Smart Retries is the right answer. It's free, built into Stripe Billing, and recovers 30-40% of failed payments with zero setup.
The case for paying for Churnkey instead doesn't make sense at small scale. Smart Retries' 30-40% recovery on $5K/month of failed payments saves $1500-$2000. Churnkey's marginal improvement at this scale doesn't justify the $199/month.