Last month we talked to a founder running a $180K MRR B2B SaaS on Stripe. He'd been relying on Stripe Smart Retries alone and assumed his recovery was "fine." When we pulled his numbers together, involuntary churn was eating roughly 7% of MRR. That's about $12,600 a month walking out the door because nobody had picked a proper recovery tool.
If you're running subscriptions on Stripe, your recovery stack matters more than most founders realize. Failed payments cause roughly 9% of SaaS MRR loss on average, and card expirations alone drive about 40% of those failures. The gap between doing nothing and running a real email plus SMS sequence is usually 40 to 50 percentage points of recovery rate.
This guide cuts through the marketing pages and compares the tools SaaS teams actually consider in 2026.
How we evaluated each tool
Four criteria matter when you're picking a recovery tool for a Stripe SaaS:
- Speed of setup. Every day you delay costs money. A tool that takes two weeks to integrate is a tool that isn't recovering anything in week one.
- Recovery performance. Does it combine channels? Does it retry intelligently? Does it include pre-authenticated update links?
- Pricing model. Flat fee, percentage of recovered revenue, or per-seat. Each model has trade-offs we'll cover.
- Support quality. When a webhook breaks on a Friday night, who picks up?
Quick comparison
| Tool | Setup time | Channels | Pricing model | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rekko | 5 minutes | Email + SMS | Flat monthly fee | Stripe SaaS $10K-$500K MRR |
| Churnkey | 1 to 2 hours | Tiered + % cut on some plans | Mid-market, retention suite | |
| Churn Buster | 1 hour | Tiered by MRR | SMB to mid-market | |
| Stunning | 30 minutes | Flat tiered | Bootstrapped, email-only | |
| Baremetrics Recover | 30 minutes | Add-on to Baremetrics | Existing Baremetrics users | |
| Stripe Smart Retries | Included | None (retries only) | Free with Stripe | Minimum viable recovery |
| Stripe Billing dunning | Built-in | Free with Stripe Billing | Teams on Stripe Billing |
1. Rekko
Rekko is a focused Stripe payment recovery tool. Connect your Stripe account via OAuth, pick a sequence template, and you're running within five minutes. It's the only tool in the affordable tier that ships email and SMS together in the same sequence.
What it does well. Real-time webhook detection, pre-authenticated payment update links so customers don't have to log in, multi-channel sequences, and a flat pricing model that doesn't punish you for recovering more revenue. Teams that layer SMS on top of email typically see recovery rates jump from the 50 to 60% range into the 70 to 80% range.
Trade-offs. Stripe only. No cancel flow for voluntary churn. No A/B testing yet.
Pricing. $29 to $129 per month flat, with SMS at pass-through cost.
2. Churnkey
Churnkey is a retention suite rather than a pure dunning tool. It handles both involuntary (failed payments) and voluntary (cancel flows) churn. If you've already solved basic recovery and want deeper analytics plus cancel deflection, it's a reasonable next step.
What it does well. Cancel flow with offers, segmentation, A/B testing, and a polished analytics dashboard.
Trade-offs. No native SMS. Pricing climbs quickly once you're above $500K MRR, and some plans include a percentage cut of recovered revenue on top of the base fee. Setup takes meaningfully longer than a focused tool.
See our Rekko vs Churnkey breakdown for a deeper look.
3. Churn Buster
Churn Buster has been in the recovery space since 2015 and built a solid reputation with SMB SaaS teams. It's email-focused with Stripe, Recurly, and Chargebee integrations.
What it does well. Good templates, decent deliverability, clean reporting.
Trade-offs. Email-only. Pricing scales with MRR, which can feel punitive once recovery is working. No SMS means you're leaving the easiest 20% of recovery gains on the table.
More context in our Churn Buster alternative guide.
4. Stunning
Stunning is one of the oldest Stripe dunning tools. If you want something simple, proven, and email-only, it works.
What it does well. Reliable email delivery, credit card expiration reminders, Stripe customer portal integration.
Trade-offs. The interface feels dated. No SMS. Limited customization beyond the template library.
Full comparison at Rekko vs Stunning.
5. Baremetrics Recover
Recover is an add-on to Baremetrics. If you're already paying for Baremetrics analytics, adding Recover is a natural extension.
What it does well. Unified dashboard for MRR, churn, and recovery. Good cohort analysis.
Trade-offs. Requires a Baremetrics subscription, so the total bill stacks up. Recovery is a secondary focus for the product team. No SMS.
More at Baremetrics Recover alternatives.
6. Stripe Smart Retries
Stripe Smart Retries is included free with any Stripe subscription. It uses machine learning to time retry attempts based on signals like card network, historical success rates, and time of day.
What it does well. Free. Zero setup. Recovers roughly 30% of failed payments on average according to Stripe's own published data.
Trade-offs. Retries only. No customer communication. No email, no SMS, no recovery links. You're capping your recovery at what Stripe's retry logic alone can achieve, which is about half of what a tool with customer outreach delivers.
7. Stripe Billing native dunning
If you're on Stripe Billing (not just Stripe Payments), the included dunning emails are a step up from Smart Retries alone. You get basic email sequences triggered by failed payments.
What it does well. Included in Stripe Billing. No extra tool to manage.
Trade-offs. Templates are generic and hard to customize meaningfully. No SMS. No pre-authenticated update links (customers have to log into the customer portal). Reporting is thin.
See the full Stripe Billing recovery comparison.
Recovery rate reality check
Here's what you can realistically expect by tool category:
| Setup | Typical recovery rate |
|---|---|
| Nothing (card declines, done) | 10 to 15% |
| Stripe Smart Retries alone | ~30% |
| Stripe Billing dunning emails | 40 to 50% |
| Dedicated email-only tool (Stunning, Churn Buster) | 50 to 60% |
| Email plus SMS tool (Rekko) | 65 to 80% |
| Full retention suite with cancel flows | 70 to 85% |
The biggest single lever most teams aren't pulling is SMS. Text messages see 90%+ open rates within minutes, compared to 20 to 30% for dunning email. When a customer's card fails, reach them where they actually check.
Pricing model trade-offs
Flat monthly fee (Rekko, Stunning). Predictable. You keep 100% of what you recover. Scales well for high-volume SaaS because the price doesn't move.
MRR-scaled tiers (Churn Buster, Churnkey). Gets expensive as you grow. The tool that made sense at $50K MRR costs 5x more at $500K MRR even though your setup is identical.
Percentage of recovered revenue. Feels fair but punishes success. If you recover an extra $20K/month, you hand back $2K to $4K depending on the cut.
Free with billing platform (Stripe Billing, Paddle Retain). Zero marginal cost but limited ceiling on recovery performance.
For a deeper look at flat-fee economics, see our pricing page.
How to pick
If you're on Stripe and want the highest recovery ceiling: A dedicated tool with email plus SMS. Rekko is the only option in the sub-$150/month tier that ships both channels.
If you already solved dunning and need cancel flows: Churnkey or a similar retention suite.
If you're pre-revenue or under $5K MRR: Turn on Stripe Smart Retries and Stripe Billing's built-in dunning. Revisit in three months.
If you already pay for Baremetrics: Recover is a reasonable add-on. Just know you're capping at email-only performance.
If you need a UK-focused or GDPR-specific setup: Any of the tools above work, but check our dunning software UK SaaS guide for specifics.
Try Rekko free
If you're running Stripe and want recovery that actually uses both email and SMS, Rekko takes about five minutes to set up. Connect your Stripe account, pick a sequence template, and start recovering failed payments the same day.
- Flat pricing from $29/month
- Email plus SMS in one sequence
- Pre-authenticated payment update links
- Real-time recovery dashboard
Start your 14-day free trial. No credit card required.