Rekko vs Gravy Solutions: Automated Dunning vs Human Recovery Teams

Rekko vs Gravy Solutions: Two Approaches to Payment Recovery

Rekko and Gravy Solutions represent fundamentally different philosophies for recovering failed payments. Rekko automates the process with email and SMS sequences. Gravy puts real humans on the phone with your customers. Both work, but the right choice depends on your business model, deal size, and how you think about cost.

The Core Difference

Rekko is software. You connect your Stripe account, build a recovery sequence mixing email and SMS touchpoints, and let it run. When a payment fails, your customer gets a branded message within minutes, with a direct link to update their card. No human intervention required.

Gravy Solutions is a service. They assign trained recovery specialists to your account. When a payment fails, a real person reaches out to your customer by phone, email, or text. They handle the conversation, answer questions, and guide the customer through updating their payment method.

This isn't a subtle difference. It shapes everything: pricing, speed, scalability, and who each tool works best for.

Feature Comparison

How Gravy's Human Approach Works

Gravy employs trained specialists who become an extension of your team. When a subscription payment fails, a Gravy agent reaches out to the customer directly. They can handle objections, answer billing questions, and walk someone through updating their card over the phone.

This personal touch can be powerful for certain types of businesses. If your average customer lifetime value is high, a phone call from a real person can make the difference. Gravy reports recovery rates of 70-80% on the accounts they work, which is strong.

The downside is speed and scale. A human team operates during business hours and needs time to work through a queue. The first outreach might happen a day after the payment fails. With automated tools, that first email or text goes out in minutes, and the window right after failure is when recovery rates are highest.

How Rekko's Automated Approach Works

Rekko sends the right message at the right time, automatically. You design a sequence of emails and SMS messages with specific delays between each step. When a payment fails, the sequence kicks off immediately.

The multi-channel approach matters here. Email alone has open rates around 20-25%. Adding SMS pushes that first-touch rate above 90%. Most customers with a simple card expiration or insufficient funds will update their payment method as soon as they're aware of the problem. They don't need a phone call; they need a convenient link.

Rekko handles the entire flow: detecting the failure via Stripe webhooks, sending the messages, generating a payment update link, and tracking whether the payment was recovered. You can see everything in the dashboard.

Pricing Comparison

Rekko Pricing (Flat Monthly)

• Starter: $29/month (1,000 emails, 1 Stripe account)
• Essential: $49/month (5,000 emails, 3 Stripe accounts)
• Pro: $129/month (20,000 emails, unlimited accounts)
• SMS: Pay per use on all plans
• You keep 100% of recovered revenue

Gravy Solutions Pricing (Revenue Share)

• No upfront fee in most arrangements
• Gravy takes a percentage of successfully recovered revenue
• Typical revenue share ranges from 10-25% depending on volume and contract terms
• Higher recovery amounts mean higher absolute costs

Cost at Scale

This is where the difference becomes dramatic.

At lower volumes, Gravy's model feels painless because you're only paying when they succeed. But as recovery volume grows, the revenue share becomes a significant expense. Rekko's flat rate stays the same regardless of how much you recover.

When the Human Touch Matters

Gravy's approach has real advantages in specific scenarios:

High-value B2C subscriptions. If you sell $500+/month subscriptions, a phone call from a recovery specialist might convert customers who would ignore emails. The personal touch signals that you care about keeping them.

Complex billing situations. If your customers frequently have questions about what they're being charged for, a human agent can explain and resolve confusion in real time.

Customers who are considering canceling. Gravy agents can sometimes save customers who aren't just dealing with a card issue but are on the fence about continuing. This blurs into voluntary churn reduction.

Non-technical customer base. If your customers aren't comfortable updating payment information online, a guided phone call can help.

When Automation Wins

Rekko's automated approach is stronger in other scenarios:

Speed of first contact. The first hour after a payment fails is the highest-converting window. Automated messages go out in minutes. Human agents take hours or days.

High volume, lower ACV. If you have thousands of customers paying $10-100/month, the economics of human outreach don't work. Automated email and SMS recover these efficiently.

Predictable costs. You know what Rekko costs every month. With revenue share, your costs fluctuate and grow with success, which creates an odd incentive structure.

24/7 coverage. Payment failures don't happen only during business hours. Automated sequences run around the clock, on weekends, and on holidays.

Full control. You design the messaging, the timing, the brand voice. With Gravy, you're trusting their team to represent your brand correctly.

Who Should Choose Rekko

Rekko is the better fit if:

• Your average subscription is under $200/month
• You want immediate outreach when payments fail
• You prefer flat, predictable pricing
• You're on Stripe and want a quick setup
• You want full control over messaging and sequences
• You have moderate to high volume of failed payments

Typical Rekko customer: SaaS companies on Stripe with monthly subscriptions ranging from $10 to $200, processing hundreds to thousands of payments monthly.

Who Should Choose Gravy Solutions

Gravy makes sense if:

• Your average deal size is $500+/month
• You have a smaller number of high-value accounts
• Personal outreach aligns with your brand
• You want someone else to handle the recovery process entirely
• Your customers respond better to phone calls than emails
• You're willing to pay a premium for the personal touch

Typical Gravy customer: B2C subscription businesses with higher price points, membership organizations, or companies with a concierge-level brand where automated messages feel off-brand.

Can You Use Both?

Some companies use automated dunning as the first line of defense and then escalate to human recovery for accounts that don't respond. This layered approach can capture the speed advantage of automation and the personal touch of human outreach for stubborn cases.

If you go this route, Rekko handles the initial automated sequence. Any accounts that don't recover after the sequence completes could be flagged for manual outreach, either through Gravy or your own team.

The Bottom Line

Choose Rekko if you want fast, automated, multi-channel recovery with predictable costs. For most SaaS companies with standard subscription price points, automated email and SMS sequences recover the majority of failed payments without any human involvement.

Choose Gravy if your business has high-value accounts where a personal phone call can make the difference, and you're comfortable with the revenue share model. Gravy's human approach shines in situations where the relationship and deal size justify the cost.

For the average SaaS company, automation handles 80-90% of recoverable payments. The question is whether the remaining 10-20% justifies a revenue share model, or whether your team can handle those edge cases internally.