Failed Payment Recovery Calculator
See how much MRR you are losing to failed Stripe payments every month, and how much you could bring back with basic dunning.
Your numbers
Stripe's typical SaaS range is 8 to 15 percent. If you do not know, leave 9.
Used to translate lost MRR into number of customers lost.
How much of failed payments you currently recover. Leave 0 if you do nothing.
The leak
You may be losing $1,800 per month from failed payments.
Recovering just 30% could bring back $540 every month, or $6,480 a year.
Breakdown
What recovery looks like
Monthly revenue brought back at common dunning recovery rates.
What is failed payment recovery?
Failed payment recovery, also called dunning, is the process of re-charging customers whose subscription payments failed for reasons outside their control: expired cards, hit credit limits, network errors, fraud holds, or bank-level declines. In SaaS this is called involuntary churn, and it quietly eats 8 to 15 percent of your revenue every month before you even see it on a dashboard.
Most founders find out about failed payments by accident. A customer emails saying they can't log in. You check Stripe and see the subscription cancelled itself two weeks ago after three silent retry attempts. The customer never knew. You never recovered the revenue. They moved on.
How the math works
Monthly at-risk = MRR x Failed Payment Rate
If you do $20K MRR and 9 percent of charges fail, $1,800 is at risk every month.
Currently lost = At-risk x (1 - Recovery Rate)
If you recover 0 percent of failed payments, the full $1,800 walks out the door. Annualize that and it is $21,600 you never see.
Recoverable = At-risk x Target Recovery Rate
A basic dunning sequence (smart retries plus customer-facing emails) typically recovers 30 to 50 percent. Aggressive flows push 70+. That maps to $540 to $1,260 a month back in your pocket on a $20K MRR business.
Typical failed payment rates by stage
The exact number depends on payment methods, geography, and how many of your charges are recurring vs one-time. International cards and prepaid debit cards fail at much higher rates than domestic credit cards.
Recovery rate benchmarks
No dunning
Stripe Smart Retries alone, no emails. You will recover roughly 15 to 25 percent of failed charges purely from retry timing.
Basic dunning
Retries plus 2 to 3 customer-facing emails asking them to update their card. Most tools recover 30 to 50 percent here.
Strong dunning
Personalized emails, in-app banners, timed retries based on decline codes, and SMS for high-value customers. 60 to 75 percent recovery is achievable.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as a failed payment in Stripe?
Any subscription charge that did not succeed: expired card, insufficient funds, hit credit limit, network error, fraud hold, or bank-level decline. Stripe marks these as failed and retries them on its smart-retry schedule, but if no follow-up happens the subscription eventually cancels itself.
What is a typical failed payment rate for SaaS?
Most SaaS businesses see 8 to 15 percent of attempted charges fail. The exact rate depends heavily on geography, payment method, and customer mix. International cards, prepaid debit, and B2C subscriptions push the rate higher. Domestic B2B with corporate credit cards trends lower.
What is a realistic recovery rate?
Stripe's smart retries alone recover roughly 15 to 25 percent of failed charges. Adding a basic dunning email sequence pushes you to 30 to 50 percent. Strong dunning with personalized emails, in-app banners, and SMS for high-value customers can reach 60 to 75 percent.
Why is this called involuntary churn?
Voluntary churn is when a customer actively decides to cancel. Involuntary churn is when a customer is silently kicked out because their payment failed and was never recovered. The customer often did not want to leave, did not know they left, and would happily update their card if asked. It is the cheapest churn to fix.
How does ChurnNote handle failed payments?
ChurnNote watches your Stripe or Lemon Squeezy webhooks, detects failed payments in real time, and sends timed founder-style emails asking the customer to update their card. You see exactly which charges were recovered and which were lost. Setup takes under five minutes.
Will this calculator work for Lemon Squeezy or Paddle too?
Yes. The math is the same regardless of which billing tool you use. Plug in your MRR, your failed payment rate (Lemon Squeezy and Paddle typically run a touch lower than Stripe due to their merchant-of-record model), and your current recovery rate.
How ChurnNote helps
Failed payments are the cheapest churn to fix. Most customers never even knew they left.
ChurnNote connects to Stripe or Lemon Squeezy and automatically captures cancellation reasons, recovers failed payments, and queues win-back emails. So you stop losing revenue silently.
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See the full picture: failed payments plus voluntary churn
The Churn Leak Report combines failed payment loss, voluntary cancellation loss, and win-back opportunity into a single shareable view.