Launchpad phase one: Dunning
Don't lose subscribers to failed credit cards. Optimize your revenue retention with Recurly’s automated dunning management guide. Learn to map ideal 28-day and 60-day retry windows, construct escalating email flows, and deploy intelligent retry logic to recover revenue seamlessly.
Launch · Launchpad Phase OneDunning optimization
Configure automated payment retries and subscriber communications to recover failed payments without manual intervention.
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Dunning optimizationWhat dunning does
Dunning is the automated process of retrying failed payments and notifying subscribers when a charge doesn't go through. Industry-wide, 20-40% of churn is involuntary. Dunning helps to combat this with automated communication and retries. Depending on your plan, Recurly runs either Static or Intelligent Retries inside every dunning campaign — your job is to configure the campaign settings and window length.
Trail guide: dunning done right
~4 minConfigure your dunning campaign
Every Recurly account has a default dunning campaign. These steps walk you through optimizing it. You can find more technical details for each step in Recurly Docs: Dunning management.
Open dunning management
Navigate to Configuration → Dunning Management. You'll see your default campaign — click into it to edit settings.
Set your dunning window
Set 28 days for monthly plans — this fits just inside the 30-day billing cycle and prevents a second invoice generating before the first is resolved. Use 60 days for plans two months or longer.
Configure your email sequence
For monthly plans, set up 4-5 dunning emails spaced 4-5 days apart across your 28-window. For annual plans, you'll schedule 8-10 emails spread across 60 days. The first should send immediately on failure; each subsequent email should increase in urgency. Every email must link directly to the subscriber's billing portal so they can update their payment method without contacting support.
Set expiration behavior
Choose what happens when dunning ends without recovery: cancel immediately, or move to a past-due grace period. For high-value plans, most merchants keep the subscription active and invoice open to give the subscriber more time.
You don't need to enable retries separately. They run automatically on every failed invoice in your dunning campaign — no setup required. Configure the campaign window and emails, and they'll work around you.
Want a deeper walkthrough? Watch the Dunning Optimization on-demand webinar for benchmarking tips and advanced recovery strategy.
Watch on demand →Dunning checklist
Questions about Dunning?
Our Customer Success team runs weekly Global Office Hours sessions where you can bring your real configuration questions — branding, plan structure, dunning setup, migration strategy, pricing model decisions. No agenda required.
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