Failed payment recovery checklist for Stripe subscriptions
Most teams set up Stripe dunning once and never test it again. Use this checklist to confirm every step of the invoice.payment_failed recovery path still works, end to end, after the last billing change.
Symptoms
- You can't say, with confidence, what a customer sees after a card is declined.
- Smart Retries are 'on' but nobody has confirmed the schedule or attempt count per plan.
- Recovered payments don't reliably re-enable access in the product.
Common causes
- Recovery was configured during launch and never re-tested after price, plan, or template changes.
- Ownership is split: billing settings sit with finance, the email copy with marketing, entitlement with engineering.
- Stripe shows the dunning as 'working' even when the customer-facing link is broken.
Step-by-step fix
- Confirm Smart Retries (or manual retry schedule) is enabled and note the attempt count and spacing.
- Open the failed-payment email a real customer receives and click the actual recovery link.
- Update a card on the hosted invoice / customer portal page and confirm the invoice marks paid.
- Confirm the recovered payment restores entitlement in your app within your expected window.
- Check that a receipt is sent and that any save-offer coupon referenced in email actually applies.
- Confirm the final 'all retries failed' state moves the subscription to your intended status (canceled vs paused).
- Record the result and re-run this check monthly or after any billing change.
Sample output
Checklist run: 12 items, 9 pass, 2 warnings (coupon mismatch, retry count drift), 1 critical (expired hosted invoice link). Est. $820 MRR exposed.
FAQ
What can I see before subscribing?
You can explore the full sample report and every guide for free. A subscription adds recurring monthly monitoring on your own Stripe account, saved run history, change alerts, and exports.
How often should I run this checklist?
Monthly at minimum, and immediately after changing prices, plans, retry settings, or email templates — those are the changes that silently break recovery.
Last updated 2026-06-16. Compiled from common Stripe Billing recovery misconfigurations.
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