Payment recovery
The average subscription business loses 5–7% of MRR every year to involuntary churn — payment failures that quietly remove customers who would have stayed. Winback recovers it automatically.
01 · How it works
Stripe retries the card four times across ~21 days. We sit ~24 hours ahead of each retry, sending the customer-facing email Stripe doesn’t. Stripe handles the retry timing; we handle what the customer reads.
Day 0
T1 — Heads up
Stripe’s 1st attempt failed. Customer hears from you immediately, with the reason.
Day 2
T2 — Reminder
24h before Stripe’s 2nd attempt. "Heads up — we’ll retry tomorrow."
Day 3
Stripe retry #2
Succeeds → recovered. Fails → we keep going.
Day 15
T3 — Final reminder
24h before the last automatic retry. Urgency dialled up.
Day 16
Stripe’s last try
Then win-back kicks in if they cancel.
02 · The email
Most payment-failure emails are a generic line and a raw URL. Customers gloss over them. Ours read the failure reason and tell the customer exactly what to do.
From: noreply@billing.example.com
Subject: Payment failed
Hi,
We were unable to process your payment for your subscription. Please update your payment method to avoid service interruption.
https://billing.stripe.com/p/session/test_YWNjdF8xVEwya0VERkJtb3Z…
Thanks.
From: Fitness App <noreply@winbackflow.co>
Subject: Your payment didn't go through
Heads up
Hi Eve,
We tried to charge your card for Premium Monthly ($49.00 USD) but it didn't go through.
Why this happened
Your card expired since the last successful charge.
Best next step
Update the card details (or use a different card) before our next retry.
We'll try again on 2 May — updating before then means no interruption.
— Fitness App
Don't want these reminders? Unsubscribe.
03 · Your dashboard
A snapshot below. Click “Explore the dashboard” for the full preview with the per-row retry detail.
04 · When they click
Apple Pay. Google Pay. Link. Card. Bank. Klarna. Afterpay. Whatever the customer already has set up — they update with one tap. No card numbers to retype. No friction.
On Safari → Apple Pay. On Chrome → Google Pay. Link surfaces everywhere. The customer's already-saved card on their phone is one tap away — no typing.
Every payment method the merchant has enabled in Stripe shows up automatically — including bank debit and BNPL. No extra config, no extra code.
The moment a new card is attached, we retry the open invoice server-side. No waiting for Stripe's next scheduled retry — recovery in seconds, not days.
Update payment method
$12.00 per month
Linear Pro · Resumes immediately after update
Or pay another way
Save info for 1-click checkout with link
Pay faster everywhere Link is accepted.
Powered by stripe· Terms · Privacy
05 · Welcome back
Card updated. Invoice paid. Subscription active again. They see your brand at the top, a clean celebratory card, and nothing about Winback.
Thanks for giving us another try. Your subscription is active again.
Stripe Connect Standard.