Every Stripe subscription business leaks money to failed payments. Cards expire, banks decline, balances run dry. Dunning tools exist to win that money back with retries, recovery emails, and card update links. The category works, but the tools price themselves very differently, and the right choice depends almost entirely on your size and how much platform you actually want.
This guide compares the five tools people most often shortlist for Stripe in 2026. All pricing below comes from each vendor's published pages as of July 7, 2026.
The short version
- Under roughly $4,000 MRR: buy nothing. Turn on Stripe's free Smart Retries and automatic emails. Our guide to recovering failed payments on Stripe walks through exactly how.
- You want a full retention platform: Churnkey or Churn Buster. Cancel flows, deeper tooling, bigger budgets.
- You want the longest track record: Stunning has been recovering Stripe payments since 2012.
- You want the lowest entry price and accept a percentage: Reecova at $49.99 per month plus 10% of recoveries.
- You want one flat price that never scales with your MRR and no percentage cut: that is RecoveryMRR at $99 per month, and it is the entire reason we built it.
Comparison table
Published pricing as of July 7, 2026. Scroll sideways on mobile.
| Tool | Published price | % of recoveries | Scope | Honest note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RecoveryMRR | $99/month flat, never scales with MRR | None | Email dunning only: branded three email sequence with one click card update links | New in 2026, no long track record yet |
| Stunning | Fixed monthly fee set by your MRR on a pricing slider; their example area is around $120/month | None | Failed payment recovery for Stripe | 14+ years in the space; claims over $13 billion recovered since 2012 |
| Churnkey | Starter at $250/month billed yearly for teams under $5k/month churn volume; higher tiers quote only | None | Full retention platform: dunning plus cancel flows, A/B testing, AI features | The most complete platform here, priced like one |
| Churn Buster | From $149/month, priced by your MRR | None | Failed payment recovery; also offers a $1,000 one time advisory service | Flat fee model, but the fee grows as your MRR grows |
| Reecova | $49.99/month plus 10% of recovered revenue | 10% | Failed payment recovery; includes a free read only audit scan | Lowest sticker price, but the percentage grows with your success |
RecoveryMRR
RecoveryMRR does one thing: when a Stripe payment fails, it sends a branded three email recovery sequence on day 0, day 3, and day 7, each with a one click link for the customer to update their card. Setup takes about 5 minutes, and you can install it in one click from the Stripe App Marketplace. The price is a flat $99 per month no matter how large your MRR gets, and we never take a percentage of what we recover.
Now the honest part. RecoveryMRR launched in 2026, so it has no long track record yet. It is email sequences only: no cancel flows, no SMS, no A/B testing. And there is a real breakeven. At a typical monthly failed payment leak of about 5% of MRR, with roughly half of that realistically recoverable, $99 per month only pays for itself somewhere above roughly $4,000 to $6,600 MRR. The low end credits dunning with the full recovery; the high end counts only what Stripe's free retries would have missed. Below that range, use Stripe's free built in tools and keep your money. We say the same thing on our homepage calculator.
Choose RecoveryMRR if: you are past roughly $5,000 MRR, you want dunning emails handled and nothing else, and you want a price that stays put while your MRR grows.
Stunning
Stunning is the veteran of this category. It has been recovering failed Stripe payments for over 14 years and claims more than $13 billion recovered since 2012. Pricing is a fixed monthly fee based on your MRR, set through a slider on their site; the example area they show is around $120 per month. Like us, they explicitly charge no percentage of recoveries, which we respect.
The tradeoff is the pricing model itself: because the fee is set by your MRR, your bill rises as you grow. If your MRR puts the slider near their example area, Stunning is a strong and battle tested choice. If you would rather your dunning bill never move again, that is the one thing it does not offer.
Choose Stunning if: you want the longest track record in Stripe dunning and are comfortable with a fee that follows your MRR upward.
Churnkey
Churnkey is not really a dunning tool; it is a retention platform that includes dunning. Alongside failed payment recovery you get cancel flows, A/B testing, and AI features aimed at voluntary churn, meaning the customers who actively choose to leave. Its published Starter plan is $250 per month billed yearly, intended for teams with under $5,000 per month in churn volume, and higher tiers are quote only. There are no percentage of recovery fees.
If your problem is bigger than failed cards, if people are cancelling on purpose and you want software that fights for the save, Churnkey is arguably the most capable product on this page. But that capability starts at $3,000 per year. If all you need is recovery emails, you would be paying for a platform and using one room of it.
Choose Churnkey if: you have real voluntary churn to fight, the budget for a platform, and a team that will use cancel flows and A/B tests.
Churn Buster
Churn Buster prices itself at "From $149/mo Based on MRR." It uses a flat fee model like ours, with no percentage of recoveries, but the fee scales with your MRR rather than staying fixed. They also offer a $1,000 one time advisory service for teams that want expert help beyond the software.
Philosophically, Churn Buster and RecoveryMRR agree: percentage of recovery pricing punishes you for succeeding. Where we differ is that their flat fee climbs as you grow, starting at $149 per month, while ours stays at $99 forever. In exchange, Churn Buster brings years of history and deeper tooling than our three email sequence.
Choose Churn Buster if: you want an established recovery specialist with no percentage fees and you are comfortable with pricing that steps up alongside your MRR.
Reecova
Reecova has the lowest sticker price here: $49.99 per month plus 10% of recovered revenue, and it includes a free read only audit scan so you can see your failed payment problem before paying anything. That audit is a genuinely useful way to size your leak with zero commitment.
The math is the thing to watch. Because of the 10% cut, Reecova's real cost grows with your results. Recover $500 in a month and you pay about $100 total, right at our price. Recover $1,000 and you pay about $150. Recover $2,000 and you pay about $250. The better it works for you, the more it costs, which is exactly the pricing style the rest of this list avoids.
Choose Reecova if: your recovery volume is small, you want the cheapest way in, and you are fine sharing 10% of whatever comes back.
When you should buy none of these
If your MRR is under roughly $4,000, stop here. Stripe already includes Smart Retries and automatic failed payment emails for free, and at small scale they recover most of what any paid tool would. A $99 tool that recovers $60 is a bad deal, and we would rather tell you that now than refund you later.
Turn on the free features first, measure your leak for a month or two, and revisit paid tools when the math clears. We wrote a full walkthrough of the free setup, the gap it leaves, and the exact email playbook in our guide to recovering failed payments on Stripe.
The bottom line
All five tools are honest businesses solving a real problem, and the failed payment leak is worth fixing at almost any scale. The differences come down to pricing shape and scope. Platforms like Churnkey do the most and cost the most. Stunning and Churn Buster bring long histories with fees that track your MRR. Reecova gets you started cheap and takes a share of the wins.
Our thesis is simple: if you want a flat price that never scales with your MRR and no percentage cut of the revenue you recover, RecoveryMRR is the simple option. $99 per month, a branded three email sequence with one click card update links, about 5 minutes to set up, and a one click install from the Stripe App Marketplace.
Stripe dunning tools, answered
What is the cheapest Stripe dunning tool?
It depends on how much you recover. Reecova has the lowest sticker price at $49.99 per month, but it also takes 10% of recovered revenue, so its real cost grows with your results. RecoveryMRR is a flat $99 per month with no percentage. And below roughly $4,000 MRR the honest answer is neither: use the free tools built into Stripe.
Do I need a dunning tool at all, or is Stripe enough?
Stripe includes free Smart Retries and automatic failed payment emails, and for small merchants they are genuinely good. A paid tool only makes sense once the extra revenue it recovers clears its own price. For a $99 per month tool that typically means somewhere above roughly $4,000 to $6,600 MRR. Below that, turn on the free Stripe features and keep your money.
Which Stripe dunning tools take a percentage of recovered revenue?
Of the tools compared here, only Reecova takes a percentage: $49.99 per month plus 10% of recovered revenue. Stunning explicitly charges no percentage, Churnkey publishes flat plan pricing, Churn Buster charges a flat fee that scales with your MRR, and RecoveryMRR is a flat $99 per month with no percentage.
What is the difference between a dunning tool and a churn prevention platform?
A dunning tool focuses on failed payments: retries, recovery emails, and card update links. A churn prevention platform such as Churnkey goes further with cancel flows, A/B testing, and AI features that also target voluntary churn, meaning customers who choose to leave. Platforms do more and cost more; dunning tools do one job at a lower price.
Is RecoveryMRR worth it if the product is so new?
That is a fair concern, and we say it plainly on this page: RecoveryMRR is new and has no long track record yet. What you get is a proven playbook, a branded three email sequence with one click card update links, at a flat $99 per month that never scales with your MRR. If you want a long track record today, Stunning has been doing this since 2012.
How much failed payment revenue can dunning actually recover?
A typical subscription business leaks around 5% of MRR each month to failed payments, and with retries plus a proper email sequence roughly half of that is commonly recoverable. Your number depends on your customer base, card mix, and how quickly your emails go out, so treat any vendor's figure, including ours, as an estimate rather than a promise.