Stripe Smart Retries, plus everything they leave behind
Stripe Smart Retries pick a better moment to charge a failed renewal, and they do that job well. They do not tell you how much revenue ends the retry schedule unpaid, which cards expire next month with nobody asking for a new one, which customers still pay an old price, or which coupons never end. RevenueLeak connects to Stripe Billing with a restricted read-only key, measures every leak in dollars per month and adds recovery only where Stripe stops.
What we read from Stripe Billing
The audit reads the objects that describe what a customer should pay and what they actually paid. Nothing else is requested, and every read goes through the official Stripe API.
| Stripe object | What the audit uses it for |
|---|---|
| Subscriptions and subscription items | Plan, quantity, status, billing cycle, cancellation reason and date |
| Prices and products | Your current price list, compared with the price each customer pays |
| Invoices and invoice lines | Billed periods, prorations, amounts due, paid and unpaid states |
| Payment attempts and charges | Each attempt, its result and the decline code from the card network |
| Customers and payment methods | Card expiry month and year, card country, never the full card number |
| Coupons and promotion codes | Discount size, duration and which accounts still carry them |
| Refunds and disputes | Refund patterns, dispute status and the response deadline |
- The first audit reads up to 24 months of history.
- Card numbers never reach us. Stripe exposes only the brand, the last four digits and the expiry date.
How our schedule sits next to Smart Retries
We never switch Smart Retries off, and we never ask you to. They stay in charge of the attempts Stripe already makes. RevenueLeak reads each attempt, its timing and its decline code, then looks at what happens when the schedule ends. If the invoice is still open, the subscription moves to past due, unpaid or canceled depending on your Stripe settings, and that is where the money usually goes quiet.
- A hard decline such as an expired or stolen card is not worth another retry, so we send a card update email with a secure payment update page instead.
- A soft decline such as insufficient funds that Stripe gave up on can get one more attempt near the next likely payday, if you switch that rule on.
- A renewal that needs customer authentication gets an email with the link to confirm the payment.
- When a Stripe email for failed payments is already on, our email rule for the same case stays off, so nobody gets two messages about one invoice.
The full logic by decline code is on the failed payment recovery page, and the email sequence with grace periods is on dunning software.
Stripe failed payments in dollars per month
Stripe dunning answers the question of what to do with one failed invoice. The audit answers the question a finance lead asks first: how much monthly recurring revenue was lost after a failed payment, and how much of it is still recoverable. Every failed renewal in the period is grouped by decline code, by whether the retry schedule ran in full, and by what happened next. For example, if 3,000 USD of monthly subscriptions ended the schedule unpaid and a third of that is soft declines with no further action, the report shows 1,000 USD per month as the recoverable part and lists those accounts by size. Cards that will expire in the next 30, 60 and 90 days are listed next to them, because they become next month's failed payments. The card updater page explains the pre-expiry emails.
Leaks that retries never see
Smart Retries only act on payments that failed. Most of the nine leak categories in a Stripe account are payments that were never attempted at the right amount.
- Customers on legacy prices below your current Stripe price list.
- Upgrades and seat changes where the prorated difference was never invoiced.
- Comped or 100 percent discounted subscriptions that are still active and still used.
- Coupons with a forever duration on large accounts.
- Refund patterns, repeat refunders and disputes close to the response deadline.
- Cancellations that followed a failed payment, which are save candidates.
All nine categories apply to Stripe Billing except abandoned e-commerce checkouts, which belong to stores. Each category, its method and the way it is priced in dollars is described on the billing leakage page.
Connecting with a restricted read-only key
Stripe lets you create restricted API keys that carry only the permissions you choose. You create one in your Stripe dashboard, give it read access to the resources in the table above and no write access, then paste it into RevenueLeak. It takes a few minutes and needs no engineer.
- You create and name the key yourself, inside your own Stripe account.
- We never ask for your Stripe password or your secret key.
- You can roll or delete the key at any time, and the connection stops on the next request.
- A retry rule needs permission for that one action, and RevenueLeak asks for it only when you switch the rule on.
The full permission list, data retention and encryption are on the revenue assurance software page.
Plans for Stripe accounts
Each plan counts one Stripe account as one connected billing account. Recovery and card update emails share one monthly email limit.
| Plan | MRR up to | Stripe accounts | Audit | Emails per month | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 10,000 USD | 1 | Monthly | 300 | 24 USD per month billed yearly, or 49 USD monthly |
| Growth | 100,000 USD | 2 | Weekly | 3,000 | 149 USD per month billed yearly, or 299 USD monthly |
| Scale | 1,000,000 USD | 5 | Daily | 20,000 | 399 USD per month billed yearly, or 799 USD monthly |
| Enterprise | above 1,000,000 USD | 20 | Daily | 100,000 | 999 USD per month billed yearly, or 1,999 USD monthly |
Other platforms connect the same way, see billing integrations and the full plan details on revenue optimization software.
Stripe Smart Retries questions
No. They keep running as they are. We read what they did and add steps only where an invoice is left unpaid.
Not during the audit, which reads with a restricted key. A retry runs only after you switch on that rule and grant permission for it.
No. When Stripe already sends an email for a case, our email rule for that case stays off until you choose otherwise.
Yes. Growth connects 2 accounts, Scale 5 and Enterprise 20, with one combined report and a filter per account.
No. Stripe shares only the card brand, last four digits and expiry date, which is all the card updater needs.
Yes. The estimate on the home page runs in your browser without an account. The full audit and recovery are part of the paid plans.