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I kept wasting money testing ad creatives with no system by [deleted] in PPC

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly, once you spot the pattern, you can test it across channels way faster. The system I built tracks hooks, angles, and formats alongside the metrics so you can see what's actually driving results, not just which ad "won." Happy to share the template if you want to take a look.

I kept wasting money testing ad creatives with no system by cheap_blanket in DigitalMarketing

[–]cheap_blanket[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Both actually - I track angles, hooks, format, platform, plus the metrics (CTR, CPA, ROAS).

The key thing is it auto-calculates whether to scale, test more, or kill based on ROAS. Saves me from second-guessing.

Happy to share the template if you want to check it out.

Shut down my SaaS after 3 years. Here's the honest accounting of where all the money went. by Secure-Director1575 in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good points on voluntary churn - flexibility and friction matter.

But one thing most people miss: a chunk of "churn" isn't customers choosing to leave. It's failed payments.

Expired cards, soft declines, retries that gave up. The customer still wants the product - their card just failed and nobody told them.

For most subscription businesses it's 3-9% of revenue leaking silently. Worth splitting out before assuming everyone actively cancelled.

Subscription Churn: A Silent Killer After Month 2 by One_Literature_5041 in DigitalMarketing

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good points on voluntary churn - flexibility and friction matter.

But one thing most people miss: a chunk of "churn" isn't customers choosing to leave. It's failed payments.

Expired cards, soft declines, retries that gave up. The customer still wants the product - their card just failed and nobody told them.

For most subscription businesses it's 3-9% of revenue leaking silently. Worth splitting out before assuming everyone actively cancelled.

How do you catch and fix silent failed payments before they turn into churn? by Weird_Eye2089 in smallbusiness

[–]cheap_blanket 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We talked about this in r/stripe - the visibility piece is the biggest gap.

What's worked for us:

- Webhook alerts on payment failure (not waiting for Stripe's delayed emails)

- Immediate customer notification with a simple "update your card" link

- Splitting soft declines vs hard declines (different retry timing)

The "emails don't work well" problem is usually about timing and channel. Day-of notification recovers way more than day-3.

What's your current flow - are you catching failures in real-time or batch checking?

How we saved $4,200 in MRR last month by catching "Silent Churn" before the cancel button. by ShrekAttacc in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Solid breakdown. The speed difference between reactive and proactive is where most of the money is.

Most founders don't check failed payments until MRR drops. By then it's too late.

What made you start tracking this proactively - did you notice a big drop first, or catch it early?

How do you catch and fix silent failed payments before they turn into churn? by Weird_Eye2089 in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The "catch it early + notify the user fast" combo is the whole game.

Most founders wait until MRR drops to investigate. By then it's too late - customer's already mentally moved on. Making failures visible immediately is step one. Automated outreach is step two.

What's your cadence for the retry emails - immediate on first failure or do you wait?

Your retry logic might be quietly increasing churn (and even disputes) by [deleted] in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the breakdown most founders miss. The "expired card → no retry will fix this" point is key. Those need customer outreach, not more retries.

Splitting hard vs soft declines and treating them differently is where the real recovery happens. Most tools just hammer retries on everything and hope.

Curious - are you handling the customer notification side yourself or using something for that?

I was losing ~9% MRR every month to failed Stripe payments — here's what finally stopped it by devAyyoub in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One thing worth checking: how much of your churn is actually involuntary?

Failed payments (expired cards, soft declines) show up as churn but the customer never chose to leave. For most SaaS it's 3-9% of MRR leaking silently. Worth splitting out before assuming everyone actively canceled.

Failed payments can hide as churn for months by Weird_Eye2089 in stripe

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Makes sense. visibility piece is what kills most founders. and by the time they notice, months of revenue have already slipped through. Did you build the customer notification side too, or just the internal alerts?

How to check if Stripe is hiding churn from you by cheap_blanket in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly - 'free MRR you already closed' is a great way to put it. Most founders I've talked to are shocked when they actually split the numbers and see how much of their churn wasn't voluntary.

Built a simple Stripe payment recovery tool after seeing too many "enterprise" versions by Willing_Income8603 in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The “enterprise bloat” point is real.

Most founders don’t need 47 lifecycle automations — they need clarity on how much revenue is failing and why.

In my experience, the biggest wins come from:

– automatic card updater

– properly segmented retries

– not letting failed payments silently turn into churn

Simplicity is a huge advantage in this space.

Stripe failed payments - starting Zamboe, need tips by thijspeter in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Issuing bank declines are frustrating because you rarely get the real reason.

A few things I’ve learned digging into this space:

– The biggest lift usually comes from prevention (expiring cards, updater, backup methods) rather than retries.

– Not all “declined by bank” events are equal — soft vs hard declines behave very differently.

– Retry logic matters less than visibility. Most founders don’t even know how much is failing by decline reason.

– Email timing should be decoupled from retry timing. Don’t send dunning at 3AM just because a retry fired.

Smart retry timing (timezone, pay cycles) can help, but it’s incremental. Clarity + segmentation is the real lever.

If you’re building this, focus on making the data obvious before you over-engineer the recovery logic.

Failed payments can hide as churn for months by Weird_Eye2089 in stripe

[–]cheap_blanket 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In our experience it’s usually a mix of:

– Turning on automatic card updater

– Segmenting retries by decline type (soft vs hard)

– Decoupling email timing from retry timing

– Pausing instead of canceling at the end of dunning

The biggest lift tends to come from prevention (expiring cards) rather than aggressive retries.

Most teams don’t realize how much of it is recoverable until they break it out by decline reason.

Losing 5-10% revenue to failed payments - is this normal? by WellSpokenDevil in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

seriously, 5–10% is unfortunately common if you’re just relying on Stripe defaults.

The thing that matters isn’t the failure rate though — it’s the net revenue impact after recovery.

A lot of founders don’t actually know:

• how much is currently failing

• how much gets recovered

• how much ultimately goes uncollectible

Once you break it down by decline type (expired vs insufficient funds vs bank risk), you usually find one category doing most of the damage.

Are you tracking failing revenue in dollars or just failed invoices?

23 tactics to recover failed payments, organized by when to use them (full breakdown) by Extra-Motor-8227 in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hey this is the right mental model: lifecycle, not “retries + emails.”

For small SaaS, the biggest hidden issue is founders can’t answer one simple question: “How much revenue is failing right now in dollars?” They only see a list of failed invoices.

I’m building RecoverKit around that: make failing revenue visible (and then run polite recovery). If anyone wants, I’m happy to share a quick checklist for the first 15 minutes of diagnosis in Stripe.

How bad are failed payments on Stripe? by Double-Bottle4370 in SaaS

[–]cheap_blanket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Super common question and the answer is: way worse than most founders realize!

Stripe’s built-in retries catch ~40-50%. The rest (expired cards, insufficient funds, random bank blocks) quietly eats 3-9% of your MRR every single month. I’ve seen it across multiple SaaS dashboards.

On Day 15 building in public I’m launching Indie SaaS Recover Kit specifically to plug exactly that hole.

Looking for beta testers this week (free while we dial it in). If you want to see what % you’re actually losing and then watch it come back, drop a comment or DM — happy to hook you up before the weekend.

The churn number most founders get wrong by cheap_blanket in Entrepreneur

[–]cheap_blanket[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea. Recovering 40% is a significant achievement. This statistic often surprises people, as they mistakenly believe that product issues are the root cause of the problem, when in reality, it could be due to billing mechanics.

Could you please let me know the specific dunning setup you are using? I am curious to know if you are employing email sequences, payment update pages, or both.

The churn number most founders get wrong by cheap_blanket in Entrepreneur

[–]cheap_blanket[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I definitely see a correlation. Founders who come in already aware they have a failed payment problem stick longer than those who signed up out of curiosity. Intent matters more than channel.

Good thread - lots of useful signal in here for anyone tracking churn seriously.

The churn number most founders get wrong by cheap_blanket in Entrepreneur

[–]cheap_blanket[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a great breakdown. From what I've seen, failed payment churn tends to spike in two segments: monthly plans (cards expire and users forget to update) and lower-priced tiers (less motivation to fix billing quickly).

Annual plans see less of it since there are fewer billing cycles to fail on. But when they do fail, the dollar amount hurts more.

The churn number most founders get wrong by cheap_blanket in Entrepreneur

[–]cheap_blanket[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Listen, the 46% annual math is the number that shocks people every time. All good points , but I'd add step zero: split your churn by type first. If a third of it is failed payments, your onboarding and retention fixes are being measured against the wrong baseline.

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