Dunning Email Statistics (2026): 35+ data points on recovery rates, open rates, and sequence benchmarks
Automatic retries alone recover only ~30% of failed payments, the emails are what capture the rest. Every figure below is traced to a named primary source with the year and a tier label, and where the data does not exist, like granular dunning-email open rates, we say so instead of inventing it.
Recovery rate climbs with each layer
Sources: Recurly (retries ~30%), FlexPay (best-in-class 70-85%).
Key takeaways
- ~30%of failed payments recover on automatic retry alone, with no dunning emails at all. (Recurly Research)
- 70-85%recovery rate is what best-in-class subscription businesses reach with a full stack. (FlexPay)
- ~55%is Stripe's advertised average recovery, a company claim across all business types. (Stripe)
- 23% to 30%is how far Smart Retries moved recovery in Stripe's own Invideo case study. (Stripe (Invideo))
- +10-20 ptsis the recovery lift an optimized retry-plus-email strategy adds over baseline. (Recurly Research)
- ~45-65%open rate for transactional emails like a failed-payment notice, far above marketing email. (Transactional email benchmarks 2025)
- 7 emailsover ~30 days is a standard dunning cadence, front-loaded on the day of failure. (Baremetrics)
- 2-7 daysis the best retry window for insufficient-funds declines, the most recoverable reason. (Recurly Research)
- ~9%of monthly recurring revenue is lost to failed payments on average. (Baremetrics)
- 20-40%of total SaaS churn is involuntary, caused by failed payments not cancellations. (ProfitWell)
- 30%of card accounts change every year, a root cause of the failures dunning recovers. (Visa Account Updater)
- +8.6%year-one revenue lift is achievable from fixing involuntary churn. (Recurly Research)
Section 1
What percentage of failed payments are recoverable?
There is no single recovery number, and anyone who quotes one without a stack is guessing. Recovery is a function of how many tools you layer: automatic retries alone claw back a minority, and each layer you add on top, sequenced emails, a card-update page, better timing, moves the number up. The ceiling for a serious subscription business is far higher than most realize.
For the broader revenue picture, see our recurring revenue and failed payments statistics report.
Section 2
How much do dunning emails lift recovery?
Retries fix the failures a re-charge can resolve; emails recover the ones that need a human, mainly expired and replaced cards. That is why adding a sequenced email flow on top of retries is the single biggest lever after turning retries on. The lift is measured in double-digit percentage points, not rounding error.
Section 3
How many dunning emails should a sequence have, and when?
Cadence is front-loaded. The day-of-failure email is the highest-leverage message because the card is freshest and the customer most likely still engaged; each later touch recovers incrementally less but still meaningful revenue. Most sequences run three to seven emails across roughly a billing cycle.
For the copy, timing, and per-decline-code templates behind these numbers, see dunning email sequence best practices.
Section 4
What are dunning email open rates?
Here we flag a real gap: no primary source publishes granular per-day open rates specific to dunning emails, so treat any blog quoting exact figures like a 41% day-zero open rate with suspicion, we could not trace those to a study. What is well-established is the category. A failed-payment email is transactional and high-intent, and transactional emails open far above marketing email.
Retries and emails do different jobs: see is Stripe Smart Retries enough for where each one stops.
Section 5
Why dunning matters: the cost of involuntary churn
Dunning exists because failed payments are a large, silent leak, churn nobody chose. The customer still wants the product; the card just did not go through. That is what makes recovery the highest-ROI retention work a subscription business can do, and what makes the emails worth getting right.
New to the concept? Start with what is involuntary churn.
The numbers at a glance
Dunning emails by the numbers
The highest-impact figures from across the report, in one place.
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Cite this report
Free to cite with attribution. If you reference a figure, please link to the underlying primary source as well as this page.
How we sourced this
Methodology and sources
Every figure is tagged by source quality: Primary (Stripe and Visa official data), Reputable (Recurly Research, Baremetrics, ProfitWell), and Trade (vendor research and email-benchmark reports, used only with attribution).
We deliberately flag one gap as unverified: granular per-day open rates specific to dunning emails. Several blogs quote exact figures (for example a 41% day-of-failure open rate), but we could not trace them to any published study, dataset size, or methodology, so we do not repeat them. Where a number is a company claim (Stripe's ~55% average recovery) or vendor research (FlexPay), that is stated in the row. Recovery figures are cross-referenced against Recurly and Stripe.
- Recurly Research — Failed Payment Recovery (data-based strategy); Top Payment Decline Reasons; 2025 Churn Report
- Stripe — Billing revenue recovery, Smart Retries docs, Invideo case study (~55% claim; 23% to 30%)
- Baremetrics — Dunning Management guide (cadence, ~9% MRR lost)
- ProfitWell (Paddle) — Involuntary churn share of total churn (20-40%)
- FlexPay — Best-in-class failed-payment recovery (70-85%, vendor research)
- Visa — Account Updater (30% of card accounts change yearly)
- Transactional email benchmarks — Transactional vs marketing open rates (2025, trade)
Last updated: July 2026. We refresh this report quarterly as new primary data is published.
The emails are what recover the rest. Send better ones.
Retries alone recover ~30%. SubRevival runs branded Day 1/3/7 dunning sequences with a hosted card-update page, from $19/mo flat, no code, 5-minute Stripe setup.
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