RevGuard
Guide
A dunning email sequence that recovers customers without sounding like a debt collector
A dunning email has one job: get a working card on file. Content that does not serve that, such as urgency banners or a "final notice", works against it.
The five emails and when they go
| When | What it says | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Same hour as a hard decline, or after the payday retries for insufficient funds | The card was declined, here is a ten-second link to update it, nothing else changes. |
| 2 | Day 3 | Short reminder. Same link, freshly minted. One line on what they keep by fixing it. |
| 3 | Day 7 | Ask if something is wrong. Offer a reply address that a human reads. |
| 4 | Day 12 | Access pauses on day 14 unless the card is updated. Plain statement, no threat. |
| 5 | Day 14 | Access paused. The link still works. Their data is safe for 30 days. |
The wording that gets clicks
- Subject lines that say what happened: "Your card was declined" beats "Action required". People open the one that tells them the problem.
- Lead with the fix, not the failure. First sentence: here is the link. Second sentence: why.
- Say what they keep, not what they lose. "Your dashboards and history stay exactly as they are" outperforms "you will lose access".
- Sign it with a name. A reply from a founder is the single most effective dunning message that exists, and it only happens if the email invites one.
The rule most sequences break
Re-check the invoice right before every send. A customer who updated their card an hour ago and then receives "your payment failed" now believes your billing is broken. Fetch the invoice, confirm it is still unpaid, then send. Stop the sequence the moment it is paid, and send one short thank-you instead.
Two mechanics that decide whether the link works
- Billing-portal links expire. Stripe's do. Mint a fresh one at send time, for every email, never once at the start of the sequence.
- Send from an address that receives. A no-reply address turns the best outcome, a reply, into a bounce.
Take the templates
The five emails above, written out with subject lines and merge fields, are in our dunning email pack, pay what you want including nothing. They are the same templates that ship inside RevGuard, where the sequence, the re-check and the fresh links run automatically on your own machine.