Choose Stripe Smart Retries when
- You already pay for Billing Scale and only want silent retry recovery.
- You have engineering time to build recovery workflow directly on Stripe's API.
All comparisons
MRRdue vs Stripe Smart Retries
Smart Retries are good — use them if you have them. But in 2026 they are a paid Billing Scale (0.8% of billing volume) feature, and retries alone never tell you which five customers to contact today or what to say. MRRdue is the workflow layer on top of Stripe's retries, not a replacement for them.
Stripe Smart Retries: bundled with Billing Scale (0.8% of billing volume; basic retries on Starter). MRRdue: flat $29–$49/mo, alongside whichever Stripe tier you use. Competitive details verified July 2026 — always confirm current pricing on their site.
Side by side
| Feature | Stripe Smart Retries | MRRdue |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic card retries | Yes — ML-timed retries (Billing Scale tier) | Never retries — and never needs to be trusted not to |
| Who to contact today | No ranked queue; failures listed chronologically | Queue ranked by dollars at risk, decline code, retry history, recoverability |
| Recovery emails | Generic hosted-invoice reminders | Decline-code-specific templates you send from your own address |
| Retention-risk warning before failure | No | At-risk customers scored from cancellation flags, delinquency, unpaid invoices |
| Alerts & digest | Dashboard only | Email + Slack alerts, daily summary, expiring-card pre-dunning (opt-in) |
| API / exports | Stripe API (full billing surface, your own build) | Purpose-built read-only recovery API, CSV/JSON exports, signed webhooks |
| Extra cost at $50K MRR | 0.8% of volume ≈ $400/mo on Billing Scale | $49/mo flat (Growth) |
Choose MRRdue when
- You want to see and work the failures retries did not clear — that is where the human-touch money is.
- You want expired-card and authentication-required cases (which retries rarely fix) handled with a direct note.
- You are on Stripe's Starter tier and don't want to pay 0.8% of volume for recovery tooling.
Common questions
Should I turn off Smart Retries if I use MRRdue?
No — keep them. Retries clear the easy failures silently. MRRdue exists for everything retries don't fix: expired cards, authentication requests, and customers who need a human nudge. MRRdue even waits out Stripe's scheduled retry before suggesting outreach, so you never nudge someone about a charge Stripe is about to retry anyway.
Does MRRdue interfere with Stripe's retry schedule?
It can't. MRRdue's key is read-only — it observes retry metadata (next_payment_attempt) and times its suggestions around it, but Stripe remains the only system that touches the payment.
See your own recoverable revenue first.
Explore the demo with sample data, then connect a read-only restricted key. Your 14-day trial starts only after a successful connection — no card required.