Stripe Smart Retries: How to Recover More Failed Payments Automatically

What Are Smart Retries?

Smart retries are an intelligent approach to retrying failed payment transactions. Instead of retrying on a fixed schedule (e.g., every 3 days), smart retries use data analysis and machine learning to predict the optimal time to retry each individual transaction for the highest probability of success.

Traditional retry strategies are one-size-fits-all. They retry all failed payments on the same schedule regardless of the failure reason, the customer payment history, or the time of day. Smart retries, by contrast, analyze multiple factors to determine the best retry time for each specific transaction.

Stripe Smart Retries is the most well-known implementation of this technology. It analyzes billions of data points across the Stripe network to predict the optimal retry time for each transaction. Businesses using Stripe Smart Retries typically see 2% to 6% improvements in revenue recovery compared to fixed retry schedules.

How Smart Retries Work

Smart retries analyze multiple factors to predict the optimal retry time. These include the failure reason (insufficient funds, expired card, bank decline, etc.), the customer historical payment behavior, the time of day and day of week, the card network, the issuing bank, and the customer geographic location.

Based on this analysis, the smart retry system predicts the time window with the highest probability of success for each individual transaction. For example, an insufficient funds failure might be predicted to succeed on the customer next payday, while a bank decline might be predicted to succeed after a short cooling-off period.

The system continuously learns from the outcomes of retry attempts, refining its predictions over time. As more data is collected, the accuracy of the predictions improves, leading to higher recovery rates. This machine learning approach means that smart retries get better the longer they are used.

Implementing Smart Retries with Stripe

Stripe Smart Retries is available to all Stripe Billing customers at no additional cost. To enable it, go to your Stripe Dashboard, navigate to Billing settings, and toggle on Smart Retries. Stripe will automatically apply smart retry logic to all future payment failures.

You can customize the retry schedule by setting the maximum number of retry attempts and the overall retry window. Stripe recommends allowing up to 7 retries over a 3-week period for optimal results. However, you can adjust these settings based on your business needs and customer preferences.

Monitor your smart retry performance through the Stripe Dashboard. Track metrics including the number of payments retried, the recovery rate, and the revenue recovered. Compare these metrics with your previous fixed retry schedule to quantify the improvement.

Best Practices for Smart Retries

Combine smart retries with dunning emails for the best results. Smart retries handle the technical optimization of retry timing, while dunning emails engage the customer directly and encourage them to update their payment information. Together, these strategies can recover significantly more revenue than either approach alone.

Segment your retry strategy by failure reason. While smart retries optimize timing, different failure reasons may benefit from different approaches. For example, expired card failures are best addressed through card updater services and dunning emails, while insufficient funds failures are best addressed through optimized retry timing.

Do not retry too aggressively. Even with smart retries, too many retry attempts in a short period can trigger additional bank declines and damage your relationship with payment processors. Follow Stripe recommended retry schedule and avoid manual overrides that could undermine the optimization.