2 builders who never spoke to each other · contested
Automate the failed card chase
The share of stored cards silently failing is far higher than anyone expects, and one founder found roughly half of his invalid nine months in while another discovered a fifth of supposedly paying customers were not. Most failures are a maxed out card at month end rather than a churn decision, so retry repeatedly across a grace period and wire the notice into your support chat. What to do about the customers who pay and never log in is genuinely disputed.
Where this splits
Cohen counts forgotten subscriptions as real revenue at scale, while Levels detects inactive subscribers and pauses their billing rather than continuing to charge.
4 claims against 1
Arvid Kahl · Jason Cohen · Tyler Tringas
Recover every failed payment and keep the revenue
- 01Give a 14 day grace period with repeated charge attempts on failed payments and wire it into your support chat, because most failures are a maxed out card at month end rather than a churn decision.
- 02Automate failed-payment follow-up early instead of chasing expired cards yourself, because doing it by hand quietly leaks a large share of your revenue.
Stop billing customers who have stopped using it
Detect subscribers who have stopped using the product and pause their billing automatically rather than quietly keeping the charge.
- 03Audit your failed card charges early, because the share of stored cards silently failing is far higher than anyone expects.
- 04Count on inattentive subscribers at low monthly prices: at scale, people who keep paying for something they no longer use add up to real revenue.
What it returned
- 20%
After a year of handling this manually the author found that fully 20% of his supposedly paying Storemapper customers were not paying because of billing failures
- $10
He cites shared hosting companies, where forgotten $10/mo subscriptions become a surprisingly large revenue line.
Nine months passed before the author checked, at which point roughly half of his customers' cards were invalid or failing
Sources
- @levelsio's blogPieter Levels · levels.io · Here's a crazy idea: automatically pause recurring subscription of users when you detect they aren't actually using your app · 2015-12-23 · dissenting
- Pricing determines your business modelJason Cohen · longform.asmartbear.com · Pricing determines your business model · 2014-11-05
- The Bootstrapped Founder Newsletter Episode 12 – January 31st 2020 – The Bootstrapped FounderArvid Kahl · thebootstrappedfounder.com · Bootstrapping in Practice · 2020-01-31
- Chapter 3: Finding Micro-SaaS Business Ideas - Tyler TringasTyler Tringas · tylertringas.com · Automate manual tasks · 2016-10-28
- Storemapper Update: 50% revenue growth in 3 months - Tyler TringasTyler Tringas · tylertringas.com · Reducing failed charges · 2014-11-06
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in pricing
- Make them pay before the thing exists8 unconnected · contested
- Decide whether a free tier earns its keep7 unconnected · contested
- Put a cheap rung below the expensive offer7 unconnected · contested
- Undercutting alone is not a position7 unconnected · contested
- Turn the service into a product with a public price7 unconnected
- Charge for the result, not the hours6 unconnected · contested