Dunning Lite

Recover failed Stripe payments automatically. Humanized emails, flat-rate pricing, no commissions. Built for indie hackers and micro-SaaS founders.

[Dunning Lite @Dunninglite]

Let's go

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Today my brain: "this is the worst day ever" → "wait, we just shipped" → "WAIT, WE JUST SHIPPED" → tears.😂

Dunning Lite is LIVE on Stripe. First real account connected.💓

Tomorrow I'll tell you who was waiting on the other side of that screen.🤯

What I learned today, money can't buy.💵💵💵

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

@victor_bigfield @aschapmann Loving this 🤝 Free year of @Dunninglite for the winner — Stripe failed payment recovery for when you scale past the MRR you're battling for now. No strings.

(Meanwhile placing my bet on... can't say, both look hungry.)

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

7 days without posting. Wasn't a break — was silent mode.

3 things hit @Dunninglite this week that needed full focus.

Day 26 of Build in Public 👇

[Dunning Lite @Dunninglite]

The lessons life teaches you !!
Save them—here are 6 for free!!! 👇

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

✅ 6 surprises Stripe tutorials don't tell you 👇

Yesterday I spent 7 hours wiring Stripe Connect into my SaaS in production.

Every tutorial promised "5 simple steps."
By hour 4, I had a different list.

#BuildInPublic

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Hi Moonfarm, I'm Gerard,🤝

I'm the plumber making indie founders stop losing money they didn't even know they were losing.

🧹+🤖
Think of it as a Roomba for failed Stripe payments. Runs in the background, picks up the 5-15% MRR that vanishes silently.

@Dunninglite — building it now
https://t.co/CJNcFgVwEw

[Dunning Lite @Dunninglite]

Good Good evening!!😵‍💫💤

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Pulling an all-nighter on plumbing!! A promise is a promise!!!!💪

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Most founders treat every failed Stripe payment the same way.

Same retry email. Same timing. Same wording.

But Stripe tells you WHY each payment failed — in code.

The 4 most common decline codes (and what they actually mean):

1. insufficient_funds
→ Customer wants to pay. Can't. Retry in 3-5 days when payroll hits.
→ Tone: gentle reminder, not "your subscription is cancelled."

2. do_not_honor
→ Bank flagged the charge as suspicious. Customer often unaware.
→ Action: ask them to call their bank OR try a different card.

3. authentication_required (SCA / 3DS)
→ Customer needs to complete 3D Secure step. Common in EU.
→ Action: send the auth link, not a generic retry.

4. expired_card
→ Self-explanatory. But timing matters.
→ Action: prompt for card update 7-10 days BEFORE next renewal cycle.

Same retry email for all of these = wasted recovery.

Match the message to the reason.
That's where most "failed payment recovery" tools stop.
That's where the actual money lives.

Day 14 building @Dunninglite. Templates day done.

#BuildInPublic

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Day 14 tomorrow = templates day.

Locking 2 hours to finalize 18 dunning email templates (3 decline types × 3 days × 2 A/B variants).

This is the unblocker for the actual product.

I'll post the final draft here when done. Accountability is the whole point of building in public.

#BuildInPublic

[Dunning Lite @Dunninglite]

I think our founder must be taking a nap!!!🥱

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

It took me 18 hours to do this!!😱👇
#buildinpublic

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Most "churn reduction" tools are just dressed-up retention emails with a fancy dashboard.

Change my mind.👇Reply

#buildinpublic

[Dunning Lite @Dunninglite]

Featured on Launch Llama. Decline-type-aware Stripe recovery in front of 55k founders 🦙

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Day 13 update — @Dunninglite is live on Launch Llama (thanks @launch_llama 🦙).

DA 50 backlink + 55k newsletter + community voting.

5 upvotes = visibility boost. If you ship on Stripe, a vote would mean the world.

(Link 👇)

[Dunning Lite @Dunninglite]

Day 13 of building this. The SEO foundations playbook from our founder 👇

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Day 13 of Build in Public for @Dunninglite.

$0 MRR. 2,405 impressions. 9 clicks. Position 24.9.

But the SEO foundations are 6 of 7 layers solid: sitemap ✅
robots ✅
llms.txt ✅
JSON-LD ✅
pillars ✅
alternatives ✅
Missing: BreadcrumbList + FAQPage + better internal linking.

The product ships once. The site sells forever.

What's your weakest SEO layer right now? Drop it below — I'll reply to every one in the next hour.

#BuildInPublic #SEO

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

My AI co-founder remembers what I forgot 3 weeks ago.

Most builders use Claude/Cursor as smarter autocomplete.
I wrap it in Gentle-AI — an open-source stack by @G_Programming.

4 things it does that vanilla Claude can't:

1. Persistent memory across sessions (Engram MCP)
Claude forgets when you close. Mine remembers conventions, bug fixes, decisions, even *why* I rejected an approach 3 weeks ago.

2. Skills that auto-load by context
Writing a tweet? Loads my algorithm framework. Editing Go? Loads my testing patterns. Zero manual context-setting.

3. Multi-agent orchestrator (SDD workflow)
explore → propose → spec → design → tasks → apply → verify → archive.
Each subagent starts with a blank slate. 50-70% token savings (documented).

4. Senior architect personality
Ask for a React component without context? It refuses. "Why? Where does it live? What's the prop shape?"
It pushes back instead of pleasing me.

One command installs everything. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, Open Code, VS Code.
Native Windows. Linux. macOS.

Day 12 building @Dunninglite. This stack is doing the heavy lifting.

Open source. Link in replies.

#BuildInPublic

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Day 11. Week 2 sprint for @Dunninglite.

Yesterday's data correction stuck with me. Lesson: conversations > metrics at this scale. So this week is built around that.

The plan:

1. Setup PostHog properly (filter my own noise + conversion goals)
2. Talk to 5+ founders with involuntary churn problems
3. Build a Reddit playbook (r/SaaS, r/stripe)
4. Make Dunning Lite fully demo-ready (videos + landing captures)
5. Publish 2-3 SEO blog posts on dunning
6. 30+ valuable replies in founder threads
7. Ship the "Annual Renewal Reminders" feature

7 items in 7 days. Ambitious. Public.

If you're sprinting too — drop your top item below. Let's keep each other honest until Friday.

#BuildInPublic

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Sunday. 10 days in.

I built a product, posted 50+ times, replied to 30+ founders, and got 9 site visitors.

The numbers are tiny.

But three things happened that no metric captures:

→ A founder told me about her 19% churn. I learned why splitting that number matters.
→ Another shared his Reddit playbook. I'm using it next week.
→ A third one said: "your tweets feel honest". That kept me going.

The data tells you if you're growing.
The conversations tell you if you're worth growing.

Both matter. But only one keeps you human.

Day 11 starts tomorrow. 🫰

#BuildInPublic

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

9 days building in public. Here's what nobody tells you:

The product is the easy part. My AI partner built the entire MVP.

The hard part is sitting in a room full of content nobody reads, replies nobody sends, and analytics that don't move — and choosing to show up again tomorrow.

Not because it's working. Because it might.

If you're in the same boat — reply with your Day count. Let's see who's grinding.

#BuildInPublic #IndieHackers

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Honest realization from Week 1 of #BuildInPublic:

I spent 80% of my time writing content and 20% building product.

And that 80% is what actually moved the needle.

The product was already built. What was missing? People who know it exists.

Distribution isn't a phase. It's the whole game.

#BuildInPublic

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Founders, confess your worst productivity hack:

Mine: I mass-unfollowed 850 accounts in one afternoon to trick the algorithm into showing my tweets to more people.

It worked. TweepCred went from 64 to 79. Full distribution unlocked.

Sometimes growth isn't about creating more. It's about removing what holds you back.

What's yours? Drop it below — no judgment zone.

#BuildInPublic

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Day 7 of building @Dunninglite.

Yesterday I shared the 3 types of Stripe payment failures and how to handle each one.

Today I want to show you what we're actually building behind the scenes.

Most dunning tools work like this:
Payment fails → retry card → send generic email → hope for the best

Here's our approach:

STEP 1: CLASSIFY
Before anything else, we detect WHY the payment failed. Soft decline? Hard decline? SCA failure? Each one gets a different path.

STEP 2: RESPOND
The right email for the right problem. Plain text, from the founder. Not a template that screams "this is automated."

Soft decline → patient, casual, no shame
Hard decline → fast, direct, one-click card update
SCA failure → educational, step-by-step, zero blame

STEP 3: LEARN
Every failed payment becomes a data point:
→ What type of failure is most common for YOUR customers?
→ Which email variant recovers more? (we A/B test every sequence)
→ What do customers say when they reply? (sentiment analysis)
→ Are there seasonal patterns in your failures?

STEP 4: PREVENT
This is what nobody else is building:
→ Card expiring in 30 days? We alert your customer BEFORE it fails
→ Annual plan renewing? We send a heads-up so they're never surprised by a charge

React → Recover → Learn → Prevent

That's the full cycle. Most tools only do step 1 and 2. We're building all four.

Shipped this week:
→ 18 email templates (3 decline types × 3 days × 2 A/B variants)
→ Email sequence engine (day 0, 3, 7 — automatic)
→ Recovery tracking via Stripe webhooks

Building next:
→ Customer feedback capture from email replies
→ Decline pattern dashboard
→ Pre-dunning card expiry alerts

One thing I keep telling myself: don't just recover the payment. Recover the relationship. The money follows.

#BuildInPublic #SaaS

[Gerard Ill @IllGerard]

Today it's time to add a little value.
My Day 6 #BuildInPublic

Your Stripe payment just failed.

But do you know WHY it failed? And more importantly — do you know that sending the same email for every failure is like a doctor prescribing the same pill for a headache, a broken arm, and the flu?

Here's everything I've learned about payment failures while building @Dunninglite. A thread that could save you thousands in MRR.

Let's start with a number that should scare you:

The average SaaS loses 9% of its recurring revenue to failed payments every year. That's basically an entire month of growth — gone. Not because customers left.
Because a card expired.

And here's the thing: 80-90% of those failures are RECOVERABLE. You're just not recovering them because you're treating every failure the same way.

There are 3 types of payment failures. Each one needs a completely different response:

TYPE 1: SOFT DECLINE (insufficient funds)

This is the most common — about 44% of all failures. The card is valid, the customer wants to pay, but the money isn't there right now.

What happens if you email immediately? You embarrass them. They feel called out. Some will cancel out of shame.

What you SHOULD do:
→ Wait 2-3 days. Many soft declines resolve on their own (payday hits, transfer clears)
→ If it fails again after 3 days, consider offering a 15-20 day grace period. Your customer might be going through a tough moment. Help them. A customer you
helped when things were hard becomes a customer for life.
→ If you email, be casual: "Hey, looks like your last payment didn't go through. These things happen."
→ Never mention "insufficient funds" — the customer knows. You don't need to say it.
→ Recovery rate: HIGHEST of all three types. Patience and empathy are your best tools here.

TYPE 2: HARD DECLINE (expired or cancelled card)

The card is dead. No amount of retrying will fix it. This is about 30% of failures, and it's where most SaaS founders lose money unnecessarily.

Why? Because Stripe's Smart Retries will keep trying a dead card for weeks. Meanwhile, your customer forgets about you.

What you SHOULD do:
→ Email FAST — within hours, not days
→ Make updating the card stupidly easy. One click. Not "log into your account, go to settings, find billing..."
→ Remind them what they'll lose: "Your [feature they use most] will stop working in 3 days"
→ Recovery rate: MEDIUM — but speed is everything. After 7 days, recovery drops dramatically.

TYPE 3: SCA / 3D SECURE FAILURE (bank authentication)

This is the one nobody talks about. The customer's bank required extra verification (3D Secure), and the customer either didn't see it, didn't understand it, or
their bank app crashed.

The customer often has NO IDEA their payment failed. They think everything is fine.

What you SHOULD do:
→ Explain what happened: "Your bank asked for extra verification and it wasn't completed"
→ Give them clear steps: "Open your banking app, approve the transaction, done"
→ Don't blame them. Don't blame the bank. Just help.
→ Recovery rate: HIGH — once they understand the problem, most customers fix it immediately.

Now here's where it gets interesting.

Stripe's default failed payment email treats ALL THREE the same way:

"Your payment for $XX failed. Please update your payment method."

That's it. Same generic message for insufficient funds, expired cards, and bank authentication failures. Three completely different problems. One lazy email.

It's like getting a notification that says "something is wrong with your car" — Is it the gas? The engine? A flat tire? You need DIFFERENT information to fix
each one.

THE DATA BEHIND SMART DUNNING:

→ The day-of-failure email has a 13.25% recovery rate — highest of any touchpoint
→ But 42% of all recovery happens AFTER day 14. Patience matters.
→ Personalized emails get 62% more responses than generic ones
→ Casual, well-crafted emails hit 60% open rates — DOUBLE typical dunning emails
→ Pre-dunning (emailing before the card expires) reduces failures by 25%
→ Silent retries recover 21% before you even need to send an email

THE REAL COST — DO THE MATH:

200 customers × $49/mo = $9,800 MRR
5% failure rate = 10 failed payments/month
Average recovery without dunning: 30% (3 recovered)
7 lost customers × $49 = $343/month lost
That's $4,116/year. From a $9,800 MRR business.

With smart dunning (different email per failure type):
Recovery rate jumps to 50-70%
You save 5-7 of those 10 customers
That's $2,940-$4,116/year SAVED.

For most micro-SaaS, that's the difference between growing and dying.

WHAT WE'RE BUILDING AT @DUNNINGLITE:

→ Classify the failure type FIRST (soft, hard, SCA)
→ Send the RIGHT email for each type
→ Plain text from the founder — not a corporate robot
→ Capture customer feedback from every interaction
→ Turn failure data into business intelligence
→ Pre-dunning alerts before cards expire
→ Annual renewal reminders

Different problem → different email → better recovery → happier customers.

One thing I want you to take away from this thread:

If you're on Stripe and you haven't looked at your decline codes in the last 30 days, do it now. Go to Stripe Dashboard → Payments → Failed. Look at the reasons.

You'll be surprised.

And if you want to see how much MRR you're losing, I built a free calculator:
https://t.co/kVi7Wqy4sA

No signup. 30 seconds. The number will hurt — but at least you'll know.

Day 6 of #BuildInPublic

#SaaS #Stripe #IndieHackers #MicroSaaS