The DIY version
Listen to Stripe events, dedupe deliveries, map failure codes, schedule emails, track invoice state, and build a recovery report.
Build vs buy
Dunlo vs custom Stripe webhooks
You can build failed-payment recovery yourself with Stripe webhooks, an email provider, a retry policy, and reporting. Dunlo packages that workflow for founders who would rather recover revenue than maintain billing edge cases.
The hidden cost
The first webhook is easy. The maintenance cost lives in edge cases: duplicate events, stale state, retries, access rules, and missing visibility.
The Dunlo version
Connect Stripe, review the default sequences, and keep the recovery workflow outside your product roadmap.
Comparison
What changes in practice
This comparison is based on public product pages and documentation. Dunlo details reflect the current beta offer.
| Criteria | Custom Stripe webhooks | Dunlo |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Requires webhook endpoints, queueing or jobs, email provider integration, templates, and a reporting surface. | Connect Stripe, review recovery sequences, and start monitoring failed payments. |
| Failure-code logic | You define and maintain the mapping from Stripe failure reason to customer action. | Built around failure-code-specific recovery messages and timing. |
| Reporting | You need to build MRR at risk, recovery rate, recovered amount, and open recovery state yourself. | Recovery visibility is part of the product surface. |
| Maintenance | Engineering-owned. Every billing edge case becomes product maintenance. | Product-owned by Dunlo, with a narrow scope around Stripe recovery. |
| Best fit | Teams that want billing recovery logic deeply customized inside their app. | Founders who want the recovery discipline without building a billing subsystem. |
Who should use Custom Stripe webhooks
- You need custom app access rules tightly coupled to billing state.
- You already have strong billing infrastructure and own background jobs.
- You want full control over every retry, email, and reporting decision.
Who should use Dunlo
- You want a fast recovery layer without spending weeks on billing plumbing.
- You prefer Stripe-first defaults over a custom internal system.
- You want founder escalation and recovery reporting out of the box.
Public proof
What we can prove today.
Dunlo should earn trust with visible mechanics, public benchmarks, and approved beta evidence instead of vague recovery claims.
Public benchmark
Failure-rate ranges are visible before signup.
The calculator shows the current public MRR bands, estimated failed MRR, and recoverable revenue assumptions without asking for an email first.
Open benchmarkProduct evidence
The workflow is failure-code first.
Dunlo is built around Stripe failure reasons, timed recovery emails, secure update links, and founder escalation for accounts that should not receive generic automation.
See failure codesBeta proof policy
No anonymous uplift claims before approval.
Customer metrics, screenshots, and testimonials are published only when the beta sample is large enough and the customer has approved the public version.
Read report policyFree beta
Recover failed Stripe payments before they become churn.
Build if recovery is a core engineering investment you want to own. Use Dunlo if you need the failure-code workflow, emails, reporting, and escalation now without turning it into an internal project.