Setting Up Dunning Management for Subscriptions

4 min read

Introduction

Dunning Management is used to manage failed subscription payments. It supports notifying customers, retrying the failed charge, and handling the subscription after repeated payment failures, giving merchants a controlled process for payment recovery instead of losing the customer immediately after one failed charge.

Why It Matters

Failed payments that go unmanaged lead to involuntary churn, where a subscription lapses because of a payment issue rather than a customer’s actual decision to leave. Dunning Management lets merchants define retry attempts and outcomes after failures, supporting consistent payment recovery and clear, predictable handling of unpaid subscriptions instead of losing revenue by default.

How to Manage Dunning Management

Step 1: Access the Shopify Admin Portal

Log in to the Shopify admin portal.
Locate the Easy Subscriptions app from the Apps section.

Step 2: Open Settings

Click on the Easy Subscriptions app.
Select Settings.
Click Dunning Management.

Step 3: Configure Dunning Management

Enable the Dunning Management feature.
Set the number of retry attempts for failed payments.
Define the action that occurs after the maximum retry attempts are reached.

Step 4: Save the Configuration

Review all entered details carefully.
Click Save to apply the changes.

Best Practice

Enter retry attempt values carefully. Too few retries can lose recoverable revenue, while too many can frustrate customers or repeatedly hit a card that’s simply expired.
Review the post-failure action to make sure it aligns with your subscription and revenue policies, since this determines what happens to the subscription once retries are exhausted.
Test the configuration periodically to confirm it behaves as expected, rather than assuming it’s still working correctly after initial setup.

Notes

Enter retry attempt details and related settings carefully, since incorrect values here directly affect whether a recoverable payment gets recovered or a subscription is lost.
For assistance or clarification, contact support at support@easysubscription.io.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is involuntary churn, and how does Dunning Management help with it?

Involuntary churn happens when a subscription ends because a payment failed, not because the customer chose to leave. Dunning Management addresses this by retrying failed payments automatically before the subscription is affected, giving the customer a chance to resolve the issue first.

What happens after the maximum number of retry attempts is reached?

This is defined by the action you configure in Step 3. This guide covers setting that action; contact support for details on which specific outcomes, such as pausing or canceling, are available to select.

How do I know if a payment retry failed?

Failed billing attempts trigger the Billing Attempt Failure notification to the customer and a separate Billing Attempt Failure Notification to the admin, both covered in the notification settings elsewhere in this help center.

How many retry attempts should I set?

There’s no universal number. Balance recovering genuinely recoverable payments, such as a temporary card issue, against not over-retrying a payment method that’s permanently invalid.

Can I track how well Dunning Management is performing?

Payment and dunning related metrics are available in the Advanced Analytics dashboard, under the Payment and Dunning section, which tracks payment success rates and failed payment recovery.

Do I need to configure anything else for customers to be notified during the retry process?

Confirm the relevant payment failure notifications are enabled in your Notification settings, since Dunning Management handles the retry logic while notifications handle informing the customer and admin.