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Install Failed Payment Rescuer from the Stripe Marketplace. After installation, Stripe will redirect you to the Settings tab inside your Dashboard. No code, no external accounts, no webhooks to configure.

Settings are optional but recommended:

• Business name — included in every SMS so customers recognise who is contacting them.
• SMS template — choose Friendly Reminder, Direct & Professional, or Urgent Action Required.
• Autopilot — enable to send alerts automatically the moment a payment fails.
• Minimum invoice amount — Autopilot will only fire for invoices at or above this threshold.

You can change any of these at any time. Click Save in the Settings toolbar when done.

No. SMS delivery is fully handled by the app — there are no third-party accounts to create and no credentials to manage. SMS costs are included in the subscription.

The sidebar only activates on invoices with a Payment failed status. If you open an invoice that is paid, draft, or open without a failed attempt, the panel will show a message explaining there is nothing to recover.

If you just installed the app, make sure to test with an invoice created after installation — invoices created before the app was installed may not have the correct Connect relationship in place.

Autopilot automatically sends an SMS recovery alert the moment Stripe fires a payment failure event on an invoice. You don't need to be logged in or take any action.

Autopilot only fires when all of the following are true:

• Autopilot is enabled in Settings
• The customer has a phone number on their Stripe record
• The invoice amount is at or above the minimum you configured
• The same phone number hasn't received an alert from your account in the last 24 hours

If any condition isn't met, the invoice is left as Pending for you to handle manually.

The invoice sidebar will show a Phone number required notice with a text field. Enter the customer's number in E.164 format (e.g. +14155552671) and press Send Quick Rescue Alert.

The number you enter must match a customer in your Stripe account. You can also avoid this by adding the phone number directly to the customer record in Stripe — the app will pick it up automatically on the next failure.

Yes. The message textarea in the invoice sidebar is fully editable before you send. The pre-filled text is based on the template you selected in Settings, but you can change anything for a one-off send. The edited message only applies to that single send — your template setting is not changed.

• Pending — payment has failed, no alert sent yet.
• Alert Sent — you manually sent a recovery alert.
• Auto-sent — Autopilot sent the alert automatically.
• Recovered — the customer has paid the invoice after receiving an alert.

Autopilot will not send more than one alert to the same phone number within 7 days, regardless of how many invoices fail. The cooldown is per customer phone number, not per invoice, so a customer with several failing invoices in the same week only ever hears from us once. Manual sends are always available regardless of the cooldown — you stay in control.

Customers can reply STOP to any SMS from us and the carrier permanently blocks further messages on that number. They can text START to re-enable. The opt-out is enforced by the carrier — no action is needed on your side and we cannot bypass it.

No. The same phone number will not receive more than one autopilot alert per week across all of your invoices (7-day cooldown). If a customer has several invoices fail in the same week, only one SMS goes out. Manual sends are always available regardless of the cooldown if you need to reach a customer directly.

Autopilot only fires for accounts with an active or trialing subscription. Accounts still in setup (no card on file) never trigger SMS. Customers without a phone number on their Stripe record are also skipped — there is nowhere to send the message.

Autopilot waits 24 hours before sending. If the customer pays during that window — for example, after Stripe's smart-retry succeeds or the customer updates their card on their own — no SMS is sent and no success fee is charged. The invoice is marked as self-resolved.

You can always override the delay by pressing Send Quick Rescue Alert on the invoice sidebar. The manual path is immediate and bypasses the 24-hour window.

When Stripe fires an invoice.paid event for an invoice that had an alert sent, the app marks it as Recovered and records the time between the SMS and the payment. If payment arrives within 24 hours of the alert, it is attributed to the SMS. Payments that arrive later or without an alert are not counted as recoveries — so the recovery rate reflects only SMS-driven outcomes.

The Home tab in your Stripe Dashboard shows:

• Total Recovered — cumulative revenue rescued
• Recovery Rate — percentage of alerted invoices that were paid
• Active Rescues — invoices with an alert sent but not yet paid
• Recent Recoveries — the last customers whose payments came in

Per-customer history is available by opening any customer record — the panel lists every failed invoice and its current status.

Failed Payment Rescuer uses a 10% success fee model — you only pay when we recover a payment. There is no monthly subscription, no base fee, and no minimum. €0 recovered = €0 billed.

Add a card from the Settings tab to activate. Stripe meters your recoveries and sends you one invoice at the end of each monthly billing cycle. If nothing was recovered that month, you'll receive a €0 invoice.

Open the Settings tab inside the app and click Manage Billing. This opens Stripe's secure billing portal where you can view invoices, update your payment method, or cancel. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period.

No. SMS delivery costs are included — there are no per-message charges on top of the 10% success fee.

A few things to check:

• Confirm the phone number on the Stripe customer record is correct and in E.164 format (e.g. +14155552671).
• The customer may have previously replied STOP to an SMS from our number. Carrier opt-outs are automatic and permanent — ask the customer to text START to re-enable delivery.
• Some carriers filter messages from short codes or shared sender pools. Delivery is not guaranteed on all networks.

If the issue persists, contact support with the invoice ID and we can check the delivery log.

This appears when the invoice you opened does not have a failed payment attempt. Failed Payment Rescuer only activates on invoices with Payment failed status. Open an invoice that shows this status in the Stripe invoices list.

Check the following:

• The customer must have a phone number on their Stripe record.
• The invoice amount must meet or exceed the minimum you set in Settings (default: $0 — all invoices).
• If an alert was already sent to that phone number in the last 24 hours, Autopilot will skip the duplicate.
• If your account subscription is past due or cancelled, Autopilot is paused until billing is resolved.

SMS delivery is available to most countries through a global carrier network. Coverage and deliverability vary by carrier. US and Canadian numbers have the highest reliability. For international numbers, ensure the phone is stored in E.164 format including the country code (e.g. +447911123456 for UK).