A SaaS founder in Austin watches her Stripe dashboard in horror: 47 subscriptions failed this month due to expired cards, insufficient funds, and bank declines. Stripe's automatic retry recovered 18. The other 29 customers — representing $2,900/mo in MRR — silently churned. They wanted to stay, their credit cards just didn't cooperate. That's $34,800 in annual recurring revenue lost to payment failures alone.
Failed payments cause 20-40% of all SaaS churn. It's called 'involuntary churn' — customers who intended to keep paying but couldn't because their payment method failed. According to Churn Buster data, an optimized retry strategy can recover 45-70% of initially failed payments. Yet most indie SaaS founders rely on Stripe's basic retry logic: retry every few days, send a generic email, hope for the best. Smart dunning — optimal retry timing based on failure codes, personalized recovery emails, SMS follow-up, and in-app payment update prompts — dramatically outperforms passive retry.
ChurnKey ($100+/mo) and Stunning.co ($49-299/mo) dominate the market but are priced for mature SaaS companies. ProfitWell Retain was acquired by Paddle and bundled into their platform. For the indie SaaS at $5K-50K MRR, there's no affordable dunning solution. The opportunity is a focused recovery tool at $29-49/mo: smart retry timing based on decline reason (expired cards retry differently than insufficient funds), branded email sequences that actually get opened, SMS recovery for high-value customers, and a simple dashboard showing recovery rates. Clear ROI story: recovering 10 extra customers per month at $50 ARPU pays for the tool 10x over.
💰 Revenue Blueprint
Three-tier value ladder to monetize from day one
Up to $10K MRR tracked, smart retries, email recovery sequences, basic dashboard
Up to $50K MRR, SMS recovery, in-app prompts, A/B testing, recovery analytics
Unlimited MRR, cancel flow integration, churn prediction, custom sequences, API access
📊 Market Evidence
The Market Gap
ChurnKey and Stunning target mature SaaS ($100+/mo). ProfitWell Retain bundled into Paddle. No affordable $29-49/mo dunning for indie SaaS at $5K-50K MRR. Clear 10x ROI potential.
🏆 Competitor Landscape
How existing players stack up in this market
| Competitor | Pricing | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Truebill (Rocket Money) | Free / $3-12/mo premium | Subscription tracking + cancellation |
| Trim | 33% of savings | Bill negotiation service |
| Bobby | $1.99 one-time | Simple subscription tracker |
| Subscriptions (Apple) | $0.99 | iOS subscription manager |
| Qapital | $3-12/mo | Savings automation + subscriptions |
Subscription tracking + cancellation
Bill negotiation service
Simple subscription tracker
iOS subscription manager
Savings automation + subscriptions
🛠️ Recommended Tech Stack
Suggested tools and technologies to build this idea
Score Breakdown
Good market signals with room for growth
Market (20%) + Revenue (20%) + Trend (15%) + Competition (15%) + Build (15%) + Pricing (15%)
🚀 Start Building
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Build a SaaS product called "Subscription Recovery Tool". ## Product Overview Recover failed subscription payments automatically ## Problem Recover failed subscription payments automatically ## Solution Build Subscription Recovery Tool ## Target Audience indie hackers, small businesses, and solopreneurs ## Tech Stack - Next.js 15 (App Router) with TypeScript - Tailwind CSS v4 for styling - Supabase for auth, database, and storage - Vercel for deployment - shadcn/ui for UI components - Framer Motion for animations ## MVP Features to Build 1. Landing page with clear value proposition 2. User authentication (sign up, sign in, forgot password) 3. Core product functionality based on the solution above 4. Dashboard for users to manage their data 5. Pricing page with at least 2 tiers (free + paid) 6. Basic settings/profile page ## Known Competitors Truebill (Rocket Money), Trim, Bobby, Subscriptions (Apple), Qapital ## Key Risks to Address Standard market entry risks ## Deployment 1. Set up Supabase project and configure environment variables 2. Deploy to Vercel with `npx vercel --prod` 3. Set up custom domain 4. Configure Supabase RLS policies for security ## Instructions Start by creating the project structure, then build the landing page first. Use server components where possible. Make it mobile-responsive from the start. Focus on getting the core value loop working before adding polish.