Best dunning software free: what is included, free or on trial

Best dunning software free: what costs nothing extra

The best dunning software that costs nothing extra is the recovery toolkit already inside your billing system. Stripe Billing lists Smart Retries, automatic reminders and up to three recovery automations as Included, and Paddle says Retain, formerly ProfitWell Retain, is built into Paddle Billing at no extra cost. Dunning, the automated follow-up after a failed subscription payment, otherwise means a paid tool, and three of those open with a free trial.

Baremetrics' Recover (Payment Recovery) is one of those paid tools. It sends the customer-facing messages and leaves retries to your processor. Prices were read on October 23, 2026.

Dunning inside your billing fee: Stripe, Paddle and Chargebee

On Stripe, retries and the failed-payment email are settings, not purchases. Smart Retries, which picks retry times with AI inside a window you set, defaults to 8 tries within 2 weeks, and a custom schedule allows up to three retries. Stripe emails the customer after each failed payment with a link to update the payment method.

Once the retry window and the email are switched on, Stripe covers both jobs, so the first step is the Stripe dunning emails setup, not a purchase. A paid tool is worth pricing when failures still end in cancellations after that: at $25,000 MRR Stunning's ladder lists $100 a month, and Recover is $129 a month plus a Baremetrics plan.

Paddle Billing has no monthly fee, and Retain comes with it at no extra cost. Chargebee is a billing system, so compare it as one: even its $0 option takes 0.80% of monthly invoicing volume. Its pricing page marks basic and smart dunning as included, while its dunning docs say the Smart retry mode is available only for specific plans.

Free plans that report on recovery

Two free plans report without recovering anything. Churn Buster's Measure plan is free and reports how a dunning tool is performing; its pricing page says it works with any dunning tool on supported billing platforms. Sending the retries, email and SMS is the paid Dunning product, from $269 a month based on MRR.

ProfitWell Metrics, Paddle's completely free revenue reporting, recovers nothing; recovery is the separate Retain product.

Free trials of paid dunning tools

Three paid tools open with a trial, and Churn Buster lists none.

• Stunning: every plan starts with a 15-day free trial, then $60 a month at $5K to $12K MRR.
• Churnkey: a 14-day trial with no credit card required. Starter is $250 a month billed yearly for teams under $5K a month in churn volume, the monthly revenue lost to churn.
• Baremetrics Recover: "Your first 14 days of Recover are on us!", then $129 a month as an add-on to a plan.
• Churn Buster: no trial on its pricing page; the buttons say Book a call.

Pick Stripe Billing's included settings first if you bill through Stripe, and use best failed payment recovery tools when failures persist. Pick Stunning for a 15-day trial of a full dunning tool on Stripe, and Recover when you already pay for Baremetrics analytics; the Baremetrics free trial page lays out which trial covers what.