Why you shouldn't send pre-dunning emails

Hook up your existing transactional messaging tools

1. Pre-dunning: don't do it.

Pre-dunning used to be a dunning best practice.

Years ago, companies sent warning emails to customers 30, 15, and 3 days before their card expired. These pre-expiration emails were called “pre-dunning.”

Today, Stripe, Braintree, and other payments platforms will automatically update cards that have an upcoming expiration date. They communicate directly with the card issuing bank, and the results are impressive.

Over 70% of upcoming expiration dates get updated behind-the-scenes.

Why does this matter? Imagine we are sending pre-dunning emails with the subject line "Urgent: Your card will soon expire!"

More than 70% of these are a false alarm on repeat month after month. Pre-dunning emails are frustrating, and create needless work for your customers.

When you turn off pre-dunning, payments clear without an issue. Recurring billing doesn’t skip a beat. Subscription renewals are seamless, as subscriptions are designed to be.

If you’d like to get in front of your customers before their billing date, focus on friendly messaging that adds value for them.

But spare them the pre-dunning emails—let card updates happen in the background.

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