Recova vs Churnkey: Which Is Better for Stripe Failed Payment Recovery?
Churnkey combines cancel flow optimization with payment recovery in one platform. Recova focuses exclusively on payment recovery with outcome-only pricing. Here is how to choose.
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Churnkey and Recova take different approaches to reducing subscription revenue loss. Churnkey is a full retention platform combining cancel flow optimization, dunning, and win-back. Recova is focused exclusively on payment recovery and disputes, with outcome-only pricing.
The right choice depends on whether your primary problem is voluntary churn or involuntary churn from payment failures. These are two completely different problems that require different tools.
What Churnkey does
Churnkey is built around cancel flows: the moment a customer clicks to cancel, Churnkey presents retention offers, pause options, and surveys designed to save the subscription. It also includes dunning for failed payment recovery and win-back campaigns for churned customers.
Churnkey's cancel flows are its strongest feature and where it has the deepest data. The platform claims to protect over $500M in ARR across its customer base and has processed tens of millions of cancellation sessions.
On the payment recovery side, Churnkey offers segmented dunning campaigns and smart retries. Their 2025 State of Retention report showed 70 percent recovery of involuntary churn detected on their platform.
Pricing: Churnkey starts at $300/month. Percentage-of-recovered-revenue pricing applies on higher tiers. For a business recovering $15,000/month in failed payments, Churnkey's percentage pricing can reach $1,500 to $2,000/month.
What Recova does
Recova connects to your Stripe account via Stripe Connect and handles the full payment recovery workflow automatically. On the invoice.payment_failed webhook, Recova classifies the decline code, routes to the appropriate sequence (retry-first for soft declines, email-first for hard declines), generates AI-written dunning emails in the merchant's brand voice, and fires proactive expiring card alerts 30 days out.
Recova also handles dispute response: when a dispute comes in, it compiles evidence from your Stripe data and generates a rebuttal letter for review.
Recova does not do cancel flows or voluntary churn prevention. If a customer clicks cancel, Recova does not intervene.
Pricing: 20 percent of recovered revenue (Recovery product) and 20 percent of won disputes (Disputes product). No monthly minimum. Nothing until revenue lands.
Head-to-head comparison
| Recova | Churnkey | |
|---|---|---|
| Failed payment recovery | Yes, full sequence | Yes, dunning + retries |
| Cancel flow optimization | No | Yes, core feature |
| Dispute handling | Yes, AI-assisted | No |
| Expiring card alerts | Yes, 30 days out | Yes |
| Pricing model | 20% of recovered | From $300/mo + % |
| Monthly minimum | None | $300/mo |
| Setup | Stripe Connect, no code | Requires integration |
| Stripe-specific | Yes | Yes (also Braintree, Paddle) |
Which to choose
Choose Recova if:
- Your primary problem is involuntary churn from payment failures
- You want outcome-only pricing with no monthly minimum
- You also need dispute handling
- You do not have a cancel flow problem or you already have a solution for voluntary churn
Choose Churnkey if:
- You have a significant voluntary churn problem and want cancel flow optimization alongside dunning
- You are a larger business where Churnkey's flat subscription pricing becomes favorable vs percentage pricing
- You want a single platform for both voluntary and involuntary churn
- What is the main difference between Recova and Churnkey?
- Churnkey combines cancel flow optimization with payment recovery. Recova focuses exclusively on payment recovery and dispute handling with outcome-only pricing.
- Which has better payment recovery rates?
- Both target 70 percent or better recovery on involuntary churn. The approaches differ: Churnkey uses segmented dunning campaigns, Recova uses decline code classification and brand-voice AI emails.
- What does Recova cost vs Churnkey?
- Recova charges 20 percent of recovered revenue with no monthly minimum. Churnkey starts at $300/month with percentage pricing on recovered revenue at higher tiers.
- Does Recova handle cancel flows?
- No. Recova does not intervene when a customer clicks cancel. If voluntary churn is your primary problem, Churnkey or a dedicated cancel flow tool is more appropriate.
- Does Churnkey handle disputes?
- No. Dispute response and evidence submission is not part of Churnkey's product. Recova's Disputes product handles this.
