# Dunning Escalation > Per-subscription dunning ladder for recovering failed Stripe payments — smart retry, payment reminder, update-your-card notice, final notice — with minimum wait times between rungs, the ledger format that carries state across hourly runs, and the stop-for-human line at cancellation, credits, and refunds. - Skill: `kortix-ai/dunning-escalation` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add kortix-ai/dunning-escalation` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/kortix-ai/dunning-escalation/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Integrations & APIs - Author: kortix-ai (https://skillmd.com/u/kortix-ai) - Updated: 2026-09-10 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/kortix-ai/dunning-escalation --- Turn a failed Stripe invoice into a worked recovery instead of a silent lapse. An hourly cron re-prompts one persistent session; this skill defines the fixed four-rung ladder each failed subscription climbs, how long to wait between rungs, and what to send at each one. The ledger is what makes this a ladder and not a loop — without it, every run would just resend rung one forever. - The hourly cron fires the payment-recovery sweep. - A human asks why a specific subscription is or isn't being emailed, or what rung it's on. ## Step 1 — Resume the ledger Read `.kortix/memory/payment-recovery-ledger.md`. For every subscription already tracked, note its current rung, the timestamp of its last action, and its next-eligible-escalation time. Anything not yet on the ledger is a candidate for Step 2. ## Step 2 — Pull failed invoices and subscription state from Stripe Query Stripe for invoices in a failed/past-due state and their parent subscriptions. For each: - **New failure** (not on the ledger) → start at rung 1 (smart retry). - **Already on the ledger** → check whether `now >= next-eligible time`; if not, leave it alone this run. - **No longer failing** (invoice paid, subscription active/current) → go to Step 6 (close out), regardless of rung. ## Step 3 — The ladder | Rung | Name | Action | Minimum wait before this rung | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Smart retry | Retry the failed charge against the existing payment method via Stripe (off-session), no email sent yet | Immediately on first failure | | 2 | Payment reminder | Friendly email: the charge didn't go through, here's the amount and a pay link | 24h after rung 1 if still failing | | 3 | Update-your-card notice | Firmer email naming the likely cause (expired/declined card) with a direct link to update the payment method | 48h after rung 2 if still failing | | 4 | Final notice | Clear, professional email stating this is the last automated reminder before the account needs manual attention | 72h after rung 3 if still failing | A subscription advances **at most one rung per run**, and only once its minimum wait has elapsed. Never send two rungs' worth of email in the same run, and never re-send the same rung. ## Step 4 — Send the rung's email Send the exact email for the current rung via {{dunning_channel}}, addressed to the subscription's billing contact. Keep the tone matched to the rung — rung 2 is a nudge, rung 4 is unambiguous but still professional, never threatening. Every send is logged to the ledger with the rung and timestamp. ## Step 5 — Rung 4 is the ceiling Once a subscription has received the final notice and the invoice is still unpaid, do **not** create a rung 5. Mark it `awaiting-human` on the ledger and surface it in the Slack summary every run until a person acts or it pays. Never cancel the subscription, issue a credit, or process a refund — that decision, and the action, belongs to a human. ## Step 6 — Close out on payment If a tracked subscription's invoice has been paid (checked fresh from Stripe every run, not assumed), mark it `recovered` on the ledger with the rung it was on when it cleared, stop sending it anything, and report it as a recovery in the summary. ## Step 7 — Post the summary Post one message per run to {{alert_channel}}: subscriptions that advanced a rung (with new rung), subscriptions newly at `awaiting-human`, and subscriptions that recovered since the last run. Omit subscriptions with no change. ## Step 8 — Update the ledger Write the full current state back to `.kortix/memory/payment-recovery-ledger.md` (see ``) before ending the turn. Lives at `.kortix/memory/payment-recovery-ledger.md`. One row per subscription currently or recently on the ladder: subscription ID, customer, current rung (1–4, or `recovered` / `awaiting-human`), last action + timestamp, next-eligible escalation time, and outcome once resolved (`recovered` with the rung it paid at, or `awaiting-human` with the date it hit rung 4). Prune a row only after it's been `recovered` for a full cycle, so a bounce-back failure is still recognized as a returning case rather than a brand-new one. - **Smart-retry and dunning only.** The only Stripe write this skill performs is retrying an existing failed charge. The only customer-facing action is sending one of the four ladder emails. Nothing else is in scope. - **Never cancel, credit, or refund.** Regardless of how long a subscription has been failing, ending it, crediting it, or refunding it requires a human and is never done by this skill. - **One rung per run, minimum wait enforced.** A subscription cannot skip a rung or be re-messaged before its wait time elapses, even if a run is manually re-triggered. - **Stops immediately on payment.** A paid invoice ends the ladder for that subscription on the very next check — no extra emails, no delay. - **Scoped secrets.** Stripe access is brokered through the connector; no raw key is ever shown to the model or written to logs. - **Ledger is the source of truth for state.** Between runs, nothing about ladder position is inferred or guessed — it comes from the ledger, checked against fresh Stripe state.