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Show HN: FlyCode – Recover Stripe payments by automatically using backup cards

22 points by JakeVacovec ↗ HN
We built FlyCode after seeing subscription businesses lose ~35% of recurring revenue each year to failed payments — even when customers had other valid cards on file.

*The problem:* When a customer's primary card fails, Stripe retries a few times then cancels the subscription. If that customer has a backup card, it isn’t tried. At least 20% of active customers have more than one card on file, which means a lot of preventable churn.

*Our solution:* FlyCode automatically identifies if a customer has other valid cards on file and retries them when a subscription payment fails. You can configure when these retries happen during the dunning period (beginning, middle, end) and define validity rules (e.g. “card was used in last 180 days”). It’s a Stripe app — no code changes needed.

We've seen 18%-20% higher recovery rates from our core retry engine, plus another 5–10% from using backup cards. Importantly, there was no increase in refunds or chargebacks — in fact, rates were lower than merchant averages. Big companies like Microsoft and Amazon already do this internally; we wanted to make the same capability accessible to smaller SaaS teams.

*Under the hood:* FlyCode monitors for failed invoices, checks for available backup methods via Stripe’s PaymentMethod API, and systematically retries in a way that avoids service disruption or manual workflows.

We’re Jake, Etai, and Tzachi — we previously built payment recovery systems at startups and enterprises, which is how we discovered this gap.

You can try it here: [https://www.flycode.com/stripe]

We’d love feedback from anyone dealing with subscription payment failures. What’s been your experience with involuntary churn? Have you considered leveraging backup payment methods?

20 comments

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cut_un
If customers aren't renewing then they probably don't need the service and forgot they're being charged. It feels unethical to rifle through their online wallet and look for another card to charge.
iddan
Congrats of the launch! For which types of companies did you see the FlyCode model most successful? What are the results for the average SaaS? I’ve been evaluating a few solutions but it seems like some of em are mostly focused on e-commerce
typpilol
This seems like a way to squeeze money from users who forgot about their sub with unsuspecting payments.

If the service is declined and they use it, they would just resubscribe.

This is just basically a tool for businesses to scam unsuspecting customers?

Also - do the customers agree for you to charge their other payment method? If not, how is that legal? It's also seems like it would be against stripes terms of service

I reported this to stripe to see what they have to say

thoyles
Is there a concern that the reduction in chargebacks is stemming from using cards that may not be monitored as closely as a customer’s “primary” card?
peekypeeky008
Not at all. SaaS customers are doing the full process in notify their customers first. The reduce chargebacks is happening because those are "good" payments that should go through anyway. The customer never intended to cancel the subscription from a failed payment
flessner
Out of curiosity, what made you pivot from a web/translation editor to recovering stripe payments? Was it primarily because of the teams prior experience in payment recovery or something else?
peekypeeky008
Yeah, we're all coming from a FinTech background so it was a better fit for us
whiplash451
I am surprised Stripe does not offer this feature to their customers. There is probably a reason why they don’t. What is their feedback?
peekypeeky008
Stripe offer a basic payment recovery, it's up to the merchants to offer more advanced way for their customers to pay. You can check out our Stripe app
xyzzy_plugh
One thing that I never see brought up in these kinds of discussions is that payment of subscription fees is almost orthagonal to the subscription itself. Stripe eventually gives up, which seems like a fair default, but Stripe is also ignorant as to the legal agreements customers and merchants have made.

There's a whole industry around managing subscription-related debts and debt collecting that folks often forget about.

That is to say that there are alternatives to cancelling after a few failed payments, other than trying other cards in the customer's wallet. They may be worth exploring.

peekypeeky008
I’m Tzachi, one of the cofounders here at FlyCode. It’s great to see the discussion here. It’s really helpful for us and we’re taking everything under consideration. It’s interesting for me to see the “consumer” perspective vs. the merchants (our customers) perspective that use this product at scale for failed payments. Thanks
rootsudo
I reported the app to stripe as well.

Reviewing the website and seeing the endorsements makes me question the legitimacy of this in many ways.

nojs
One small suggestion for the landing page, switch the columns “with flycode” and “without flycode” so “without” appears first, on the left.
cosmotic
I can't imagine this is in accordance with the terms of service nor legal. You need explicit authorization to charge the card, but you don't have it.
JakeVacovec
Part of our process is to ensure this is covered in the terms and we encourage all merchants to explicitly show this in the product for visibility but also because a significant percentage of customers will add a backup to avoid risk of downtime.
tmp7356346
If your "service" happened to me I'd be very, Very, VERY ANGRY and if possible (and most of my (online) subscriptions luckily are a "want" and not a "need"), I'd CANCEL the subscription manually (+ look into legal action if your customer would not comply due to periods... which would make me even ANGRIER if not possible and eating up my time), send a VERY ANFRY email to your customer, send them a GDPR deletion demand and (after hopefully having been told after many weeks of simmering waiting time why the &_+@^=~ that happened in the first place) look VERY HARD into cancelling all my other subscriptions in Stripe or moving them to a different payment method.

Not all credit cards are linked to the same account, or have the same conditions.

I usually when possible take advantage of yearly over monthly payments with the associated discounts. That means that it is VERY BAD for me if suddenly without warning possibly HUNDREDS OF EUROS/DOLLARS are siphoned off from the wrong place. (again, not all credit cards have ideal terms!)

Even if I have the funds and buffers, it could potentially wreck some important mandatory payment, which I might not notice in time maybe because of the same meatspace $REASONS I couldn't update the credit card details in the first place!!!

Thanks for the PSA to stay away as possible from Stripe handled subscriptions and that this is even possible, as well as a reminder to review all my subscriptions and my Worst Case Infos for family members.

(throwaway account for privacy reasons)

queenkjuul
Thank you for reminding me about a subscription i accidentally signed up for and need to go cancel.

If a card i didn't explicitly authorize for a recurring charge was charged like this, I'd be livid. Different cards are used for different things for real reasons.