What is a dunning letter?

A dunning letter is a notification sent to a customer when a payment has failed or is overdue, asking them to update their payment method or settle the balance. In subscription billing it is usually sent automatically as one step in a sequence of retries and reminders that aim to recover the payment before the subscription is cancelled.

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A dunning letter (sometimes called a dunning notice or dunning email) is the message a business sends when it cannot collect a payment. The card may have expired, been declined for insufficient funds, or been flagged by the issuer. The letter notifies the customer, explains what happened, and gives them a simple way to fix it.

A good dunning letter is short, specific, and helpful rather than threatening. It should state which payment failed and for what amount, why keeping the account active matters to the customer, and a single clear action — usually a secure link to update the payment method. The tone matters: most failed payments are accidental, so the goal is to make paying easy, not to punish.

In modern subscription billing, dunning letters are rarely sent by hand. They are part of an automated dunning sequence: the system retries the charge on an intelligent schedule and sends a series of reminders across channels, escalating gently over days or weeks until the payment succeeds or the subscription lapses.

Dunning letter template

Subject: Action needed — your {{company}} payment didn't go through

Hi {{first_name}},

We tried to charge your card for your {{plan}} subscription
({{amount}}) on {{date}}, but the payment didn't go through.

This usually happens when a card has expired or been replaced.
To keep your account active, please update your payment details:

  → {{update_payment_link}}

We'll automatically try again on {{retry_date}}, so there's
nothing else you need to do once your details are updated.

Questions? Just reply to this email.

Thanks,
The {{company}} team

Replace the {{placeholders}} with your own values. GetPaidHQ sends sequences like this automatically as part of built-in dunning.

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