For Ghost publishers with paid members
Recover failed Ghost membership payments automatically
Ghost bills your paid members through your own Stripe account, so every expired card and bank decline shows up there first. Creator Dunning watches that account and emails the member in your name until the payment goes through.
Founding offer: connect by December 31, 2026 and it's free until June 30, 2027, however many subscribers you have. No card needed.
FromJane's Field Notes Billing
Reply-tojane@example.com
SubjectYour $8.00 payment to Jane's Field Notes didn't go through
Hi Sam,
We couldn't process the $8.00 payment for your Jane's Field Notes subscription. Your subscription stays active for now, but we'll need an updated payment method to keep it that way.
Update your payment method and pay now
If you've already resolved this, you can ignore this email. Reply to this message if you have any questions.
Jane
$8.00 recovered
Sam updated their card · 2 days later
Ghost today
Ghost relies on Stripe's automatic retries and shows the member a banner the next time they visit your site. Unless Stripe's own failed-payment email is switched on, members who don't visit never learn their card failed, and the subscription quietly ends.
How Creator Dunning connects
Ghost stores your Stripe connection in Settings → Membership, and Ghost creates each paid member as a Stripe subscription there. Creator Dunning connects to that same Stripe account through Stripe's standard authorization and only reads subscriptions and invoices; nothing changes inside Ghost or Stripe, and no theme code is touched.
Common questions
Before you connect.
Does this work with Ghost(Pro) and self-hosted Ghost?
Yes. Both use your own Stripe account for paid memberships, which is all Creator Dunning needs.
Will members get duplicate emails?
Only if Stripe's own failed-payment email is on (Stripe: Settings, Billing, Subscriptions and emails). Keep both, or switch Stripe's off so members hear from you every three days and nothing more.
Do I need to change my Ghost portal or theme?
No. The payment link in our email goes to Stripe's hosted invoice page, where the member updates their card in a few seconds.
Roughly one in ten renewals fails
Most of them are fixable.
Involuntary churn is 20–40% of all subscription churn, and Stripe's default retries recover only 25–35% of failed consumer payments. A timely, personal email closes most of that gap. See the numbers and sources.