How does it connect to Stripe?

API key paste. No OAuth, no Stripe Connect, no approval process. Founders paste their restricted API key and the system starts ingesting webhook events immediately. Works globally without geographic restrictions.

What AI models power the retention engines?

Anthropic Claude for cancel insight generation, save offer personalization, and at-risk subscriber scoring. The AI analyzes usage patterns, payment history, and behavioral signals to predict churn and recommend interventions.

How fast can a founder get started?

Under 5 minutes. Paste Stripe API key, verify sending domain in Resend, and the system starts processing events. The first retention actions fire automatically based on incoming Stripe webhooks.

All Case Studies

Case Study

SaveMRR: AI-Powered Churn Prevention for SaaS Companies

An AI retention platform that connects to Stripe, detects at-risk subscribers, recovers failed payments, and intercepts cancellations with personalized save offers. Built to help bootstrapped SaaS founders stop bleeding revenue.

Client: SaveMRR (savemrr.co)

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Timeline

3 weeks

Investment

$12,999

Key Result

6 AI retention engines, Stripe-connected

SaveMRR dashboard showing real-time churn metrics, at-risk subscriber list, and AI-generated recovery campaigns.

The Challenge

Bootstrapped SaaS founders between $5K and $50K monthly revenue lose 3 to 7 percent of subscribers every month to involuntary churn (failed payments) and voluntary cancellations. Existing tools like Baremetrics and ProfitWell are expensive, complex, or shut down. Founders needed a simple, affordable tool that connects to Stripe and starts saving revenue on day one without requiring a data team.

Our Approach

We built a Stripe-native retention engine with six AI-powered modules: failed payment recovery with smart retry logic, cancellation interception with personalized save offers, at-risk subscriber detection using behavioral signals, win-back email sequences, dunning management, and churn analytics. The entire system connects via Stripe API key paste (no OAuth complexity) and starts working within minutes. All emails are sent from the founder's own domain for maximum deliverability.

What We Built

Stripe webhook ingestion with idempotent event processing and dead letter queue

Six AI retention engines: payment recovery, cancel intercept, at-risk detection, win-back, dunning, analytics

Real-time dashboard with subscriber health scores, activity feed, and email previews

Configurable save offers with A/B testing for cancellation interception flows

Redis-backed rate limiting and webhook signature verification for production security

Automated email sequences sent from customer's own domain via Resend integration

Delivery Timeline

Week 1: Stripe Integration + Core Engine

Built webhook ingestion, subscriber sync, and the payment recovery module. Dashboard skeleton with real-time data.

Week 2: AI Modules + Email System

Implemented cancellation interception, at-risk detection, and win-back sequences. Integrated Resend for custom domain email delivery.

Week 3: Polish + Production Deploy

Added analytics dashboard, activity feed, email previews, rate limiting, and security hardening. Deployed backend to Railway, dashboard to Vercel.

Tech Stack

Hono

Backend API

PostgreSQL

Database

BullMQ

Job Queue

React + Tailwind

Dashboard

Stripe API

Payment Data

Resend

Email Delivery

Anthropic Claude

AI Engine

Redis

Cache + Rate Limiting

Architecture

backend

Hono on Railway with TypeScript, BullMQ for async job processing

database

PostgreSQL with Drizzle ORM, Redis for caching and rate limiting

Anthropic Claude for cancel insight generation and save offer personalization

Resend with custom domain DNS verification for transactional delivery

payments

Stripe API with webhook event processing and idempotency keys

Security

webhooks

Stripe signature verification on every incoming webhook, idempotent processing

rateLimit

Redis-backed rate limiting on all API endpoints and email sending

data

Stripe API keys encrypted at rest, scoped to read-only where possible

audit

Full event log with webhook receipt timestamps and processing status

The Results

Retention engines

0 (manual)6 AI-powered modules

Setup time

Weeks (enterprise tools)Under 5 minutes

Email deliverability

Generic senderCustom domain, transactional

Key Takeaways

Stripe API key paste instead of OAuth eliminated the biggest onboarding barrier. Founders could connect in seconds without navigating OAuth flows or Connect applications.

Sending recovery emails from the founder's own domain instead of a platform domain dramatically improved inbox placement. Young SaaS domains need transactional-style emails, not promotional campaigns.

The AI cancellation interception module needed confidence scoring and human escalation paths. Not every cancellation should get an automated save offer. Some need a personal founder response.

Deliverables

Full source code (backend + dashboard)Stripe integration with webhook processing6 AI retention enginesResend email integrationRedis rate limiting and cachingProduction deployment on Railway + VercelTechnical documentation

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

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