Looking for a
Butter Payments alternative?
Churn Buster or Butter Payments
Both recover failed subscription payments. Butter Payments optimizes retries at the payment authorization layer with machine learning. Churn Buster runs retries and customer communication together, with a team tuning the account, at a flat monthly fee.
The deciding question is how many levers you want pulled
Churn Buster is for subscription businesses that want failed payments worked from both sides, retry timing and the customer's inbox, by people who know their numbers. Butter is for teams that want retry optimization handed to a model and are comfortable with the vendor measuring the result.
Churn Buster or Butter Payments
| Churn Buster | Butter Payments | |
|---|---|---|
| Recovery approach | Retries routed by decline code, plus email and SMS to the customer | ML retry optimization at the authorization layer, no customer communication |
| Who tunes it | Our team, with you | The model |
| How decisions get made | Rules you can read and change | Model output |
| Pricing | Flat monthly fee, roughly 1% of your failed payment volume | Revenue share, a percentage of each invoice recovered through Butter |
| Scope | Failed payments (Dunning) and cancellations (Cancel Flows) | Failed payments |
| Since | 2013 | 2020 |
Retries alone leave the other half on the table
Churn Buster tunes retries and customer communication together because the right recovery path changes by decline reason. A retry can't fix an expired card, a closed account, or a customer who needs to update their details. Email and SMS can.
Retries are routed by decline code. Insufficient funds gets retried before anyone is emailed; an expired card gets an email right away. Deliverability is monitored, SMS Nudge reaches customers whose email isn't working, and sequences change by segment and decline reason. Every rule is one you can read and change with our team.
Butter's model works the retry side and sends nothing to the customer. That helps when failed payments are mostly soft declines; customer outreach matters more when a card needs updating.
Questions to ask before you hand retries to a model
Retry optimization runs against your processor reputation and your customers' patience, so ask any vendor, including us:
- How many times, and how close together, will a single charge be retried?
- Who sets my baseline recovery rate, and can I check it from my billing data?
- Which recoveries count as the vendor's, versus retries that would have succeeded anyway?
- What happens to my payment records if I turn the tool off?
- Which invoices count as recovered through the vendor, and how does the fee move with that number?
We cap retries and show the schedule per campaign, you set the baseline from your billing data, and our fee doesn't move when your recovery rate does.
Flat pricing you can ballpark before the call
Our fee is flat and scales with your business, roughly 1% of your failed payment volume. Standard entry is $269/mo for one product, $430/mo for Dunning and Cancel Flows together, month to month. Details on our pricing page.
Recovery is a discipline, not a feature
The gains come from hundreds of small decisions: retry cadence, copy, send time, deliverability. We've done that work since 2013 on Stripe, Shopify, Recharge, and 10+ other platforms, and every account gets setup and regular account reviews from people who know your numbers.
One partner for both halves of churn
Dunning recovers failed payments. Cancel Flows handles cancellation deflection, retention offers, and the reasons people leave. Butter covers failed payments only.
Choose the model that matches how you want to work
Choose Churn Buster if you want customer communication alongside retries, rules you can see, a team tuning your account, and a flat price you can ballpark up front.
Choose Butter if you want retry optimization on autopilot at the processor level, don't need customer communication, and prefer paying a percentage of each recovered invoice. If that's the deciding factor, we're probably not the right fit.
Also comparing Flycode? See Churn Buster or Flycode.
Butter Payments alternative FAQ
What's the main difference between Churn Buster and Butter Payments?
Churn Buster combines decline code retries with customer email and SMS, and shows you every rule. Butter optimizes retries at the payment authorization layer with machine learning. Churn Buster charges a flat monthly fee.
Does Butter Payments email customers about failed payments?
No. Butter optimizes retries at the authorization layer and sends no customer-facing communication. Churn Buster sends branded email and SMS alongside retries, so cards that can't be recovered by retrying still get updated.
Is Butter Payments pricing a revenue share?
Yes. Butter takes a percentage of the revenue on each invoice recovered through its platform. Churn Buster charges a flat monthly fee, roughly 1% of your failed payment volume, starting at $269/mo for one product, month to month.
Does Butter Payments handle cancellations?
Butter focuses on failed payments. Churn Buster covers failed payments through Dunning and cancellations through Cancel Flows.
How do I compare Butter Payments and Churn Buster on my data?
Pull your current recovery rate from your billing data before changing anything, then judge any vendor's result against that baseline using the same method, including us.
Talk to our team
We'll look at your current recovery setup and tell you how much is still recoverable. If it's not much, we'll say so.