Pre-launch positioning: the 4-position bet I'm making in payment recovery
Update from the build-in-public side.
I spent ~3 weeks mapping the payment-recovery space before writing any marketing copy, and four positions came out of that exercise that no competitor credibly owns more than one of:
Public flat pricing. Churn Buster's entry tier is now $149/mo (MRR-scaled), Churnkey's Starter is $250/mo (annual), Baremetrics Recover is an MRR-scaled add-on inside Baremetrics with its own price tag (~$499/mo at $300k MRR per their calculator). RecoverStack: $49 to $149/mo flat on the landing page, no quote required.
Founder-first. Every competitor is a faceless team or brand. RecoverStack is one human + Claude. My DM is open if anything in the positioning doesn't make sense.
Stripe-specific SEO depth. The long-tail decline-code queries (`stripe insufficient_funds retry`, etc...) are mostly unowned. One pillar page + 5 to 6 cluster posts + 2 to 3 competitor comparisons (8 to 10 pages total) shipping over the next 10 weeks.
Live public metrics. /metrics page goes live on day one of soft launch (~June 22-29). Real numbers in real time, not multi-year aggregates from old customer cohorts.
The structural part is what makes me feel okay about the bet: none of the competitors can take any of these without losing what they already have/who they are. Churn Buster's enterprise pipeline needs sales-call pricing, Churnkey leans on professional-service depth, Baremetrics' MRR-scaled bundle identity can't accommodate flat-priced standalone dunning.
Unit-economics sanity check: 5% to 10% MRR leaks to failed payments across most subscription businesses (Baremetrics ~9% average) x my pricing x 30-seat founding cohort = math that survives if even one of the four runs cleanly.
If you've evaluated Churn Buster / Churnkey / Baremetrics Recover for your own product, which of these four would have been the most decisive filter for you? Drop it below, I'll incorporate the answers into next week's manifesto post.
