Dunning emails accompany automatic payment retries to notify customers that their payment has failed and prompt them to update their payment method. DMSI Subscriptions Pro includes a 3-step dunning email sequence.
📌 What This Extension Adds: Core DDLS does not send dunning emails. Subscriptions Pro adds a complete dunning email campaign with configurable timing, open/click tracking, and template customisation.
The 3-Step Dunning Sequence #
| Step | Trigger | Default Timing | Template |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dunning 1 | Payment failure detected | Immediately | dunning-1.php |
| Dunning 2 | After Retry 2 failure | Day 3 | dunning-2.php |
| Dunning 3 | Final warning before suspension | Day 6 | dunning-3.php |
Email timing aligns with the retry schedule so that customers receive a notification correlated to each retry attempt.
Email Template Files #
Dunning email templates are located in templates/emails/ within the plugin directory:
dunning-1.php— Initial payment failure notice; includes a direct link to update payment methoddunning-2.php— Second notice with increasing urgency; reiterates payment update linkdunning-3.php— Final warning; states that suspension will occur if payment is not resolved
Templates use standard WooCommerce email class inheritance and can be overridden by copying them to your-theme/woocommerce/emails/.
Open and Click Tracking #
The dunning email module records email open events and click events for the payment update link. These metrics are stored in wp_dmsilm_sp_dunning_log alongside send timestamps and delivery status.
Admins can view dunning email history per subscription from the order notes timeline, which logs each dunning email sent with date, step number, and delivery result.
Deduplication #
The plugin prevents duplicate dunning emails. If a dunning email has already been sent for a given retry attempt, sending it again (e.g. via manual trigger) is blocked and logged.
For the retry schedule that triggers dunning emails, see Payment Retries Overview.