Abandoned Cart Recovery

Abandoned Cart Recovery (ACR) detects checkouts that were abandoned or whose payment failed, and emails the customer a link to complete the purchase. You can add an automatic discount to each recovery.

What Is Abandoned Cart Recovery?

ACR identifies customers who started a checkout but didn’t complete it, whether the payment failed or they left before paying, and sends them a sequence of recovery emails. It covers one-time purchases and the first payment of a new subscription, including a free trial.

Failed payments: The customer attempted payment, but it was declined or failed with an error.
Incomplete checkouts: The customer visited checkout but never attempted payment.

How ACR Works

Detection

Dodo Payments looks for payments that are at least 60 minutes old and haven’t succeeded. It skips payments that are still processing or were cancelled, payments without a customer email address, and one-time payments with a zero total. If the customer has made a newer successful payment, no abandoned checkout is recorded.

Classification

Each abandoned checkout is classified by reason:

Payment Failed: The customer attempted payment, but it failed.
Checkout Incomplete: The customer visited checkout but never attempted payment.

Email Sequence

Based on the classification, Dodo Payments sends up to 3 recovery emails at the delays you configure. Each email contains a unique recovery link and an unsubscribe link. The email also supports one-click unsubscribe (RFC 8058), so mail apps that support it can show their own unsubscribe button.

Recovery

When the customer clicks the recovery link, a checkout opens with their original cart. They complete payment in a fresh checkout session.

Status Lifecycle

Each abandoned checkout moves through these states:

Status	Description
`abandoned`	Checkout detected as abandoned, no emails sent yet
`recovering`	At least one recovery email has been sent
`recovered`	Customer completed payment through the recovery link
`exhausted`	All emails were sent and seven days passed with no recovery, or a newer checkout superseded this one
`opted_out`	Customer unsubscribed from recovery emails

Configuring ACR

Turn on and configure ACR in Settings → Recovery in your dashboard.

ACR settings page showing enable toggle, discount configuration, and email sequence editor — Abandoned Cart Recovery settings in the dashboard

Global Settings

These settings apply to every abandoned checkout:

Setting	Description	Default
Enable Abandoned Cart Recovery	Master toggle for ACR	Off
Give customers a discount code	Generate a discount code for each abandoned checkout and include it in the recovery emails	Off
Discount Percentage (%)	Percentage discount applied to the recovery checkout for this customer	10
Valid for (days)	How many days the generated discount code stays valid	5

Email Sequences

ACR has two email sequences, Payment Failed and Checkout Incomplete, each with up to 3 emails. The dashboard lists them as Emails sent to customer when payment fails and Emails sent to customer when checkout is incomplete.

Email sequence editor showing subject, body, timing, and enable toggle for each email in the sequence — ACR email sequence configuration

Each email has these settings:

Setting	Description
Enable this email	Turns the email on or off without deleting it
Send after	How long after abandonment detection to send this email, in days and hours
Subject Line	The email subject. It supports the placeholders listed after this table.
Email Body Text	Plain text shown inside the standard recovery email layout, above the order summary. Line breaks are kept. HTML and placeholders are not rendered.
Reply-to email	The address that receives customer replies. If you leave it empty, your store contact email is used.

In Subject Line, Dodo Payments replaces these placeholders: {store_name}, {store_owner_name}, {store_contact_email}, {discount_code}, {recovery_link}, and {unsubscribe_link}. Both sequences use the same default delays:

Email #	Default Delay
1	1 hour
2	24 hours
3	72 hours

Example Recovery Emails

ACR sends a different email for each abandonment reason. These examples show what the customer sees.

Payment Failed
Checkout Incomplete

Recovery email for a failed payment showing store name, message about payment failure, order summary with product details, discount, and a Resume Checkout button — Recovery email sent when a payment attempt fails

Recovery Discounts

When Give customers a discount code is on and the percentage is above 0, ACR generates a unique, single-use discount code for each abandoned checkout at detection. The codes start with ACR-. Each discount:

Is restricted to the products from the original checkout
Expires after the number of days in Valid for (days), counted from detection
Is limited to one redemption
Is hidden from your dashboard discount list (internal use only)

Start with a modest discount (5-10%) and measure its effect on conversion before you increase it.

Customer Recovery Experience

When a customer clicks Resume Checkout in a recovery email, Dodo Payments opens a new checkout session with the same cart: the same products, add-ons, and quantities, and the amount the customer entered for a Pay What You Want product. If you turned on the discount, its code is already applied. If the customer opens the link again while that session is still valid, the same session reopens.

Analytics

Track ACR performance under Analytics → Recovery in your dashboard.

The Abandoned Cart Recovery section shows these metrics:

Metric	Description
Abandoned checkouts	Total number of detected abandoned checkouts
Recovery rate	Percentage of abandoned checkouts that were recovered
Recovered revenue	Total revenue recovered through ACR
Avg. time to recover	Average time from abandonment to recovery
Recovery rate by email	Breakdown of which email in the sequence drove the recovery
Recovery rate by product	Which products have the highest recovery rates

Webhook Events

ACR sends two webhook events:

Event	Description
`abandoned_checkout.detected`	An abandoned checkout has been detected and recovery has begun
`abandoned_checkout.recovered`	A customer completed payment through the recovery flow

Recovery Webhook Payloads

View the full webhook payload schemas for ACR events.

Edge Cases

ACR handles these cases automatically:

Scenario	Behavior
Customer completes purchase before next email	A payment through the recovery link marks the checkout `recovered` when it succeeds. If the customer pays the original checkout instead, the next send check marks the checkout `exhausted`.
Customer starts a new checkout	The old abandoned checkout is marked `exhausted` at the next send check
Customer clicks Resume Checkout after the checkout is recovered	The link returns a message that the checkout has already been recovered, and no new checkout opens
Customer unsubscribes	The abandoned checkout is marked `opted_out`, and no further emails are sent. An email already scheduled for that checkout is dropped.

Best Practices

Start with defaults: Every email comes with a default delay and subject. Customize them after you have baseline data.
Personalize emails: Use subject placeholders such as {store_name} and {discount_code} to make each email specific to the purchase.
Monitor analytics: Check Recovery rate by email to see which messages drive the most conversions, and turn off emails that recover little.
Use discounts strategically: Start small (5-10%) to protect margins while you test the effect on conversion.
Keep emails concise: Keep recovery emails short and focused on one action. The email layout already includes the Resume Checkout button.

ACR runs automatically once you turn it on. Start with the default settings, watch your analytics, and adjust based on the results.

Recovery Webhooks

React to abandoned_checkout.detected and abandoned_checkout.recovered events.

Subscription Dunning

Recover lapsed subscriptions with automated dunning emails.

Customer Portal

Where customers manage their subscriptions and payment methods.

Discounts

How discount codes work, including the codes ACR generates.

Getting Started

Features

Integrate

Merchant of Record

Miscellaneous

What Is Abandoned Cart Recovery?

How ACR Works

Status Lifecycle