How Popl automated collections at scale and unlocked 30x+ ROI in 3 months

As Popl scaled, its accounts receivable grew alongside its customer base, bringing with it the increased complexity across billing scenarios, payment types, and customer segments.

The team had already built a strong billing and payments foundation on Stripe. However, collections required a different layer of coordination and tailoring outreach at scale based on context, timing, and historical customer behavior.

As a lean team, collections was not a dedicated focus area. Instead, follow-ups on overdue invoices and failed payments were handled alongside other responsibilities, requiring manual effort and constant context switching.

At a smaller scale, this approach was manageable. But as volume increased, collections became increasingly time-intensive to stay on top of consistently, requiring ongoing attention to ensure that outreach was timely, relevant, and complete.

While Stripe provided basic reminders, it was not designed to coordinate collections workflows at this level of nuance.

As a result, outreach became inconsistent, visibility across accounts was limited, and outstanding balances began to accumulate, creating a backlog that was difficult to fully address alongside day-to-day responsibilities.

Popl needed a way to stay on top of collections — consistently and intelligently — without requiring additional time or headcount from the team, and without disrupting their existing billing infrastructure.