Payment Failures

Due to the recurring nature of subscription payments, this can sometimes fail during a billing cycle.

A number of different reasons can cause this, such as the customer's card having expired, their payment method having insufficient funds, or a temporary issue with their bank.

Within the Recover Settings dashboard page, we allow you to customize your own rules for retrying subscription payments. We recommend leaving a few days between each retry attempt to allow any temporary issue (such as insufficient funds) to resolve themselves.

When the subscription payment fails the first time, a Subscription Updated alert is triggered, with an old_status of active and a status of past_due.

Each time a payment fails, a Subscription Payment Failed alert is triggered. This contains the next_retry_date and the retry attempt_number which you might find useful. You can use this alert to monitor failed payments and update your records accordingly.

We strongly recommend that you enable the "Failed Payment Email" notification within the Recover Settings page in order for customers to easily update their payment details should the payment fail.

There is a maximum of 3 payment retry attempts you can set. If all these payment attempts fail, you can specify the final action for the subscription. The options are listed below:

Option	Behavior
Pause Subscription	This sets the subscription status to "paused" and the buyer will receive the "Subscription Paused Email" (if enabled in the Recover Settings page). A Subscription Updated alert is triggered, with an `old_status` of `past_due`, a `status` of `paused`, and a `paused_reason` of `delinquent`. If the customer updates their payment details, we will immediately attempt a payment charge. If the payment is successful, the subscription status is set to "active", and the subscription billing interval is recalculated from that day onwards. Two Subscription Updated alerts will be triggered immediately - the first alert with an `old_status` of `paused` and a `status` of `past_due`, followed by a second alert with an `old_status` of `past_due` and a `status` of `active`. If the subscription is manually unpaused via the dashboard or API, we will attempt to charge the buyer using their existing payment method within an hour. A Subscription Updated alert with an `old_status` of `paused` and a `status` of `past_due` will be triggered immediately. If the payment fails, the subscription will go through the retry cycle again. Should all retries fail, the subscription will once again be paused. If the payment succeeds, the subscription will revert back to "active" and a Subscription Updated alert with an `old_status` of `past_due` and a `status` of `active` will be triggered.
Move to past due	This keeps the subscription in a past due state. No Subscription Updated alert will be triggered. You can manually retry the payment attempt or reset the retry attempts within the Manage Subscription dashboard page. If the customer updates their payment details, we will immediately attempt to charge the customer for all of the outstanding payments missed while the subscription was in the past-due state. If all of the missed payments were charged successfully, the subscription will revert back to "active" and a Subscription Updated alert with an `old_status` of `past_due` and a `status` of `active` will be triggered. You should only select this option if: You would like to continue allowing the customer access to the product/service while they're past-due; Customer is aware that they will be rebilled for all of the payments missed during this time when their payment details are updated successfully.
Cancel Subscription	The subscription is canceled immediately and the buyer will receive a subscription cancelation email. The Subscription Cancelled alert is triggered.