Cards expire, get replaced, and occasionally get declined — so some renewal charges will fail. When that happens the app doesn’t quietly drop the subscription. It retries the charge and prompts the customer to fix their payment method, recovering revenue that would otherwise be lost.
Automatic retries
When a renewal charge fails, the app automatically tries again a few times over the following period rather than giving up after one attempt. Many failures are temporary — a momentary decline or a hold — and clear on a later try without anyone doing anything.
Asking the customer to update their card
Alongside the retries, the customer is emailed and asked to update their payment method. The most common cause of a failed renewal is an expired or replaced card, and the customer is the only one who can fix that. They update it from their account, and the next retry uses the new card.
If all retries fail
If the charge still can’t be collected after the final retry, the customer receives a last-attempt notice making clear the subscription is at risk. You can see subscriptions with payment problems in your admin and follow up if it’s a valuable customer.
Keeping failures low
Encourage customers to keep their card current - The update link in the emails makes this easy.
Use renewal reminders - A heads-up before each charge gives customers time to fix a card before it fails.
Watch for repeat failures - A subscription that keeps failing usually means a card that needs replacing.