What to do if a payment fails
If your renewal payment fails — expired card, insufficient funds, fraud check declined — Stripe lets us know and your subscription moves to one of two states:
- Past due — the most recent payment failed but Stripe is still retrying. Happens immediately after the first failed attempt.
- Unpaid — Stripe has retried the configured number of times (about two weeks) and given up. The subscription is at risk of cancellation.
What you'll see
A red banner across the top of the portal:
Your last payment failed. Update your card to keep your subscription active — we'll retry automatically.
Or for unpaid:
Your subscription is unpaid. We've exhausted automatic retries — update your card now to restore access before the subscription is cancelled.
The banner has an Update payment button. Click it and you'll go straight to Stripe's secure Customer Portal to enter a new card.
What still works
Even when past-due or unpaid, your customers' experience is not interrupted. Existing stamp cards still work. Customers can still earn and redeem stamps. Your shop still appears on the discover screen.
The lockout is owner-side only — you'll see warning banners and some advanced features (campaigns, custom QR colours, analytics export) gate themselves until billing is current. We never want to punish your customers for a failed renewal.
After you update your card
Stripe will retry the failed payment within minutes. The banner clears automatically and your subscription returns to active status. If the retry fails again (very rare — usually means the new card was also declined), the banner reappears and you can try a different payment method.
If you want to cancel instead
If the subscription failed because you no longer want the plan, click Cancel subscription from the Billing page rather than letting it auto-cancel. A clean cancellation:
- Honours the rest of your paid period (no refund, no surprise lockout)
- Auto-downgrades you to Starter at period-end
- Avoids any "subscription cancelled" email to your team
See Cancel your subscription for the full flow.
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