When Customers Are Charged, and What Happens When a Payment Fails (Essential Subscriptions app)
This page covers the timing of subscription charges and the retry process behind a failed payment. The retry numbers themselves are yours to set, in Settings and Billing and inventory settings. See Billing and Inventory Settings.
When the Charge Happens
Subscription charges run once a day, around midday in your store's time zone. They do not run at the time of day the customer originally bought.
Your store time zone is the one in your Shopify admin under Settings and General. Changing it moves the charge window.
Each daily run charges only the orders due that day. The app does not go back and charge an order whose date has already passed. If a charge date is missed, for example during an outage, contact support.
One exception: if a paused subscription is resumed after the daily run, an order due that same day is charged straight away. Orders whose date passed while it was paused are not charged.
Only Active subscriptions are charged. Paused, cancelled, expired and failed subscriptions are not.
The Upcoming Charge Reminder
Customers can be warned before each charge. The email is Upcoming subscription charge reminder in Settings and Email notifications to customers. Open it to set Send reminder email from 1 to 30 days before renewal. The default is 1 day.
Reminders go out around midday store time. Skipped orders are left out.
Note: Reminders only go to Active subscriptions. Paused, cancelled, expired and failed subscriptions get no reminder.
When a Payment Fails
A declined card starts the retry process. Your settings decide how many retries, how far apart, and what happens at the end. The defaults are 3 retries, 7 days apart, then cancel the subscription.
Retries run at roughly the same clock time as the original failure, not in the midday window.
While retrying, any order due before the next retry is skipped so charges do not stack up. Those skips are real, so the customer receives the Subscription order skipped email if you have it on. This surprises merchants, so it is worth knowing before a customer asks.
Which email the customer gets:
| Attempt | |
|---|---|
| First failure | Payment failure (1st attempt) |
| Middle attempts | Payment failure (Retrying) |
| Second to last attempt | Payment failure before last attempt |
| Final attempt | None |
After the final attempt the subscription is paused or cancelled according to your setting, and the customer gets the Subscription paused or Subscription cancelled email. There is no separate "we gave up" email.
The table holds with 3 or more retries. With fewer, the emails change:
- 0 retries: no payment failure email. The subscription is paused or cancelled at once.
- 1 retry: the first failure sends Payment failure before last attempt.
- 2 retries: Payment failure (Retrying) is never sent.
Retries stop early if, when the next retry is due:
- the subscription is no longer Active, for example you or the customer paused it, or it was cancelled,
- the order being retried was skipped.
No further retry emails go out after that.
You are notified of every failed attempt through staff notifications, if the Failure notifications group is on. See Staff Notifications.
When Stock Runs Out
An order that cannot be created because a product is out of stock follows a separate retry ladder, set under Not enough inventory. The defaults are 5 retries, 1 day apart, then cancel.
Inventory failures send no payment failure email. While the retries run, orders due before the next retry are skipped, so the customer gets Subscription order skipped if that email is on. When the retries run out, they get Subscription paused or Subscription cancelled, if those emails are on. If stock comes back before the retries run out the order goes through normally.
Payment Authentication
If a customer's bank asks for extra verification, the app emails them a link to complete it, with the subject Action required to complete your subscription payment. This email is always sent and cannot be switched off, because the charge cannot go through without it. A challenged payment is not a failure and does not start the retry process. If the customer never completes it, the charge eventually fails and the normal retries begin.
"Failed" and "Failed last payment" Are Different
The Subscriptions list has both, and they mean different things.
- Failed last payment means the most recent charge attempt was declined. The subscription may still be active with retries running.
- Failed is a status on the whole subscription. The app never sets it. After the last retry, a subscription is paused or cancelled instead.
The app does not charge or retry a Failed subscription. You can cancel it from its detail page.
To find these, open Subscriptions and use the tabs along the top.
Helping a Customer With a Bad Card
Open the subscription from the Subscriptions list and click Send link to update payment on the Payment method card. That sends Shopify's own payment-method update email with a secure link. It is not one of the app's emails, so it is not affected by your email settings or design.
Skipping Does Not Move the Schedule
Skipping an order drops that one delivery. The next order keeps its original date. The same is true whether you skip it from the subscription's Orders card or the customer skips it in the portal.