The app charges each renewal itself, through Shopify’s subscription billing, with the card the customer saved at checkout. Each paid renewal makes a normal Shopify order. When a card is declined, the app retries on a schedule you set, emails the customer and, if every retry fails, pauses or cancels the subscription. You set all of this in Settings › General, under Renewals and Failed payments.
How renewals are charged #
- A renewal is due on the subscription’s next charge date. The app charges it from the hour you set, in your store’s time zone.
- A few days before, the customer gets the Upcoming charge email (and Trial ending before a free trial ends).
- Paid: Shopify makes the order, which you fulfil like any other, and the next charge date moves on by one billing period.
- Declined: the subscription shows Payment overdue and the retries start (below).
The Billing card on the app’s Home page says “Billing is running. Last run …”. If the billing hasn’t run for half an hour, it turns red.
Renewals settings #
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Charge renewals at (hour, store time) | 9 | “0–23. Renewals due that day are charged from this hour.” |
| Upcoming charge email (days before) | 3 | “0 turns the email off. Up to 14 days.” |
| Missed renewals | Charge once, then carry on from the next date | When billing was stopped for a while (a paused store, an outage), what to charge once it runs again. Or Charge every missed renewal. |
When a payment fails #
The app sorts each decline and acts on it:
| Decline | What happens |
|---|---|
| Temporary decline | Retried on your schedule. The customer gets the Payment failed email. |
| Card can’t be charged (lost, stolen or closed) | Shopify emails the customer a secure link to update the card, and the app sends Payment failed. With Don’t retry cards that can never be charged on, there are no retries: the grace period runs, then the final action. |
| Customer must confirm (3-D Secure) | The customer gets Payment needs confirming (3-D Secure), and a reminder two days later. The charge goes through when they confirm. If they don’t, the final action runs when the grace period ends. |
| Out of stock | Retried on your schedule. The customer gets the out of stock email and your staff an alert. |
| Store setup problem | Retried on your schedule, and your staff get an alert to fix the store’s payment setup. The customer isn’t emailed. |
As soon as the customer adds or updates a card, the failed renewal is tried again. Any later payment that goes through puts the subscription back to Active.
Failed payments settings #
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Retry after (days) | 1, 3, 5, 7 | “Days between tries after a decline, for example 1, 3, 5, 7. Each counts from the try before it.” Up to 6 retries, 1 to 14 days apart. |
| When every retry fails | Pause the subscription | Or Cancel the subscription. The customer gets the paused or cancelled email with the reason. |
| Grace period (days) | 7 | “How long a subscription stays active while payment is overdue.” 0 to 30. |
| Don’t retry cards that can never be charged | On | “Lost, stolen or closed cards go straight to the card update email.” |
A subscription paused after failed payments resumes by itself when the customer updates the card. You can also resume it, or press Bill now, from its page in the app.
Cards about to expire #
When a subscription has a charge due in the next 14 days and its card expires before then, the customer gets the Card expiring email, with a link to update it. The account page also says “This card expires soon.”
Good to know #
- Every charge and its result is on the subscription’s page, under Payment attempts. A charge is never made twice for the same renewal.
- Staff copies of the failed-payment emails go to the addresses in Settings › Emails › Staff copies go to. See Emails, Shopify Flow and the API.
- Members keep their benefits during the members’ grace period. See Memberships, tiers and store credit.
- For a rental billed by the period, the final action asks for the item back instead of pausing. See Rental subscriptions with Rentals & Bookings.
