Failed payments - Subscriptions
Subscriptions: Failed Payment Guide How you'll know a payment has failed
- Subscription bookings page on your supplier portal dashboard
- Automated email to you ("failed parent payment")
- Automated emails to the customer (Stripe "payment failed" email)
Retry schedule
Failed subscription and instalment payments are retried automatically. No action is needed from you.
| Attempt | Timing |
|---|---|
| 1st (1/4) | Original payment date |
| 2nd (2/4) | +1 day |
| 3rd (3/4) | +1 day |
| Final (4/4) | +3 days |
Example: if the payment is due on 1st May, the attempts are 1st May, 2nd May, 3rd May and 6th May.
- Payments are taken by card, so weekends and bank holidays don't affect retry dates.
- You can see which attempt a payment is on next to Last payment attempt.
- For first payments, the charge date depends on how your Subscription is set up. For a deferred subscription, nothing is taken until the date you set when creating the activity.
What's new: an extra email after the 4th failed attempt
After the 4th attempt, and after any later attempt (including when you click Charge card), the customer now gets an additional email from Pebble. It:
- Carries your logo and says the payment relates to their booking with you
- Warns that they could lose their spot if they don't pay
- States the reason: "insufficient funds" or "blocked by bank"
- Includes a link to update their payment method for future payments
When the customer updates their payment method through this link, we'll also try to take the last due payment on that subscription, if it hasn't already been paid.
Customers still get the Stripe "payment failed" emails, and you still get the "failed parent payment" emails. Nothing changes there.
What you should do
1. Let the retries run
In most cases you don't need to do anything. If a customer asks you to retry (for example, after topping up their account), it's best to let the next automatic attempt run.
2. Wait for the new email after the 4th failure
Many customers will fix the problem themselves once they get it.
3. If the customer hasn't paid, or you need payment sooner
Subscriptions
- Ask the customer to look for the email with "Payment Failure" in the subject line, or
- Re-send the invoice link (see "Sending a payment link" below)
Instalments
- Click Charge card to try the payment again. This re-sends the email above so the customer can follow the link.
4. If you arrange payment separately, mark the invoice as paid
⚠️ Important: this has changed.
If the customer pays you another way (cash, a new invoice, bank transfer), you must mark the unpaid invoice as "Paid". This stops the payment being attempted again.If you don't, the customer could be charged twice if they later follow the link in our email and update their payment method.
Stop raising manual invoices straight after the 4th failure. If you've been doing this, please hold off. The new email gives customers a way to pay, and a manual invoice on top of it risks a double charge.
Sending a payment link:
- Go to Bookings
- Click Subscriptions
- Find the booking with the failed status
- Click the three dots under Manage
- Select History
- Click the failed invoice link (blue link)
- Copy the URL from the page and send it to the customer
The card used to pay this invoice is stored for future Subscription payments.
💡 Top tip: use the Status filter to view Failed payments only.
Cancelling a subscription
If you cancel a subscription straight away:
- Automatic retries will stop.
- You'll need to send a payment link manually to collect anything outstanding.
- Send the payment link before you cancel. Afterwards, the only way to recover it is through the Pebble Support team.
Why do payments fail?
Most failures are down to insufficient funds or an expired card. If a customer is sure they have funds and the card hasn't expired, they should check with their bank or card provider, as the payment may have been blocked.