The Subscription Unpaid event triggers after your customer’s payment fails and ALL the auto-charge attempts have also failed. At this point, the subscription will be moved to an Unpaid status* within Spiffy, triggering the Subscription Unpaid event actions you have set up.
Note: You must adjust your Stripe account settings, in order for this to work properly (see below).
This event is most commonly used to trigger an internal notification for your team to identify customers as “high-risk” of canceling. It is also commonly used to send a single, final courtesy reminder email that reminds customers that their subscription has been canceled, or is pending cancelation.
The status of the subscription after all auto-charge attempts have failed, is dependent on your settings in Stripe. You get to choose the status of the subscription after all retries have failed.
After all Stripe auto-charge attempts have failed, you can change the subscription status to one of the following options (more details below the image):
- Cancel the subscription (Default)
- Mark the subscription as unpaid
- Leave the subscription as-is
At the bottom of the image below, you will see these three options in your Stripe settings.
Logged into your Stripe account? Click here to view these settings.
Stripe Settings Explained
Cancel The Subscription (Default)
Once a subscription is marked as Canceled within Stripe, there is no a way to change the status of that subscription back to Active. If your customer wants to reactivate their subscription, the customer would need to purchase the subscription again, as if they are a new customer. You could also manually add the subscription within Stripe, but this data will not be in Spiffy. Having your customers re-purchase through a Spiffy checkout page is the best option.
Mark The Subscription As Unpaid
If you mark the subscription as Unpaid after all retries fail, the subscription will stay in an Unpaid status until their card is updated. Future subscription payments will not run until the card is updated, but the subscription is not canceled.
Once your customer updates their card, all unpaid balances will be processed immediately, and the subscription will be set to Active status.
Leave The Subscription As-Is
If you leave the subscription As-Is after all retries fail, the subscription will stay in an Active state. Future subscription payments will be attempted, and will most likely fail until the customer updates their card. Future failed payments will attempt to trigger the failed payment actions again; be sure to account for this in your setup within your marketing automation software.
If you have your settings in Stripe set to either mark as unpaid or leave the subscription as-is, be sure to include a link to your Customer Portal URL in your follow-up emails for this action.
Click here to learn more about how your customers can update their credit card with your Customer Portal.