In many WooCommerce Subscriptions stores there's money sitting in “on hold” subscriptions that a five-minute change could recover. This guide explains what happens when a charge fails, how to turn on WooCommerce's retry system, when it doesn't work, and how to work out how much money you have at risk.
In 30 seconds
- WooCommerce Subscriptions' automatic retries are off by default.
- Turn them on under WooCommerce › Settings › Subscriptions › Payment recovery.
- They make 5 attempts over 7 days and email the customer on three of them.
- They don't work with SEPA or with gateways that manage their own billing.
- Your money at risk is on-hold subscriptions × the fee.
What happens when a charge fails
WooCommerce Subscriptions creates a renewal order every billing cycle. If the payment fails, the subscription moves to “On hold” and the customer gets the renewal invoice to pay manually. If they don't, the subscription goes unpaid and usually ends up cancelled.
Most of these failures aren't the customer's decision. They're usually an expired card, a limit exceeded, or a one-off bank problem. The customer would keep paying if the charge were retried or if someone reminded them. This is called involuntary churn, and according to several industry vendors it accounts for 20% to 40% of cancellations. Those are rough figures, not an exact number for your store.
Step 1: check whether retries are turned on
WooCommerce Subscriptions includes a system that automatically retries the charge, but according to its official documentation it's off by default. To check:
Look for the “Enable automatic retry of failed recurring payments” checkbox and turn it on. Labels can vary slightly depending on your plugin version.
How the 5 retries work
With the default configuration, WooCommerce retries the charge five times over seven days. During that time the subscription is “On hold” and the renewal order stays pending.
| Attempt | When (after the failure) | Emails the customer? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 hours | No, only you |
| 2 | 24 hours | Yes |
| 3 | 48 hours | No, only you |
| 4 | 4 days | Yes |
| 5 | 7 days | Yes |
If all five attempts fail, the customer gets the renewal invoice email from the standard process. WooCommerce also includes a retry report showing the money recovered, so you can see whether it's working.
When they don't work (and why it matters in Europe)
According to WooCommerce's documentation, the retry system doesn't trigger for SEPA payments, for PayPal Standard, or for gateways that control the billing schedule themselves. If you collect by SEPA direct debit, which is common across Europe, WooCommerce's retries won't help you: you'll have to handle failed payments another way, by contacting the customer yourself.
If you're not sure what your gateway does with a declined charge, ask its support team. It's one of the most overlooked things.
Step 2: reach out yourself, and fast
Even with retries turned on, a quick message from you helps. An analysis from Baremetrics, a subscription analytics provider, puts recovery at around 13% for emails sent within the first 24 hours and around 4% after 30 days. Treat it as a guide, not a promise.
Template for emailing a customer with a pending payment
Subject: We couldn't process your subscription payment
Hi {name}, we couldn't process the renewal for {plan} ({amount}). It's usually a one-off card issue. You can update your payment method here: {link}. If you've already sorted it, please ignore this message.
Keep the tone neutral and don't blame the customer: almost nobody wants to leave over a card failure. The link should take them straight to updating their payment method, with no intermediate steps.
Step 3: work out how much money you have at risk
In WooCommerce's Subscriptions list, filter by the “On hold” status. Multiply the number of subscriptions by their monthly fee: that's your MRR at risk.
For example, 3 on-hold subscriptions at $27 are $81 a month you can still save. According to aggregated industry data, recovery typically looks like this:
- Without retries: between 0% and 10%.
- Fixed retries: between 20% and 40%.
- Retries, notifications, and card updates: between 50% and 70%.
With those ranges, the $81 in the example equals $16 to $57 a month recoverable, and it recurs every month there are failed charges. These are rough ranges: your result depends on your gateway and your customers.
Summary: what to do today
- Turn on automatic retries (5 minutes).
- Check what your gateway does if you charge by SEPA or another method that's excluded.
- Write to the subscriptions that are already on hold, using the template above.
- Work out your MRR at risk and repeat it every week.
Recurra does this calculation every Monday
It reads your store with read-only permission, finds pending failed charges and other problems costing you money, and tells you what to do, with the dollar amounts.
Sources
- WooCommerce: documentation for the failed recurring payment retry system
- Baremetrics: recovering failed payments (a vendor blog, rough figures)
- RetentionLens: state of involuntary churn (aggregates data from several vendors, rough figures)