✨ Please note: The Membership feature is only available on the Standard Plan and for those using Stripe as their integrated payment provider.
Failed recurring payments can lead to involuntary membership cancellations, known as "delinquent churn". Understanding and managing these issues helps you maintain memberships and reduce the risk of unintentional cancellations.
💡 Failed payments don’t automatically cancel membership tickets or stop members from booking. However, once the membership is cancelled, any tickets booked beyond the membership period are automatically cancelled.
This article explains the implications of failed membership payments and how to manage them effectively.
Reporting on Membership payment failures
You can filter the Customer list to show memberships that are at risk due to payment failure.
To do this:
Select Customers from the left-hand menu on your account.
Select the Filter by drop-down menu:
Select Memberships status, and Add:
Untick the Active, Cancelled, and Due to cancel checkboxes, then select Search to generate the results:
Any membership payment failures will show in the list (the list will be blank if you don't have any).
What happens when a customer has a failed payment?
If a payment fails, the membership enters an 'Active-Unpaid' state, and we begin an automated payment recovery process. This includes four attempts on days 1, 3, 5, and 7:
Attempt 1: Payment is attempted on day 1, and the customer is notified via email.
Attempt 2: Payment is attempted again on day 3.
Attempt 3: Payment is attempted on day 5, with another system email sent to the customer.
Attempt 4: The final payment attempt occurs on day 7. If unsuccessful, the membership is cancelled by default.
During the payment recovery process, access to membership benefits is restricted until the payment is successfully processed. Once payment is resolved, the membership status returns to 'Active,' and the customer regains access to their benefits.
Recovering failed membership payments
If automated payment attempts fail, Bookwhen stops further attempts and cancels the membership. If your Stripe settings allow memberships to continue after failed payments, Stripe manages payment recovery instead. Use Stripe to retry the payment and follow up with the customer as needed.
To retry a failed payment, open the unpaid invoice in Stripe and select Charge Customer. Ask the customer to update their billing details through the Bookwhen Memberships page so Stripe can attempt the payment again.