Tip: Reduce involuntary churn by retrying failed subscription payments

Failed payments can cause users to churn when they don't want to. Avoid needlessly losing customers by automatically retrying payments when they fail.

Failed payments can have a big impact on your revenue, especially if you're using a subscription model. Just ask Segment, where 50% of churn is involuntary. While it's important to hedge against involuntary churn with email reminders about approaching card expirations, notifications about failed payments, and so forth, don't forget about the basics: Run it again. It turns out that over 20% of failed payments are fixed simply by retrying the payment. So set up automatic retries. If your payment platform allows it, customize them so that they occur during the day, as refusals are higher at night. And since refusals are also higher at the end of the month, it may pay to wait until the 1st in some cases. But whatever you do, don't retry a charge more than four times, as that may get it flagged as potential fraud.