Insufficient-funds retries now land on payday

Changed

• Insufficient-funds retries run on payday. Each automatic retry of an insufficient-funds decline (bank code 51) runs on the customer's next likely payday in their country's payroll calendar, at your billing hour in their own time zone. On our stores a retry made after a payday had passed recovered 15.9% of these declines, against 9.1% when no payday had passed. When a customer's earlier payment recovered right after a payday, we learn their fortnightly payday and aim at that one.
• Never too soon. A retry is never made sooner than 24 hours after the decline, or before a wait the card network asks for. When no payday falls within 7 days, that retry uses the 2, 5 and 8-day calendar instead.
• Prepaid cards get one retry. Waiting doesn't refill a prepaid card — they recovered 2.6% of the time on our stores. A prepaid card out of funds gets one retry on the next payday, with your recovery discount if you set one; then the subscription is held Past due and the customer is asked to use a different card.
• Unchanged: at most 4 attempts in total, a subscription is never cancelled for insufficient funds, and your recovery discount still applies to the final attempt. Other soft declines are still retried 2, 5 and 8 days after the first decline, "do not honor" and generic refusals once 48 to 72 hours later, and permanent declines never.

New

• Payment retry reminder. The day before an insufficient-funds retry, the customer gets an email and SMS saying when we will try again and asking them to make sure funds are available or update their card. It is on by default; turn it off in Subscriptions → Settings → Notifications.

Good to know

• One in five insufficient-funds retries stays on the 2, 5 and 8-day calendar on purpose, so the effect of payday timing can be measured.
• Renewals too: for one in five subscriptions, chosen at random so the effect of payday timing can be measured, renewals are charged on the renewal date at your billing hour instead of being moved to a payday. This group is separate from the retry group above.

Guide: Failed subscription payments.