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Handling failed payments & cancellations

Updated February 11, 2026

Content Vault gives you full control over how failed payments and subscription cancellations are handled — including retries, access behavior, and customer notifications.

This ensures you can recover revenue where possible while maintaining a predictable experience for your customers.

Content Vault Settings page with the Failed payments retry options highlighted

How Failed Payments Work

When a subscription payment fails, Content Vault follows the retry rules you’ve configured in Settings → Failed Payments.

Payment Retry Attempts

You can choose how many times Content Vault should retry a failed payment before taking action.

Example:

  • Retry up to 7 times
  • Attempt retries daily

This helps recover temporary payment issues like expired cards or bank delays.

Retry Interval

Choose how often retries occur:

  • Every day
  • Every few days (depending on configuration)

Retries stop once a payment succeeds or the retry limit is reached.

Action After Failed Retries

If all retry attempts fail, Content Vault will automatically take the action you’ve selected:

  • Cancel subscription
  • Pause subscription (if supported by your workflow)

This action applies consistently across all subscription types.

What Customers Experience During Failed Payments

  • Customers retain access while retries are in progress

  • If retries ultimately fail, access is handled based on:

    • Your subscription configuration
    • Whether access is retained or revoked after cancellation

Customers are notified automatically via email at each relevant step.

Subscription Cancellations

Subscriptions can be cancelled in several ways:

  • Automatically after failed payment retries
  • Manually by you
  • By the customer (if enabled in your setup)

Access After Cancellation

Access behavior is configurable and depends on the subscription and tier setup.

You can choose whether customers:

  • Retain access after cancellation, or
  • Lose access immediately

This allows you to support use cases like:

  • Paid libraries with lifetime access
  • Strict memberships requiring an active subscription

Subscription tier editor with the Customers retain access after cancel or pause checkbox highlighted

Paused Subscriptions

When a subscription is paused:

  • Billing stops
  • Access is handled based on your configuration
  • The subscription can be reactivated later without creating a new one

Paused subscriptions are useful for:

  • Payment recovery
  • Temporary customer requests
  • Retention workflows

Paused customer subscription in Content Vault showing the Reactivate Subscription button in Shopify admin

Email Notifications

Content Vault automatically sends emails for all key events, including:

  • Payment failed
  • Payment due reminder
  • Subscription paused
  • Subscription cancelled (access retained or revoked)
  • Subscription resumed

All emails can be customized from Settings → Email Templates > General.

Payment failed email template preview with merge tags for price and retry date

Managing Cancellations Manually

From the Customers page, you can:

  • Pause an active subscription
  • Cancel a subscription immediately
  • Reactivate a paused subscription
  • View billing history and payment status

Content Vault customer page with Pause and Cancel Subscription buttons highlighted in Shopify admin

Final Notes

  • Failed payment retries help reduce involuntary churn
  • Cancellation behavior is predictable and configurable
  • Access rules are respected consistently across retries, pauses, and cancellations
  • All customer communication is automated but fully customizable

If you’re unsure which retry or cancellation strategy fits your business best, reach out via live chat — we’re happy to help you fine-tune it.