Subscription payment failures

When a subscription renewal fails, Arketa follows a retry process before marking the subscription as past due. Here's what happens and what you need to do.

Why a client can have access without paying

Sometimes a client can book a class even though you don't see a completed payment. That's usually expected — access and payment aren't always tied together. Here are the five most common reasons:

Free class or trial period — if you offer free classes or a trial, clients are granted access without a payment during that promotional window.
Comped by staff — a team member applied a promo code or added the client for free from the dashboard, so no charge was collected.
Subscription paused with access — the membership is paused, but you chose to let the client keep booking during the pause.
Payment still retrying — the subscription payment failed but the subscription is not yet cancelled, so the client keeps access through the retry window (see What happens when a subscription fails below).

How to tell which applies

Go to Customers → Clients → open the client's profile
Check Packages, Subscriptions & Bundles to see whether they're on a trial, a comped item, or a paused membership
Open the reservation and check its payment status — an unpaid reservation tied to a "Past due" subscription points to a payment still retrying

If the reason is a still-retrying payment, use the Resolve a subscription failure steps below. For paused memberships, promo comps, or free adds, the client is meant to have access — no action needed.

Bookings made before a membership was canceled

When a membership is canceled, the classes the client had already booked with it don't disappear on their own. Arketa applies your Action on subscription cancellation setting to each of those upcoming bookings:

Mark as unpaid — the client keeps their spot. The booking still reads Confirmed on the roster, but its payment status becomes Unpaid, so you can collect payment or cancel it yourself.
Cancel reservations — the spot is released and the client comes off the class.

Set this at Settings → General Business Settings → Subscription & Payment Settings → Add action on subscription cancellation.

This is separate from Allow unpaid bookings on the service type and pricing option. Those control whether a client can create an unpaid booking at checkout. The setting above only decides what happens to bookings that already existed when a membership was canceled — so you can have unpaid bookings switched off everywhere and still see unpaid reservations appear after a cancellation.

What happens when a subscription fails

Initial failure — Stripe declines the charge on the renewal date
Automatic retries — Arketa retries the payment up to 8 times within 30 days. The system uses a smart algorithm to determine the optimal time of day to attempt each charge, maximizing the chance of success.
Client notification — the client receives an email asking them to update their payment method
Past due status — if all retries fail, the subscription moves to "Past due"
Access restriction — if you enable Block booking when subscription fails (Settings → General Business Settings → Subscription & Payment Settings), a failed subscription is blocked from booking until the renewal is paid. A payment that is still "Processing" doesn't trigger the block — the client can keep booking while it's in flight. This matters for delayed payment methods like ACH, BECS, or SEPA direct debit, where a payment can show "Processing" for several days before it clears.

Arketa never automatically cancels a subscription. Even after all retry attempts are exhausted, the subscription remains in "Past due" status — it is not canceled. Only a client or a staff member can cancel a subscription. This means you always have the opportunity to recover the payment and retain the client.

Why a period can show unpaid after a recent charge

When a renewal fails, Arketa's retries can collect that invoice days or weeks later — so a charge a client sees on their bank statement may be paying an earlier, overdue billing period rather than the current one. Each billing period is marked paid only when its own invoice is collected.

That means a current period can correctly show Unpaid even though a charge succeeded recently, if that charge cleared a previous period's invoice while the current period's invoice is still failing. To confirm which period a payment covers, match the invoice to its billing period on the subscription — not to the date the charge finally succeeded.

Resolve a subscription failure

Go to Customers → Clients → open the client's profile
Find their subscription (it will show "Past due" status)
Update their payment method (or have them update it themselves)
Once updated, retry the failed payment from the subscription detail

After a successful retry, the subscription returns to active status and any blocked access is restored.

Resolving unpaid reservations

If a client has unpaid reservations linked to a past-due subscription, you can turn on Enable unpaid reservation resolver in Settings → General Business Settings → Reservation Management. It works within the final 6 hours before class, and you can choose to:

Charge payment method on file — charge the client's saved card for the price of a drop-in when no pricing option covers the class
Cancel unresolvable reservations — cancel the reservation if nothing can pay for it; the client gets a cancellation email

If you turn on neither, unresolvable reservations stay unpaid.

Notifying clients

Arketa sends automated failed payment notifications to clients. You can customize these emails in Settings → Transactional Messages. You can also reach out manually via the Inbox or by phone.

Preventing future failures

Encourage clients to keep their card information updated. Send a reminder automation 2 weeks before a card's expected expiry (if you collect card expiry info), or include a link to update payment methods in your routine client communications.