What Happens When a Payment Fails
What AskBiz does when a subscription payment fails, how long your account stays active, and how to resolve a failed payment quickly.
The failed payment sequence
When a payment fails, AskBiz follows an automatic retry sequence:
- Day 0 (initial failure): You receive an email notifying you the payment failed with a link to update your card
- Day 3: AskBiz retries the payment automatically
- Day 5: Second retry attempt
- Day 7: Final retry attempt. If this fails, your account enters a paused state
- Day 37 (30 days after pausing): If payment has not been resolved, your account is closed and data deletion begins
During the retry period (days 0–7), your account remains fully active with no interruption to service. You do not need to wait for a retry — you can update your card at any time to resolve the failure immediately.
How to resolve a failed payment
The fastest way to resolve a failed payment:
1. Go to Settings → Billing → Payment Method
2. Update your card or add a new one
3. Go to Settings → Billing → Billing History
4. Find the failed payment and click Retry Payment
5. The charge will be attempted immediately with the new card
Once payment succeeds, your billing cycle resets from today and you will receive a confirmation email with your invoice.
Alternatively, click the Update Payment button in the failed payment email — this takes you directly to the payment update page.
What a paused account means
If payment is not resolved within 7 days, your account is paused:
- You cannot ask new questions in the AI Chat
- Dashboards are read-only — you can view existing data but no new data syncs
- Your data is fully preserved — nothing is deleted during the paused period
- Alerts and reports are paused — you will not receive Daily Brief emails or anomaly alerts
To reactivate: update your payment method and pay the outstanding balance. Your account is reactivated within minutes of a successful payment, and data syncing resumes immediately.
Common reasons for payment failure
- Card expired: the most common reason. Update your card before expiry to prevent this.
- Insufficient funds: the card was declined by your bank at time of charge. Resolve with your bank and retry.
- Bank blocked the charge: some banks flag recurring international charges from Stripe. Call your bank to whitelist Stripe (STRIPE.COM) for ongoing charges.
- Card number changed: if you received a replacement card (new number, same account), update the card in AskBiz — the old number will decline even if the account is still active.
- 3D Secure required: some cards require additional authentication. Contact hello@askbiz.co and we can send an authentication link.