How long is the past-due grace period before my account is suspended?

The past-due grace period in Valid Email Checker is hard-coded at 7 days from the moment your renewal charge fails. That window is the same length for everyone — there is no tier-based grace, no plan-size adjustment, and no automatic extensions. Seven days, every time, regardless of which plan you are on.

When the 7-day clock starts

The clock starts at the moment the renewal cron attempts the charge and gets a decline back from Stripe or Paddle. The exact timestamp is written to your subscription record as the new current_period_end and next_billing_date. You can see the exact deadline on the past-due banner across the top of the Billing & Payments page — it shows something like *"Pay your pending invoice before [date] to keep your credits active."*

Two things worth flagging about timing:

• The grace is calculated in UTC but displayed in your local timezone on the dashboard and in invoice emails. If you are in UTC+10, a Monday 8 AM local failure gives you until the following Monday 6 PM local before cancellation.
• The grace is from the failure moment, not the billing date. If your billing was scheduled for Monday but the charge actually ran a few seconds into Tuesday UTC, the 7-day window starts from Tuesday.

What happens at hour zero of day 8

When the grace expires without payment, the next run of the renewal cron picks up your past-due subscription and processes the expiry. In one transaction the status flips to cancelled, the monthly bucket is zeroed, any remaining pending invoices are auto-cancelled, and a final email goes out. PAYG credits stay untouched — that bucket is fully independent of subscription state.

Manual extensions

If you genuinely need longer than 7 days (extended bank hold, fraud verification taking weeks, family emergency), email support@validemailchecker.com before the grace expires. Once the cron has cancelled, the subscription cannot be reactivated — you would need to start fresh. Pre-expiry extension requests are reviewed case-by-case. We do not extend silently or by default, but we do approve legitimate requests for an extra few days.

The 7-day window has been the same since Valid Email Checker launched. It is long enough to absorb common card issues (expired card, bank hold, brief insufficient-funds), short enough to keep the past-due cohort manageable.